According to Canadian developer Silicon Knights, the layoff of 26 employees was – ahem – too human.

Joystiq reports that Silicon Knights is currently reshuffling talent for a forthcoming game. I don’t know about you, but when I shuffle a deck, I don’t throw away 26 cards during a game of poker.

The official Silicon Knights PR statement is available after the jump.

“After any big game ships, there is always some attrition. Teams are lean and mean in the beginning, grow toward the end of the project, and then whittle down once the project is finished.” To that end, Silicon Knights temporary [sic] laid-off 26 employees today while they ramp up on other projects. All the company’s directors and leads are still at Silicon Knights and working on its next projects.

“The slight cutback comes after four years of unprecedented growth for the St. Catharines’, Ontario (Canada) company, during which its headcount had expanded to more than 180 employees.

“Denis Dyack, President and founder of the company, stated, ‘Silicon Knights is currently working on several new and exciting games that will be announced to the public in the coming months. In addition to those projects, Silicon Knights continues to develop and promote other new and original ideas, which will become the innovative games of tomorrow. These 26 individuals are hard-working and valued team members that we hope to bring back as we ramp up on our future projects.’”

Dyack did not comment further on any other hard-working and valuable team members he plans on sacking in the future.

Source: joystiq.com

In honor of the recent release of Silicon Knights’ Too Human, MTV Multiplayer’s Stephen Totilo thought it’d be a good idea to interview some of the people behind the game. Most, including myself, would assuredly include the outspoken, and often controversial, Denis Dyack amongst the interviewees. Totilo specifically requested that Dyack not be among those to be interviewed. As a tease for the full interviews that will follow, Totilo asked Too Human’s Art Director, Director of Design, and Audio Director how they felt about their boss, President and Co-founder of Silicon Knights, Denis Dyack.
Carman Dix, Art Director, responded with:

“Underneath, Denis is still that boy that genuinely loves video games with a passion.”

Henry Sterchi, Director of Design, had this to say about Dyack:

“Denis is sincerely passionate about the quality of everything Silicon Knights does, and with that passion comes some of his outspokenness and desire to interact with the community. One of my favorite Denis stories is when we met to discuss Eternal Darkness when I was working at Nintendo. A few of us got together, went out for dinner, and then ended up at an arcade just playing games for hours while we talked about ideas. It was incredibly refreshing and exciting to see all of the passion he had about making games and still act like a gamer and have fun.”

And finally Steve Henifin, Audio Director, continued the praise by saying:

“One of the things I like about Denis is that he is a tenacious person and he takes risks. I respect him for that, because I’m the same way. I never give up, and if you don’t take risks you are never going to know your potential. I know that if it were not for Denis we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, because SK wouldn’t exist.”

As expected and rightfully so, they all have positive spin, either because they genuinely like the guy, or they genuinely like their jobs. Whichever way, it was a stroke of brilliance from Totilo. Giving the spotlight to those that don’t often receive it, as well as keep the spotlight away from those that, in my opinion, have had the spotlight a little too often.
Regardless of how I feel about Denis Dyack’s philosophies and how he approaches certain situations, I will give credit where credit is due. He’s kept Silicon Knights running for over a decade, so he must be doing something right.
Source: MTV Multiplayer

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.

For those of you who aren’t really into the whole Hip-Hop scene, it wasn’t long ago that rappers Ice-T and Soulja Boy had a series of back-and-forth trash talking sessions about the state of hip-hop using YoutTube as their platform of choice.

Why am I telling you this? Because that backstory is necessary to understand the parody of the Giant Bomb video retort done in response to Kevin Pereira’s Too Human defense force video blog.

Just for clarity, this video is clearly in jest, and Jeff himself (the frontman in the video with the kickin’ white shades) states: “For the record, Kevin’s rad, and I will fight anyone who claims otherwise.”

Source: Giant Bomb

After ten years in the making and jumps from the PS One and Gamecube to the Xbox 360, Too Human is finally coming out this week and we’ll get to see if the game was truly worth the wait.

Other highlights of the week include Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty for the PS3, Two Worlds: Epic Edition for PC and I’m pretty hyped up for the original Mega Man for the Wii, via the Virtual Console.

