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Category: Games
Seller: Ploy Toy
Requirements: iPhone OS 3.1.2 or later
Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch
File Size: 60.6MB
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Price: $2.99
Age Rating: 9+

Created for those who love soccer (and the potential rule breaking that may be involved in it), Hand of God is a pretty interesting application. In essence, instead of being the player, you are the ball. It starts off by letting you know that it is finding music to stream from codvita.com which, according to their site, is a London pop band. The music can be turned off with the switch on the iPhone, but the songs are actually pretty good.

When you first open the app, you are greeted with a list of tips that walk you through how to play the game. I’d suggest reading these tips because without them you’ll be completely lost. Even after reading them the first time you may be completely lost when you start the game because it is a little confusing. Basically, the tips will tell you how to stay alive and score points while also pointing out where the various points are on the screen that will give you feedback.

After deciding to start a new game, you can then choose to have four, ten, or 22 opponents on the field, with half of them being on the red and half on the blue. While the teams don’t necessarily matter, the number of opponents does. To start the game, you must first get the ball to the center of the field. You do so by following a large yellow arrow that points where to move the ball. The ball itself moves based on the tilt and accelerometer of the iPhone. Once you get there, the players will appear.

The basics of the game revolve around keeping the ball away from the opponents, both red and blue. To do so, you tilt the ball away from them and try to collect stars floating around in the process in order to gain more points and lives. If you let any of the players touch or kick the ball, it may turn into a skull for a short amount of time to indicate you have lost a life. The amount of lives is shown in the bottom left.

Throughout my time with the application, I found things I liked and disliked. For one, the controls using the accelerometer are pretty good once you get them aligned. And while it sometimes needs to be centered again, opening the game menu and then closing it appears to fix this. One of my biggest issues was with the interface. The menu system graphics, although functional, are pretty ugly, and sometimes it is unclear what they do. Furthermore, the way the instructions are presented to the user are can be very unclear at first, making initial gameplay sort of confusing.

That said, the idea of the game is there, and it can be pretty amusing if you enjoy soccer. As it didn’t crash at all or lag during my use with it, it is certainly usable in its current state. However, it could use a few improvements in terms of interface to make it just that much better in the future.