God Hand details, shots

Capcom's officially unveiled God Hand, the next game from Clover Studio, which is due out on PS2 this year.

Produced by Viewtiful Joe creator Atsushi Inaba and directed by Resident Evil man Shinji Mikami, it's a single-player hand-to-hand combat game in which the lead character, Jean, takes on the world equipped with divine powers.

Long ago, see, there was a man who saved the world by defeating a terrible evil and sealing it up, and both his hands were said to possess god's power, radiating a golden blaze. People called him God Hand, obviously.

Nowadays, pesky bandits are off in search of his legendary paws - and our hero Jean takes a beating from them at the outset, gets his right hand lopped off, and then wakes up in an inn sometime later with... a God Hand!

It's all a bit silly, obviously, but according to producer Inaba that's because the game doesn't take itself too seriously. "Obviously the player can enjoy pure action by beating up the bad guys but at the same time, comedy scenes are included as well where you can laugh while playing," he says.

In terms of gameplay, "This is a game where you have to beat the bad guys only with your bare hands, there are no swords or guns. The main character, Jean, is not a conventional hero who fights to 'save the world', but fights the bad guys because he doesn't like them."

Which is fair enough. "He right hand is replaced by the mysterious God Hand which has super-human power, and the bad buys will literally be blown away when this power is launched. Although he has been dealt a bad hand by fate, Jean continues to fight on because he enjoys it."

As you can see from the screenshots Capcom's released, Jean's hand glows gold, and he can smack people around quite considerably. According to the docs that accompanied the announcement, he can also pick up things like iron pipes and use those too, as well as pick up giant strawberries for health.

All very odd - we'll let you know how it's going if we can get close to it at E3.