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I have spent the majority of my limited gaming time over the last week playing the much ballihooed Too Human. By now many of you have already made up your mind on if you think Too Human lived up to its hype. Ten year development time, Denis Dyack and his shenanigans, and the very controversial lawsuit with Epic Games over the Unreal Engine 3. I'm hear to share my thoughts on the game after one playthrough. So here we go...
I will start by saying that I am a fan of this genre of games. The Action RPG, loot collecting, hack and slash, adventure game. So going in you may say I'm a little biased. That being said we'll start with the Story: This is for all intensive purposes the worst part of the game. Now I will give Silicon Knights credit, the world they have created is not only risque but at the same time also very cool, and dumb. The game is largely based on Norse Mythology; you know Thor, Loki, and Odin. The Gods aren't just ordinary Gods though, oh no they're cybernetically enhanced humans. The Gods form the Aesir Corporation, the protectors of Midgard (i.e. Earth). They battle robotic goblins, and robotic, elves, robotic... you get the idea. The game's story is incredibly disjointed. One aspect of the story that really bothered me is that the game constantly refers to backstory that is never properly explained during the course of the game. Now that being said I don't really believe that that is as bad as it sounds. The story that is fleshed out is ridiculous. Yeah, a game based on cybernetic Norse Gods has a laughable story. Who would have thought? Apparently Baldur (the main character) was dead at one point then resurrected. Now he seeks revenge on those who did the injustice... You know what, let's move on. One surprising thing about the story was how the game just stopped and didn't really end. I guess that's one way to stretch the game into a Trilogy. I know I can't wait to play through the game again, this time without the awkward sections in between the action. Graphics: This is another weak point of the game for me. The in-game graphics I really enjoyed. The pulled back camera shows off the detail put into the game's huge amount of armor and weapons. And I mean HUGE amount of weapons and armor. Baldur and the other Gods who are seen during the game's missions obviously had a lot more time put into them than let's say soldier #43. For the most part all the NPC's that support you on your missions look exactly alike. Just different makeup. Each class of enemies suffers the same problem. But that a dilemma that has plagued videogames since their creation. The cutscene graphics is where it falls short. A couple characters look pretty good (Baldur and Thor), all the other Gods and soldiers look like they were modeled for less powerful hardware. A shining example of this is during a cutscene towards the end of the game I watched a nice bit of dialogue from one of the Gods who's mouth never moved once. Controls: I love the idea of taking a genre that's always been about mashing buttons and taking away the buttons. All the game's melee combat is done with the Right Stick, and shooting uses the triggers and the Right stick. Very streamlined. The face buttons are used as well. X is your Battle Cry (basically your character and party buffs), A is jump, B is dodge (and skip cutscenes), and Y is used to deploy your Spiderbot (a mechanical robot spider that... you know what I didn't use it enough to really comment on them). The bumpers are used as well. RB is to use your Ruiners (super attacks that are gained by maxing out your combo meter), and LB is to keep the camera behind you. I really like the control setup but, I can understand people's grievances with them. Gameplay: This is where the game hooked me. Like I said earlier I am a fan of this type of game, so the fact that it's like Diablo for the consoles is A-Ok with me. Basically enter room, kill baddies, check loot, equip new loot, salvage old and busted loot, and move on to next room. If you don't like this type of game don't bother. For me playing Too Human brought back the familiar feeling that I used to get from God of War. The feeling of being an absolute badass. I love running into a room filled with faceless robotic enemies and laying waste to them all. I will say I didn't like how you didn't really feel in control of what combos you did. The benefit of button based combat is that you can go as in depth with the mechanic as you want or just be an X,X,X kind guy. With the twin stick method you really only had the choice between normal and fierce attacks, a juggle that could be followed up with normal or fierce attacks, or the finisher (performed the same way as the fierce attacks). The trade off though is the ability to move from target to target so fast and easy. Which I loved. All in all I had an absolute blast with this style of gameplay. All in all I am glad I bought and played through Too Human. Did it live up to its hype? Probably not. But I ask the question what game has lived up to hype a decade in the making? Prey? Umm, no. I don't like to give numbers for reviews, but I would say that if you like this type of game give it a rental. If you love this type of game then you may invest in the purchase. Personally I'm going to be spending more time with the game replaying it. If you are on the fence about it just download the demo off of Xbox Live. Spend some time learning the advanced combat. You may just end up a fan.
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