El Tejon was a member of the notorious "Nine" who was betrayed because he didn't join the gang to murder women and children, but to be famous and rich and a chance to make a name for himself, as a gunslinger. The Leader of the Nine shoots him and leaves him for dead. However General San Juan Jacinto Blanco found El Tejon and threw him in a jail cell to rot. But Tejon's cellmate Iago is the leader of a revolution that will free both Iago and Tejon to exact vengeance on those who betrayed them.
Gameplay
The game is somewhat unusual in that between levels, the player plays poker for extra health and ammunition. The character is armed with 4 default weapons; a knife, a pistol, a rifle and a shotgun. Other weapons that can be found are TNT and Whisky bombs. The player can shoot objects such as whisky bottles, cans and enemies to score legend points, thus filling up the "trick shot" meter that lets the character use the secondary mode of firing which varies depending on the current weapon. The combat in the game also makes use of the game's physics engine, with the player being able to trigger physics based traps such as shooting a rock and causing it to fall onto an enemy below - kills obtained this way are rewarded with extra points and a greater increase in the "trick shot" meter.
Reception
Dead Man's Hand received "mixed" reviews on both platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, where the Xbox version was ported for release as part of the Xbox World Collection on September 2, 2004, Famitsu gave it a score of two sevens, one six, and one seven for a total of 27 out of 40. Playboy gave the Xbox version an early review, over three months before it was released Stateside, and stated, "A unique scoring system lets you unlock killer trick shots - if ya ain't a coward that is." The Times gave the game four stars out of five and stated, "The Wild West theme lends itself well to the FPS treatment, and the primitive weaponry brings an almost liberating freedom to the gameplay. Given the game's fairly tame content, its 16+ age rating seems harsh." However, Maxim gave it three stars out of five, saying, "The concept and play consistently deal a royal flush, just ignore the choppy visuals, which can irritate like a pesky infection picked up at Miss Kitty's Cat House."
