Consolation Prize

The development of Too Human from Silicon Knights seems to have been plagued by numerous obstacles along its nine year treacherous path to release. First conceived as a Playstation game (1999), then finding a home on Nintendo’s Gamecube (2000), and finally shifting residence to the Xbox 360 (2005). And then there was that little dispute with Epic Games’ over support of its “Unreal Engine 3”, resulting in Silicon Knights resorting to the development of there own game engine. All-in-all it’s actually a miracle Too Human is finally going to be released and didn’t get stuck in development hell or sent to Silicon Heaven.

Too Human is a third person action-adventure RPG game which takes its inspiration from Norse Mythology and weaves it into a game-world with cybernetically enhanced humans, cyberspace, and machine like foes. The player jumps into the role of Baldur, one of the Aesir, a god to the normal humans, and one of the protectors of mankind.

As the game commences you would normally be able to choose from a selection of different classes, however with this being the demo you’re restricted to choosing the general all rounder: “Champion”, featuring a balanced set of stats and favouring one-handed weapons. With the class chosen we’re off into the main game via a cut scene depicting Baldur leading an expeditionary force across a frozen wasteland to explore a fortress.

I must admit that I find the story and setting very intriguing. I like the way Silicon Knights have re-envisioned the whole Norse mythology, it’s quite an imaginative twist, and you certainly get the impression that a lot of work has gone into getting this aspect of the game right. It’s all excellently presented, with some slick menus and atmospheric cut scenes.

In terms of gameplay the demo offers up quite a chunk, probably about 30 to 40 minutes worth. At this stage of the game it feels like standard dungeon crawler fare, moving from room to room clearing out hordes of robotic minions, known as goblins, with the occasional more powerful enemy to contend with.

There’s plenty of the usual RPG elements in the game with the ability to upgrade skills, armour, and weapons as your level increases and better weapon drops are acquired. One element that always frustrates me in games of this ilk is the constant juggling and selling of items, but at least with Too Human I noticed that it features an auto salvage setting which can be set to automatically sell off the least worthwhile items should your inventory become too full.

Some of the game looks great, but there are elements that could do with a some more work. The main character animation of Baldur for example looks a bit wooden at times. In particular when firing his dual pistols the movement of the each arm reminds me more of a mannequin with only a couple of poses.

One of the hardest aspects to get your head around in Too Human is the combat. Unfortunately it’s not intuitive at all and uses both controller triggers to perform primary and secondary ranged attacks (pistols, rifles), as-well as both left and right joysticks to perform melee attacks. To strike an enemy with a melee weapon you have to primarily use the right joystick; you just push it in the direction of an enemy and Baldur will perform a strike in that direction, or if at distance will slide-rush toward the enemy and strike. If you want to perform a special melee attack you would also have to bring the left joystick into play, so for example to execute a “finisher” combo strike both joysticks will need to be pushed in the same direction simultaneously. It is a complex and incredibly awkward control schematic which will undoubtedly put people off Too Human within the first few minutes of playing the game.

However, with all things being considered I’m not quite prepared to write this game off yet. There are some promising things in the game and persistence with the combat system pays dividends to the point where it becomes manageable and isn’t a game breaker. It has piqued my interest and I would certainly like to learn more about the multi-player aspects. I don’t believe this is going to be the best game I’ve ever played, but neither do I think it’s as bad as I imagined given all the negativity over the years.

Game impressions based upon playing the 1.1GB demo released on Xbox Live Marketplace on 14th July.

I’ve played through the demo 3 times and I’m really digging it. At first the melee combat through me off, but now I’m really digging it. I’m looking forward to some co-op as well.

Yeah I definitely think “Too Human” is a game that isn’t immediately appealing, but it sneaks up on you and suddenly it becomes really enjoyable. I think I also played through it three times and it went from a “no hoper” to a game I’ll consider buying upon release.