We got more of the recently out-of-print God Hand at the store. NOW I’m excited.

Playing God Hand is like strapping your face to a bottle rocket and then aiming it at your neighbor’s cat, with the same net result. This game is simply one of the greatest things ever pressed to any kind of game-related media, ever. I can’t stress this enough; the only thing that would make this game better is if it came with a voluptuous redhead, who in turn came with an unending supply of hot nacho cheese.

Some of you may have passed on the game based on IGN’s low score of 3/10. You may think it was rather visionary of this website to grant that score as well as Imagine: Party Babyz 7/10, or maybe it’s some Andy Kaufman-like prank, but I’m going to tell you the truth: Reviewer Chris Roper is so stupid that his family has to impale a rubber ball on the end of his eating utensils. Sure, it ruins the purpose of a fork to completely block it off, but he enjoys waving it around and he doesn’t even know how to use one in the first place so there’s no harm done.

The bottom line is, if you love brawlers and you don’t mind a fuckfuckcrapouch hard game, you really need to buy God Hand immediately. I’m never going to say that my opinion is absolutely correct… except right now. And when I’m verbally abusing Chris Roper, but that’ll be fairly evident once you see the end credits, which should earn the game 9/10 all on its own:

Keep in mind that the game is truly hard, and do not fucking think I’m kidding you in the least. It’s one of the hardest games to come out of the industry in years. Between bouts of making Chris Roper cry like a little bitch who just lost his Go-Bots Trapper Keeper, God Hand scoffs at people who consider Ninja Gaiden a challenge -or even fun- before headbutting the entire universe into submission. Just because it can. The game is possibly a conspiracy to sell more Dual Shock controllers from the intense button pounding both you and your poor, godforsaken fingers will endure.

It’s worth it. Beneath God Hand’s kitchy premise and simple controls lies a depth of theme and gameplay that seldom falls out of the sore hole of the mighty game development anus. You want exploits? They were programmed in on purpose. You want virtually every in-joke at gaming, Capcom, and the brawler genre? Barrels will explode when thrown, demons will be beaten into submission via wrestling holds, and Honda minivans will be beaten with your bare fists during bonus rounds. Hell, the game starts with a splash screen announcing (falsely) that this game, much like Capcom’s Resident Evil series, features scenes of explicit violence and gore.

Serious business, that.

And then the game feels free to drop the subtlety (okay, comparatively) and have our hero announce “At last, a boss fight!” upon seeing the first big fatty, a Cuban demon named Elvis. You have to hear his fight music before you judge this game.

I’m not talking to you, Roper. No way in hell will you ever get that far, it’s an entire twenty minutes into the game. I might recommend Lemonade Stand on the Apple IIe, that might have had an Easy mode. But if not, you’re FUCKED. There’s rainy days and all kinds of hard shit like that.

I haven’t even written a proper review. And you know what, I don’t have to. This is the first in a two week series of reviews designed to kick my own ass into creating content so you drones will save my ad box from deletion so I can keep making forty-six cents every month. Also, if you don’t buy or go out and rent God Hand, you don’t need to be reading this site anyway. It’s twenty dollars, you sissy.

Also, today we learned that IGN’s hiring process probably involves one question, and that question is “Do you hate games?”

I leave you with this dramatization of Chris Roper attempting to play God Hand.

Good night and good luck.