Legend: Hand of God review (PC)

I’ve never been a fan of games where the boss battles are ridiculously disproportionate in difficulty to the regular combat.

Take the first ‘main’ boss you have to take on in Legend: Hand of God, the High King in the crypts of Turint.

I eventually defeated him by packing 25 healing and 25 mana potions, but there is surely something wrong with that. Surely I should be able to defeat him using skill and strategic thinking?

No, it is just a case of keeping yourself alive long enough to whittle his health down to zero.

This is the major problem with Legend: Hand of God, which has very little to make it stand out from the crowd, other than a sickening faerie sidekick that also acts as your cursor.

Combat is both a doddle and frustratingly difficult. When facing easy opponents or even just vaguely challenging ones, there’s nothing to it. Just click, click and click again until they are all dead.

Come across someone tough, like the aforementioned High King and, as there is no sophistication to the fighting, you are reduced to quickly quaffing potions to make sure you don’t die, while holding down the left mouse button to attack constantly.

The reason this doesn’t sound exciting is because it isn’t. The closest the combat comes to excitement is when you have a large number of enemies around you and the pressure is on to take some out quickly.

Those times are rare though, as you can pretty much always drag one or two away from a big group and pick them off.

So, you shouldn’t buy this game expecting exhilarating combat – so what does the game have to offer a prospective buyer?

Not much really, unless you want to spend money on a desperately average click-fest.

I don’t want to be too harsh, as the game isn’t put together terribly at all. It is just all so … average. The graphics are pretty but never take the breath away, for example.

The controls, while occasionally very frustrating (why can’t I move with the damn keys?), are passable and get better as you get used to them.

The plot is extremely generic too. Find the broken pieces of the talisman that will defeat the ancient evil. You’ve seen it before and probably done it before on a number of occasions.

If I’m being very lenient, I could say that those wanting a quick fix before Diablo III comes out could do worse.

But, if that is the case, why not just go for something like Titan Quest, Dungeon Siege or even just play Diablo II again?

There isn’t much point in Legend: Hand of God, but you might be able to get a couple of hours of mindless entertainment out of it.