In my years of working here at IGN, no other game has earned the universal disdain God Hand generated among our editorial staff. Mention God Hand anywhere in the office west of my humble corner and in return faces scrunch up tight and moan.
God Hand is an obviously bad game. There's no hiding the abysmal voice acting, and no missing the oddly disappearing walls that seem to blink out of existence when the camera swings too near. The dialog hardly makes sense and, combined with the unquestionably strange scenarios of the game, elicits roars of mocking chuckles. It's too bad to be real, right? And it's from Clover Studios?
But the obviously bad covers up a game that's actually not awful. Under the rough exterior is a brawler with deep combat that, much like the qualities of the voice acting (which is brilliant, in a Snakes on a Plane sort of way), isn't instantly appreciable. But toy with the mechanics a bit and God Hand's depth surfaces; the combo system is flexible and rewarding, and the simple evasions allow for advanced cancels and combat techniques.
God Hand isn't the sort of game that everyone will appreciate because its best qualities are masked by a low-rent front. And while more scrutiny never reveals a truly uptown interior, God Hand is still worth playing--at least for a chuckle, and at most for a satisfying brawl.