Pick of the Week: Too Human (Xbox 360)

Xbox 360:

• Galaga: Legions (XBLA)
• Smash Court Tennis 3
• Too Human

PS3:

• Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (PSN)

Nintendo Wii:

• Mega Man (VC)
• Midnight Pool (WiiWare)
• NEO TURF MASTERS (VC)
• Super Pick Ups

PS2:

• Falling Stars
• Shepherd’s Crossing

Nintendo DS:

• Commando Steel Disaster
• The Cheetah Girls: Passport to Stardom

PSP:

• Fading Shadows

PC Games:

• Adventure Anthology
• Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm
• Dracula 3: Path of the Dragon
• MindHabits
• Murder in the Abby
• Shattered Suns
• Sinking Island
• Space Siege
• Tank Universal
• Two Worlds Epic Edition

When Too Human comes out this Tuesday, it will mark the end of nearly ten years of development for one of the most beleaguered games of all time. Too Human has been spat upon; it has been put up on pedestals. Whether or not the game turns out to be as good as its creator has promised or is just mediocre, whether you’re “for” or “against” Too Human, it’s in the spirit of giving the game credit for making it this far that we present you with a brief retrospective of Too Human’s life, from 1999 to the present.

1999: Silicon Knights announces Too Human for the PlayStation 1

The year of the Dreamcast and the Phantom Menace also saw Silicon Knights, then mostly known for the Legacy of Kain, announce their plans to create an epic game spanning across five CD-ROM discs (remember when developers used to brag about how many discs their game took up?) and would feature a cyberpunk mystery plot that showed more influence from 1980s sci-fi than Norse mythology.

The game looked great at the time, the CG especially. But it sure as hell was a different beast back then than it is today. Take a look at the Videogames.com watermark on that image – yes, my young friends, that’s what GameSpot used to be called.

2000: Nintendo cops Silicon Knights

When Nintendo purchased Silicon Knights as a second-party, the development of Too Human seemed to go into limbo as the studio focused its efforts on the acclaimed Eternal Darkness and the somewhat controversial port Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.

Too Human was mentioned in back corners and teasers were shown, but it wouldn’t be until Dyack and co. were free from Miyamoto’s iron grasp that we’d see anything from the game again.

May 2005: EGM reveals the new Too Human

In May 2005, Electronic Gaming Monthly ran a cover story that blew the doors open on the new, improved, and Microsoft-backed Too Human. Instead of the blatant Blade Runner rip-off of 1999, this was an epic planned trilogy that mixed science-fiction elements with Norse mythology, featured analog-stick based combat that promised to rival titles like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden for depth and fun, and still maintained the trappings of a serious RPG. People were excited.

E3 2006: Too Human, more like Too Crappy amirite??
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And then the party ended. Too Human made an abysmal showing at E3 2006. Under pressure to deliver a demo, Silicon Knights apparently threw together an unfinished playable build, with an atrocious framerate, clunky combat, and a horrid, way-too-zoomed-out camera. It was the beginning of a public outcry that would kickstart Too Human’s ongoing career as the punchline of a neverending joke.

Looking back a year later, Dyack would write:

”Last year’s E3 was very painful. I am glad it is dead.”

March 2007: Denis Dyack vs. the games industry

Denis Dyack – genius reverse psychology-engineering genius, or pompous blowhard? The debate might’ve started earlier, but it began in earnest in March 2007.

Mark MacDonald, then of Ziff-Davis’ Games Group, had criticized Too Human vehemently in EGM’s E3 06 coverage. In response to his comments, Dyack went on the EGM Live podcast to engage in a serious debate with MacDonald. Dyack seemed to hold a minor personal grudge against the journalist, but moreover had some serious criticisms for what he saw MacDonald as representing: a broken industry standard where developers are forced to put on display unfinished products for unfair criticism and review by journalists and the consumer public. Though, to be fair, Dyack’s ideas weren’t without some merit, the comments came off as whiny, narcissistic, and immature. A non-issue blown out of proportion by a hurt ego. Penny-Arcade’s Jerry Holkins would respond:

”All of this started precisely because people fully expect to be amazed by the man and the company he leads. There are worse problems than this.”

July 2007: Denis Dyack vs. Mark Rein

Too Human, like basically every other game made this generation, was originally powered by Unreal Engine 3. And while UE3 is apparently even good enough for Square-Enix, it wasn’t good enough for Silicon Knights, who sued Epic Games for breach of contract and fraud. The upshot of the suit is that Epic withheld superior versions of its engine from its licensees for itself, resulting in a disparity of quality between games like Too Human and Gears of War, which, despite running on allegedly the same engine, looked a hell of a lot better. Epic countersued, and the protracted legal process is still playing itself out – aside from the widespread embarrassment and controversy this attracted to Dyack and his game, the company will be forced to pay in excess of $650,000 if they lose the case.

