There’s no doubt that MANOS: The Hands Of Fate is one of the worst movies ever released. Now, FreakZone Games, developer of the Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN) Adventures have made a loving (?) tribute to this horror disaster in the form of MANOS: The Hands of Fate- Director’s Cut. The question though, is the game as bad as the movie it pays homage to, or is it worth your time?

MANOS is a 2d action game in a deliberately retro fashion. It harkens back to the days of the NES. Many games from those days are remembered as absolute classics, and recapturing that retro feeling in a fresh new gam eis always a fun experience. Unfortunately, The Hands Of Fate manages to capture the good and the bad from the olden days. The story of the game is as simple as the movie. You, your wife and daughter and family dog find yourselves stranded in the desert after your car breaks down. The Valley Lodge is nearby and you go to find help. Nonsensical events follow, much like the movie. By no means is it a bad plot. It makes more sense than the original Kirby games. And it certainly matches the movie it’s based on.

Gameplay is simple, boiling down to running, jumping and shooting. Controls are a bit floaty. I was never certain if it was because of a deliberate design choice to capture the feeling of old NES games, or if it was simply floaty for no real reason. Either way, I found myself cursing the controls many, many, many times as I fell to my death after only slightly holding the opposite direction I was traveling. Or missing a jump because I didn’t hold down the jump button for the exact millisecond length of time demanded. Or simply getting run over by an enemy because the game ate a command input and I didn’t shoot my gun in time. Accompanying this imprecision in control is a grain effect that is turned on by default.

While this effect was probably intended to add atmosphere, it instead is practically crippling to your ability to see what is coming, particularly in one early auto scrolling level that takes place in complete darkness across multiple pits with disappearing blocks and enemies that cannot be seen until they are right in your face. Fortunately, this effect can be turned off in the game’s main menu. If you play MANOS, I highly recommend disabling the grain effect before you start the game. Aside from hindering your ability to play the game, I also found it giving me a severe headache after a few minutes.

On the positive side, MANOS has many things I remember fondly from the old NES days. Levels are pattern based, meaning that learning a level and the routes of the enemies within the level can allow you to flex your muscles and absolutely destroy a stage. Exploration is rewarded, as it will often uncover Hands Of Fate which will increase your life bar permanently. And, as an added bonus health pickups are plentiful along with shiny gems and coins which increase your score. Or rather, health pickups are plentiful on normal difficulty. On harder modes the game is nowhere near as generous. And on Nightmare difficulty, you better bring your A game. This is NES Hard at its most punishing worst. Also welcome is the addition of the shotgun pickup. While a more powerful weapon is welcome in it’s own right, MANOS also challenges you to play pixel perfect as taking damage will downgrade you back to your lowly pistol. Its a simple yet effective way of rewarding precision gameplay. Even more welcome are generous checkpoints. If you ever played an NES game, you’ll know why this is a big deal/

One of the few unreserved compliments I have for this game are it’s art style and music. The visuals are clearly modern, as no NES every sported a color palette this varied. The characters, levels and backgrounds are all crisp and unique. Sprites move with a sense of life and character, and its often fun to just watch one of the zombies march across the screen. Likewise, the music fits the camp horror theme well.

MANOS: The Hands Of Fate- Director’s Cut is a strange game. An homage to one of the worst movies ever made, it contains some of the things I hated most about NES games. There are things that I appreciate in it’s design. And I had the odd moments of enjoyment while playing it. But the numerous cheap deaths I suffered, including the dozens in the plane section where you are pitted against what amounts to two bosses at once with only one hit between you and death were more than sufficient to make it hard to summon up the will to press on with the game. Retro visuals are charming, but marred by a hideous grain effect that is turned on from the start. And, in the end the good just didn’t outweigh the bad. There are great ideas here. Its just to bad that like the movie it plays homage to, MANOS: The Hands of Fate – Director’s Cut is inconsistent, irritating and  not all that enjoyable in the end.

Final Score: 4.5/10

UPDATE: Final Score 6.5/10 due to patch fixes. Please watch the video review for more details.