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“Riding on the range,
I've got my hat - on,
I've got my boots - dusty.
I've got my saddle
On my horse.
He's called....T-t-t-t-t-trigger
Of course.
I wanna be a cowboy
and you can be my cowgirl
I wanna be a cowboy
and you can be my cowgirl
I wanna be a cowboy…”
OK, OK, I admit it! I do want to be a cowboy. The open range,
big sky, sleeping under the stars, always on the move, the
whole cowboy thing sounds pretty darned good. And what could
be better than a cowboy? A Gunslinger Cowboy of course.
Considering my obvious cowboy fantasy, Human Head Studios'
new Old West themed first person shooter, Dead Man’s Hand, was
a must have. I wanted to wait for the PC version, but my
trigger finger was a twitchin’, so I had to settle for the
earlier released Xbox version.
In Dead Man’s Hand you assume the role of El Tejon. El Tejon
is a South of the Border Gunslinger, who’s recently been
betrayed by his gang – The Nine. You didn’t agree with their
woman and children murdering ways, so they shot you in the gut
and left you for dead. You manage to survive and the single
player game starts with your sworn mission to track down and
kill each and every one of The Nine.
The single player campaign is fairly linear. I’d compare it to
one of the Turok - Dinosaur Hunter games. You’ll travel in a
relative straight line through varied environments, but
instead of Turok’s prehistoric jungle settings you’ll gun your
way through Old West scenes. There are the expected Western
genre deserts, canyons, deep woods, and abandoned mining
towns, all of them impressively rendered with the latest
Unreal Technology from Epic Games.
You won’t just be walking through the games many levels
either. Different missions have you on horseback, flying
through mineshafts, rollercoaster style in mine carts, and even
riding the rails on trains. Despite the linear nature of the
levels, there’s more than enough variety here to keep you
looking forward to what’s next.
Human Head Studios has created what I would classify as the
first Arcade First Person Shooter. They’ve added some funky
arcade like elements to the game, which some will love and
some hardcore FPS fans will probably hate. There’s a trick
shot system that allows you to chain together your best fancy
shootin’. Trick shots include hat shots, multi kills, shooting
flying objects (and villains) out of the air, explosive kills,
knife kills and crush kills. Crush kills are probably the most
interesting and are designed to show off the game’s slick
physics engine. It may be a little too obvious where you’re
supposed to shoot objects, causing them to fall on the bad
guys’ heads, but it’s definitely fun to send a massive boulder
crashing down for an elaborate crush kill.
The effect of trick shots and chaining them together are two
fold: 1) they increase your power meter and 2) they increase
your score. Both the power meter and the fact that there’s a
running score in the game add a definite arcade feel. Power in
your power meter allows you to use any weapon’s alternate fire
mode, this is usually a more powerful attack. For example, the
Peacemaker pistol’s alt fire is a fanning shot, throwing off a
gunslinger like, rapid succession of shots. I’m telling you…
you’ll feel like Clint Eastwood in “The Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly”.
The game also features excellent and realistic weapon sounds.
The pistol sounds like a pistol, the shotgun sounds like a
real shotgun, and dynamite explosions sound like big ass
explosions. The bad guys constantly taunt you with cliché, but
appropriate one-liners. One of my personal favorites… “I’m
going to hang your head over my fireplace.”
Dead Man’s hand also features multiplayer via System Link and
Xbox Live. The standard multiplayer game types are here:
Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. They’ve also thrown in the
more interesting Bounty and Posse modes. Bounty has everyone
after one player and Posse has human players battling
increasingly difficult AI enemies.
I do have a few gripes with Dead Man’s Hand, but let me
preface them with this: it’s a $29.99 game. The PC version is
being released at only $19.99. This effectively makes it a
budget priced game and for a budget priced game, Dead Man’s
Hand is first rate. However, the cheap price doesn’t make the
flaws go away.
Flaw #1: There’s no in mission save capability. Heck,
there aren’t even checkpoints! If you fail a mission, you have
to reload and start over from the very beginning of the
mission. This drive’s me friggin’ nuts and seems to be a
recurring problem with console first person shooters. I can
only hope they’ve rectified this in the PC version.
Flaw #2: Aiming and hit detection can be flakey. Sometimes
you’ll have a shot perfectly lined up and you’ll continue to
miss. Other times, you’ll be shooting at one thing and hit
something else. It probably has a lot to do with the
auto-aiming feature, but it can be very annoying, especially
considering the emphasis on Trick Shots. You’ll be wishing you
had a mouse and keyboard setup.
That’s it; those are my only two gripes. The game could’ve
been the steal of the year, if they’d only fixed those two
problems.
All in all, Dead Man’s Hand is a respectable shooter. While it
may not equal the Lucas Arts classic -
Outlaws, it’s one of the few Western themed first
person shooters in existence and that alone makes it unique.
Add in the quirky but fun arcade features, impressive Unreal
Technology graphics, a physics engine, Xbox Live support and a
budget price and you’ve got yourself a winner. Grab your
six-shooter, saddle up and head out for a fast, wild ride! It
may not make all your cowboy dreams come true, but for $29.99
it’s worth every penny.
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