Xbox 360 Review: Too Human (Too Hyped)
by John Landis on August 22, 2008 at 11:21 amEditors Note: In the process of reevaluating our review standards, the Ripten editorial team has agreed upon a no syndication policy for any review (past, present, or future) indexed in the Ripten catalog. In light of this, we have replaced the previous syndicated review with the exclusive Ripten review below. Thank you.
Too Human is one of those mythical games that just didn’t seem like it was going to see the light of day — the Duke Nukem of video games, if you will. Because it was in some sort of stage of development since Denis Dyack was in the womb, you know, I expected a lot.
The unfortunate downside of lots of anticipation is that most of the time things just don’t deliver what you’d imagined — this is one of those times. That’s not to say that it’s necessarily bad (it was indeed quite a jolly good time, ol’ chap), it’s just not up to the level that it had built up in its four generations of development.
First, the ever-so-important breakdown of the story. After all, how can you judge what I’m talking about if you don’t even know what I’m talking about? You play as Baldur, a viking god who doesn’t have the songs and stories detailing his every move the way some gods did. This makes it a good choice for a main character because, unless you’re some kind of Norse mythology scholar, you won’t know where the actual myths differ from where the game’s narrative goes. I mean, maybe I’m just stupid and it’s common knowledge, but all I really know about is Thor and Loki because, you know, they were in comics and stuff.
So yeah, that’s the story. You’re a badass viking god and some people are rebelling, so you have to go kick their asses. It’s quite a bit more complicated than that, but the narrative is a little overwhelming — there were a lot of times I just didn’t understand what the hell was going on. That’s cool, though, because sometimes a story just gets in the way of kickassery.
This is one of those times though where it seemed like the story should have been a lot more important, but it was either over my head (which is quite possible) or it just didn’t connect well. There were several times where the game went into flashbacks of previous events without warning and just downright befuddled me. Give me a little bit of text that says “Yesterday” or “48 Hours Ago” or something.
This wasn’t the only problem with the story. The whole thing just seemed like a badly made movie adaptation of a very complicated novel. It’s obvious Silicon Knights knew the story, but they just made too many assumptions of what I knew. It’s like telling a five-year-old a joke.
I know I’m harping on and on about the story, but that was really one of the things that was supposed to be flat-out awesome, and considering the Diablo/Gauntlet style hack and slash gameplay, it’s very important to keep me interested in killing the throngs of uglies running, jumping, and crawling at me.
See, the gameplay is a mix of innovation in a pretty much done-to-death genre. You just run around and kick or shoot the robotic hell out of anything that moves. It’s Dynasty Warriors all over again, except instead of hitting X, Y, X, X, X, Y, you just hold the right stick in the direction you want to attack. It’s actually a lot more fun than it sounds, but it’s still nothing new. You slide at uglies that you’re too far away to hit, and there is a fair amount of combo-y type stuff you can do, especially with a co-op buddy.
While this is a new and innovative way to do things, though similar to Geometry Wars or Smash TV, the problem is that this isn’t some top-down or isometric perspective 2D sprite smashfest. This is a 3D full-fledged action-RPG-type deal, and they pretty much take the camera away from you. Yes, you can press a button and center the camera behind your guy, but it takes a lot of getting used to and frankly, the camera is one of the toughest enemies you will face in the game.
That’s not to say it’s a constant problem, but when the camera rears it’s ineptitude it’s usually at the worst possible times. I mean, you’ll be completely surrounded by guys and you won’t know it because you can only see the ones in front of you. The sliding mechanic of the melee attackiness helps, but a lot of times you will sit still and slash at the air because the bad guys you thought were behind you moved off to the left.
Being an RPG, you can expect to spend some time in menus performing maintenance on your cyber-god, but you probably aren’t prepared for the amount of time you’ll actually spend. I would say that every two-hour session of gaming had me spend at least four hours in the menus. Impossible, you say? Play the game and see what I mean. This is even worse in co-op games, which I’ll touch on in a few paragraphs, but the heavy emphasis on getting loot and upgrading your gear could have done with a bit more streamlined interface there.
Now, after reading all that I’ve said about Too Human, you may be thinking to yourself “Man, this game sucks!”, but you would be wrong. Just because it wears glasses and has paint on it’s overalls does not mean there isn’t a hot prom queen under there somewhere. The game is just fun to play. There is something to be said about launching dudes up in the air and shooting them with pistols, bouncing them around in the air until they cry, then sliding twenty feet and launching six other dudes into the air. It’s hectic, it’s crazy, and it can be a hell of a lot of fun if you’re willing to put up with the flaws.