May 2008: Too Human, two humans
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With a decent GDC showing in 08, Too Human seemed to be back on track – positive impressions were on the rise, and hype was building, though plenty of people didn’t mince words when it came to criticisms. These came to a boiling point in May when it was revealed at Microsoft’s Spring Showcase that Too Human’s much ballyhooed four-player co-op mode was being gimped to a being only two-player. Citing the Too Human style gameplay as better suited for two people, Dyack and SK argued that this was a positive change. Even for defenders of the game, however, it was hard to see this as anything but a real blow to the title. Too Human’s critics, meanwhile, began to ravenously circle what they saw as the game’s quickly decomposing corpse.

June 2008: Stand and be counted

Denis Dyack, never one to back down from an argument, wouldn’t take the criticisms sitting down. In a thread posted on NeoGAF, Dyack called out all of the forum’s users to declare whether they were “for” or “against” Too Human. If the game came out and was a qualified success, those who would had cast their vote “against” would be given the tag “Owned by Too Human”. If the opposite happened, then Dyack would wear a “Owned by NeoGAF”.

Needless to say the thread spread across the Internet like wildfire, with opinions varying from admiration for Dyack’s ballsiness to outright ridicule. Dyack appeared on the 1UP Yours podcast to explain himself, and citing all manner of theoretical ideas about technology, society, and the Internet, seemed to dub himself as a hero for calling upon NeoGAF to either reform itself or destroy itself, because it was a negative force, not only within the games industry, but society as a whole. NeoGAF responded by laughing in his face.

July 2008: Too Human, ten hours

Around the same time, games media received preview builds of Too Human that were near-complete versions of the game. Previews were mixed, but the sticking point among the gaming public seemed to be the game’s length. Game | Life’s Chris Kohler, who posted one of the first previews, reported that the game ended abruptly after its tenth hour – a shame considering its emphasis on a deep and complicated narrative. Again, the critics feasted.

The Demo

After months of promising a demo, Silicon Knights finally released one to coincide with Microsoft’s E3 conference. Though opinions on its quality have been divided, it quickly became one of the most downloaded demos on Xbox Live Marketplace.

Game Informer gives Too Human a 6.75

Scans leaked of the latest issue of Game Informer last week, and they featured a review of Too Human with the score of 6.75. Which would be above average by most rational scales, but is actually equivalent to about a 4 out of 10.

August 19, 2008: Too Human is released

???

At some point, the story of Too Human stops being about the game and starts being about Dennis Dyack. Is that the media’s fault, or is it Dyack’s? When the game comes out, hopefully it won’t matter. Hopefully, by then, we’ll be able to judge the game without the burden of nine years of development and controversy weighing down on it.

Keeping your hands to yourself is not usually a problem during an interview, however Silicon Knights President, Denis Dyack, was being scantily interrogated by two extremely attractive “lingerie-clad” Penthouse Pets of the Year, in Heather Vandeven (2007) and Jaime Lynn (2006).

Regardless, Double D was his usual self, waxing philosophically about mythology, technology, and its overall effects on society, as he answered questions about his company’s upcoming title, Too Human. You gotta hand it to the guy, whether he’s on the 1UP Yours podcast or in bed with the Penthouse Pets, he’s always on message and appropriate. Mrs. Dyack would be proud.

A note to our friends over at Dasgamer — if everyone at E3 had a chance to take part in an interview like this, it would almost make up for the lack of booth babes. Hint hint.

Denis Dyack in bed with the Pets, Part 1

Denis Dyack in bed with the Pets, Part 2

Want to get your hands on the new action adventure role-playing game from renowned developer Silicon Knights?  The promised Too Human demo is now up on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Weighing in at 1.1GB, the demo contains a meaty selection from the first level.  As the cybernetic Norse god, you can now begin your quest to free mankind from ancient machines bent on destroying humanity. 

It is time for you, the consumer, to gage the quality of the title that was originally to be developed for the PlayStation 1.  Since then Too Human has had a rocky development, with events including Silicon Knights suing Epic over their Unreal Engine 3 and a critical slating at E3 2006.  We hope the quality of Silicon Knights will show through in their new Xbox 360 exclusive title, Too Human.