In a world full of little stresses and big stresses, everyone needs some form of relief. I’m fairly convinced that Hand of God could be that game. It’s not the smartest of games by any means, but that’s its strength. …
In a world full of little stresses and big stresses, everyone needs some form of relief. I’m fairly convinced that Hand of God could be that game. It’s not the smartest of games by any means, but that’s its strength. It allows you to go nuts and destroy everything, feeling a tiny bit more at calm with the world. It’s not perfect given its shallow nature, but it’ll scratch that frustrated itch that the work day has left over.
The premise is immensely simple. There’s a cute square thing in the middle of the screen. You have to protect it by tapping at the enemies trying to swarm it. That’s exactly how basic Hand of God is at heart, but it does dish out a variety of upgrades. Each time you wipe out an enemy, you gain coins. These coins are then used to buy upgrades and new weapons. At first, you might simply be restricted to tapping on an enemy to inflict a small amount of damage. As you continue to play, however, your arsenal expands. You soon gain a flamethrower style attack, an attack that stuns every enemy on screen for a time, and so forth.
Essentially, Hand of God works like so many idle clicker games. Enticing you into tapping a little more frantically, all in the bid to unlock something new and cool. As you progress, the enemies become harder and more substantial in number. Levels aren’t quite as easy to fly through. You’ll often have to grind earlier stages to earn enough money for things to work out, given that Hand of God is actually quite tough at times. On the plus side, it’s at least mildly rewarding when it is tough.
It’s not something you can play for a long time though, as it does turn quite tedious after a time. The levels don’t change sufficiently and nor do the enemies involved. The main differences lie in the weapons you can unlock, but there’s only so many of these and none feel as satisfying to use as they should.
Where Hand of God tries a little harder at injecting some longevity is when it comes to the cute creatures you can collect. This is done through completing stages, as well as through a form of ‘merging’ or evolution, in which you combine the critters to make theme even more powerful. Such bonuses are then reflected in your combat skills. Ok, so it’s not awe inspiring, but it’s a small step to offering more progression to Hand of God, even if it’s not quite enough.
That’s the thing about Hand of God. It needs a little more direction. Its best form of progression comes from its achievement system. That has you working towards various simple goals for the sake of gaining some of Hand of God’s premium currency. Many of them aren’t actually that hard to gain though, and that squashes Hand of God’s chances of longevity.
Really though? You’re probably going to get bored of Hand of God before that happens. It tries its best to lure you in with free gifts and rewards for logging in regularly, but it’s the formulaic gameplay that lets it down most. It’s a ‘fun for five minutes’ kind of experience, rather than something that has you coming back for more.