Finally we get to the co-op play. This is both the best and worst feature of the game. There are several “classes” you can choose and they’re all fairly standard RPG archetypes, from tanks to healers to mage-type techno guys. The entire setup makes it seem as though the game is designed to play co-op. No one has any way to heal themselves outside of killing guys and slurping up their succulent health orbs except the bio-engineer, so that’s half your team right there. You can get by without the joys of healing, but the game’s nigh impossible without it.
Wait.
I take that back. No matter what, you will progress, as there is virtually no penalty for death in the world of Too Human — at least not anything tangible. You will have to sit through a good two-minute long cinematic where a cool-looking Valkyrie chick picks up your mangled corpse and then drops you off a few miles back from where you died. It’s cool the first few times, but it gets old quick, especially on the later levels where the difficulty just skyrockets and you are dying every 15 seconds.
This long cutscene usually also means your co-op partner is going down soon also, as they’ll be fighting by themselves for the next few minutes while you ogle an angel. This can be frustrating also, as you can hear your co-op partner screaming that they need help and you’re powerless to do anything. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, bro.
One downside of the co-op is there is absolutely no indicator of where your buddy is. This isn’t really too bad, but it’s made a little more annoying by the already irritating camera problems. It’s hard to answer your friends cry for help when you have know idea where the fuckeroo they are. This could be a conscious design choice, forcing you to communicate and the like, but I don’t like it.
I also would like them to have had some sort of indicator when your co-op partner is in the menus (which they will be a lot). It’s very frustrating to go running off and find out your partner is in a menu trying to decide what gear to use, or to be in a menu yourself and hear the signs of battle all of the sudden. It takes a good four seconds to get out of the inventory management screen (yeah, you read that right), so chances are if you were there and your buddy brought the baddies, you’ll have taken at least some damage before you can do anything. Yes, it’s easy to say, “Hold on a sec, Brah”, but that doesn’t always happen or it goes unheard. Some sort of indicator just would have been nice is all I’m saying.
The joy of co-op, though, is sharing moments of awesomeness between the two characters. My playthough was spent as a Berserker, which means I run around and slice anything that looks like Johnny 5 to ribbons, while Dan played though as a Commando, a long range gun-wielding superfreak that specializes in shooting the eyes out of five meter tall Sentinels.
It was both frustrating and awesome at different times as he’d end up killing guys before I’d get to slide into them or I’d kill all of them before he got to shoot, but when we fought harder monsters and were able to get the team juices going, there were some moments of pure awesomeness that were just… fantastic. Speed and launching are what Berserkers are all about, so sliding in and launching guys in the air while Dan launched grenades and plasma cannon fire all over the place made for some spectacular fights.
So overall, I’d say the game is a far cry from what it could have been, but there is definitely hope for the future of the franchise as it’s planned to be a trilogy. If you don’t have Xbox Live available or don’t have any friends to play with, I’d chalk it up to a rental at best. If you have a friend or two that’s interested in the game, I’d say… eh, I’d just rent it then, too.
Now, if you have some sort of obsessive disorder and love to hunt for ultra rare loot drops, then this game is definitely a must-buy. I haven’t seen Too Human’s kind of loony loot-whoring on the 360 at all, at least none that I can think of. There are tons of pieces of equipment and modifications and color runes… it’s just crazy. If you don’t have the OCD, then just stick to renting this bad boy.
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Tags: asskickery, Baldur, co-op, Dennis Dyack, loot whore, Norse Mythology, silicon knights, too human, Tron |
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7 Comments » |
on August 22, 2008 12:06 pm
The demo was mediocre, the controls a little annoying and the gameplay boring. I thought that it just wasn’t my kind of game. also the cg looks kinda’ old. something I would have deleted 5 years ago on my PC.
on August 22, 2008 12:27 pm
Its no secret that the game is below average, most reviewers said the same thing
on August 22, 2008 12:56 pm
i’m in the minority, but i really enjoy this game despite its glaring flaws
on August 22, 2008 3:14 pm
I wouldn’t say you are in the minority Keane — you are admitting that the game has its share of glaring flaws.
I will be renting it this weekend to see what all the fuss is about.
Chad–
on August 22, 2008 4:57 pm
The only thing I agree with is those goddamn Valkyries. It’s annoying, but it’s also motivation to not die in the first place. And hey, it’s still faster than making a corpse run.
on August 23, 2008 7:58 am
Kinda reminds me of Wardevil.
RTE 1080 will be an even better engine though.
on August 29, 2008 3:02 pm
About the only problems I have with it are the Valkyrie scenes not being skippable and the camera going haywire once in a while.
I do really like the direction they took with the norse mythos though. It was a pretty original idea that worked fairly well with the stories that make up the mythology.