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People give God too much stick. Looking after the whole of the world and its inhabitants, mankind, has to be a pretty stressful job. So forgive us if we say it’s hard to be a god. Despite its title, Hard to be a God has nothing to do with being of divine creation. As outlined in our previous preview, Hard to be a God is the latest game developed by Akella and it draws on the Science Fiction novel of the same name. An alien world is stuck in the middle ages and you find yourself teleported to it, with the aim to survive, partake in quests and fight anything along the way. It’s implausible, silly, and frankly makes no sense why you start the game running the usual errands found in the generic RPG. Does Hard to be a God have what it takes to break through the RPG mould or does it set itself in the shape of a clichéd, outdated game?
We can’t make up our minds on Hard to be a God. We cannot decipher its aim; whether its deliberately old school and paying homage to past RPG’s or that it’s development team just doesn’t have the financial assets to create a stunning RPG. Hard to be a God has everything you would expect from an RPG; quests, monsters, bandits, loot, gold, horses, swords, and plenty of point and click combat. It’s as if the developers have picked up a checklist and simply filled in every box. It’s not original in any way and place it next to the RPG’s of the past two years and it looks woefully outdated, both graphically and in the gameplay department. It does its best to try and capture the game’s supposed time period, and the architecture, surroundings and vegetation definitely have an authentic feel, but that’s where the immersion stops. This is down to the voice acting and dialogue. It’s drab, unfulfilling and seriously lacks any enthusiasm. It simply sounds like it’s being read off the script as drearily as possible. We do have to give Akella some slack as they’re a Russian developer and the plot / dialogue in its native tongue is most likely more competent and convincing, but alas we have to judge Hard to be a God by our English standards.  The warning signs don’t stop there. We can accept the arcing storyline as it’s Science Fiction, but why when you start the game you’re asked to investigate menial problems that the authorities should be dealing with. We can understand that the quests have to start off easy but it’s been done before, to death and lacks any unoriginality. Go to A, talk to B, kill X, return to A, gain new equipment, and repeat. If Akella are indeed paying respect to games of the past then they’ve hit the nail on the head, otherwise we’re playing an outdated, frustratingly boring game. Clunky controls, a bland, confusing interface and shallow, repetitive combat complete the package. Where’s the intuitive combos seen in The Witcher? Where’s the streamlined HUD of GTAIV? Where’s the simple control method seen in Oblivion. If we were playing a free MMO then we’d have some sympathy, but we’re not. This is a fully fledged, singleplayer game where the story, controls and experience need to be streamlined to stand out. Akella haven’t totally failed. They’ve created a decent graphics engine, which has a quirky, nostalgic look to it. There are some nice blood effects and the undergrowth is intriguing to explore. It has the advantage of running on practically any machine, but don’t expect clear, crisp beauty. The soundtrack is made up of mellow background pieces which contrast with the hasty combat compositions. We respect that Akella are a smaller studio, but a better effort needs to be made if they wish to succeed. They haven’t made a bad game, but simply one which falls into convention and makes no effort to shout ‘look at me.’ Instead Hard to be a God huddles up in its comfort zone. The game is easily playable and technically stable but could have been improved with an extra couple months of polish or better planning. Score: 5/10
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