Feature: And God saw that it was good

[Jake]

And God saw that it was good

God Hand: a game that provides a number of opportunities to create word plays on religious references.

Also a great punk game.

[toblix]

The reason I never got around to playing it was that I was still in the middle of God of War when I heard about it, and at that point I got both an Xbox360 and a Wii*, and so the PS2 got disconnected. I still cry tears of sorrow when I think about not getting to play these games. I got through Okami, which I'm glad I did, God of War was cool. MGS3 seemed awesome, but I was too late, didn't get it, didn't give it enough time. This experience tought me to get all the consoles and play the great games before the next generation comes along. I still have some hope of picking up MGS3 again, since I have special memories from playing (and fucking completing) MGS2, but I realise it probably won't happen.

Anyway, God Hand seems awesome, but I've developed a low tolerance for difficult games over the years. I often stop playing a game completely the first time I fail at something. It's stupid and I hate it, but it's like I suddenly feel naive for trying again, or like I'm being tricked, somehow. Maybe it's some weird thing I transfer from reading books or watching movies, expecting the experience to be linear. The concept of failing and playing stuff over again annoys me on some level, and when experiencing it I get annoyed with the game developers, even though I realise there's often no way around it. It's like I'm slowly transforming into a grumpy grown-up that think games are silly, like the gamer in me died when I wasn't looking. When I was 11, I could spend hours trying to complete a single level in Lost Vikings or Lemmings. Now I have this wealth of amazing games that the 11 year old me dreamt of by night and filled hundreds of A4 sheets with highly detailed drawings of by day, and I give up in frustration after dying twice in half and hour playing Dead Rising. What the fuck?

Anyway, God Hand. I'd love to play it. Maybe I'll get to it at some point.

*It's not mine, but whatever

edit: Oh, and great article. The Blow article was especially fascinating. The idea that games might still not have reached its "full potential" in a hundred years is new to me, but obviously, the gamers of 2108 will laugh at us and our primitive games. They'll watch stilted black and white footage of Half-Life 3 and wonder at how simple we were back now that we were entertained by this. How sad it is, in retrospect, that this represented something great for us. Hopefully we'll be eaten by space dinosaurs before we get the chance to laugh at Half-Life 3.

[miffy495]

I fell in love with this game the second I was watching the cutscenes and realized "Holy crap! That vampire is Spottswoode!"

From there, I got the crap beaten out of me repeatedly by the game. I'll confess to having the same tendency to shy away from difficult games as toblix. I like enough of a challenge so that I'm always worried about dying, but exhilarated when I make it out alive anyway. Granted, this balance would be different for every player, so I'm ok with dying every now and then as long as there was a recent checkpoint and I can make it through on my second or third try. Even brilliant cutscenes get a bit tired their fiftieth time through though. Still, I kept at it because it was so damned funny and entertaining. Glad I did, although I never did finish it.

I'll offer this advice to you, toblix. When I decided to give in and get a PS3, the main motivation for me getting a 60 gig rather than one of the newer ones was so that I could finish God Hand. Just hold out until you or someone you know takes the plunge, and then play all the BC games you want.