Ok, Dead Man's Hand. You play El Tejon who wants revenge on his gang, the Nine, cause they left him for dead. So now you're ****ing pissed and you want to kill them. That's the single player.
Just to say, people wanting a new realistic shooter with complex level design and insane graphics that may blow them away should stay away from this game. It's a budget priced game (30 bucks) that is, like Ninja Gaiden in a way, accomplishes what its purpose is: to be a fun video game. There are "points" in this game (or Legend points) that you get when you blow **** up. LOTS of objects in the game can be shot for points. Walls, rails, explosive barrels, lights on the street, paintings, bottles, boxes, tables, plants, and even in one level cut down tree trunks, and you all get points for that if you shoot or blow them up.
Oh yeah this game is a first person shooter.
So anyways there are also bosses in the game. Each member of The Nine is a boss and since you want revenge on them you have to kill them. One boss throws axes at you and you have to light him up with dynamite, and another is a Native American fellow who is lethal with throwing knives, for example. Some have certain weaknesses but other than that it's easy to figure out how to take them out.
There are quite a bit of weapons in the game: 3 pistols, 3 rifles, 3 shotguns, dynamite, a knife, and whiskey bombs (or molotov cocktails). They are all pretty well balanced and before a mission in the single player game you choose your loadout: 1 pistol, rifle, and shotgun. Before a mission you also play poker and you can win ammo, health, and other things. However it's VERY easy to get at least a pair everytime. When my brother played it during his first gaming session with Dead Man's Hand he already got a royal flush.
One other thing that makes Dead Man's Hand unique is your power meter. If you continuously chain up your attacks while your shooting (say for example you shoot a guy's hat off, then kill him, then kill more guys while you're in your combo, or chain, and then shoot more objects in the environment) your power meter fills up so that you can use your secondary fire for guns. For example for the pepperbox you can shoot all of your bullets in the chamber at once, or with the shotgun you can stun your enemies (with leaves a question and exclamation mark above their heads). It's addicting to chain up your attacks to gain more points.
Also, you can select the levels. If you beat a level and want to go back and play it again you can. Also there are also side missions unlocked during your campaign. That's pretty cool.
The graphics are average. There is no cool pump mapping or pixel shaders or that mumbo jumbo, but the game still looks cool. Enemies ragdoll when you kill them (although their bodies vanish after a while) and the interactivity with the environments makes up for the average graphics. But hey, it's good considering its price.
Sound is one of the strongest points in this game. It has some of the greatest sound in a game this year. It FEELS like you're in the old west. The gunshots are very loud and convincing, and enemies in the area all have nasty things to say to you that ups up the immersion factor immensely. When you hear explosions and the screams of the people you've killed and all that jazz, it's great. The sound is definately very strong in this game, and I applaud Human Head for doing a fantastic job.
Now, onto Xbox Live multiplayer. First the bad stuff: you can only have up to 8 players in a server. That's not as bad as it seems though, as there is still heavy action in gaming sessions. Weapons lie around the map for you to pick up and kill with. There are only 6 maps or so which is disappointing, but there is an option for downloadable content. Another cool thing is though there is no lobby. You jump into the game as a spectator and you can talk to everyone in the server. Now onto the really disappointing stuff. For one thing you have it is hard to tell who is talking in a server. I mean the white button pops up the scoreboard but when someone talks you don't see a speaker icon light up anywhere on the screen or anything. If you want to know who is talking you must ask them, and just maybe they'll answer. Lag is in games, but that depends on the host. However, the weirdest thing about this game is the Xbox Live menus. They are slow for some reason. And it's horrible during a server that you are playing. Say you want to check your friend's list during a game. You have to pause, obviously. So then you do that and there is ****ing lag in the menus!! What the **** is that? When you finally select something on the menu its fine and dandy but why is there ****ing lag in the ****inh MEN-us? As much as I think this game is cool why the **** is there lag in the menus??
Oh yeah, the game modes are Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and two unique ones called Bounty and Posse. Bounty has everyone against one guy (the bounty) and it's exactly like Stayaway in Midtown Madness 3. Posse is slightly disappointing because you can only stay in one area of the map and if you leave it you have 3 seconds to go back otherwise you die. The point of that game mode is you and the other people in the server shoot up waves of AI enemies. It's alright. I like Deathmatch the best. My friend from school and I ****ed around with the ragdoll for two hours on Friday; heh.
Uhm, what else.... oh yeah, the auto aim is ****ing nuts. They need an option to turn it off. It's cool in multiplayer but during single player when you have an explosive barrel in front of two bad guys and you want to anxiously blow that barrel up you aim right ****ing directly at it but instead it shoots the bad guy in the ****ing face. It's annoying.
But hey! It's cool in multiplayer.
