Hard To Be A God

Conclusions

So, what else is there to say about Hard to be a God? There’s no multiplayer to speak of, the plot and the gameplay have already been summarised and we’ve dissected the lack-lustre graphics to such a degree that we’ll be picking polygons from under our fingernails for a month.

And yet, there are still a few things that are worthy of note.

Hard to be a God is one of those difficult games to come to a conclusions about because of the immediate expectations going in. You see, taken at face value, Hard to be a God isn’t a title I think anyone would actually expect much from and that inevitably skews the score a little.

I follow games incredibly closely, but Hard to be a God comes from both a publisher and developer I’ve never heard of, is based on a book that only Russian Sci-Fi fans will have even heard of, locates itself in the most bland and uninspired of niches and looks, frankly, like turd-covered chocolate.


And yet, the game itself is actually not that bad. Sure, the graphics are awful and the gameplay is as boring as the genre title would lead you to be expect, but there’s nothing wrong with it.

Basically, because it’s a hack and slash game you go in knowing that the gameplay is going to be fairly dull, so the disappointment is less of a shock.

That said, with such rich source material behind the game and the various ways in which the game could have been developed to mesh with the ideals presented in that material, Hard to be a God does feel a little underwhelming.

Shoving all other considerations aside, there is some stuff to like in Hard to be a God. The idea of using disguises is pretty neat and does serve to give the game a little extra appeal and the non-linear paths through some quests do keep things at least a little interesting.


Still, the combinations of poor graphics and an unwieldy targeting system that requires all targeting to be pixel-perfect and camera-relative do seriously detract from the game. The fact that the vast majority of the dialogue is completely ancillary and the narrative is poorly introduced doesn’t really help much either.

The game’s also more than a little repetitive and having to wade into one fight after another does make things feel a little samey and dreary after the first hour or two – the game is most assuredly combat focused for the most part and there’s only so much sword-swinging anyone can do before they want to sit down and solve things peaceably.

Basically, it comes down to this; if you’re a big fan of the Strugatsky novels or you just want something a little bit predictable to play then Hard to be a God may just be the ticket for you. With presentation this awful it’s also highly likely that the game will be dropping in price fairly quickly too, so you may be able to snag it cheaply if you wait a little bit.

If hacking and slashing isn’t your bag though then you’ll probably want to look elsewhere for your whinging deities – it’s not that the game is especially bad, just that it’s like a meal of mediocrity – with a side-salad of ugliness and poor spelling. The basics of the game all work, but never wow and if the Earth took God seven days to make then this probably took him less than seven minutes.