Too Human

I started writing a rather lengthy rant about Too Human, one that was more rational and collected than my previous outburst. However I realized I was repeating a lot of what I've already said, and the thing was just too damn long for a game I don't really give a shit about. So instead, I'm going to do a review similar to the Kotaku format and least the pros and cons of the game. That way I'll be able to properly address all the bullshit in the game in a more organized and much shorter manner. Let us begin.

Pros


Hall of Heroes and Helheim - These are the first and last levels of the game respectively. These, in my opinion, are the only levels in the game where you are capable of having a fun times playing the game. That isn't to say they're great by any stretch of the imagination, nor are they without flaw (see: Bosses) However I found myself actually enjoying the combat in these areas. The enemies are fun to kill, they don't pull off bullshit moves, they don't take forever to kill, and honestly the whole game should've just been like this. It wouldn't make it a great game, but it'd certainly be a start.

The Setting - The idea of a Sci-Fi Norse Mythology settings is appealing to me to say in the least. I can't fault Too Human for that. Would that the game actually featured an appealing art style, characters that I cared about, and a half-way decent story and I might've given Too Human a little more credit. Silicon Knights can be creative if nothing else (ex: Insanity Effects)

That's all I can think of, I've sat here for five minutes thinking about every part of the game, and I honestly can't think of another positive thing to say about this game. I'm sorry, it's bad.

Cons


The Ice Forest - This is the second level in the game, it also happens to be one of the worst levels I have ever played in a game. It's laughable that Denis Dyack attempted to defend this level on the epic 1UPYours Poolside podcast where Garnett slammed it for being the worst level in the game. Funny, Denis couldn't come up with an answer for what is the worst level in the game. The Ice Forest is full of some of the most annoying encounters in the game. You will be met with waves of enemies that are nearly impossible to kill without dying several times. You will encounter difficult enemies, packed in with more difficult enemies, packed in with annoying enemies. Generally in a game like this, say Phantasy Star Online/Universe/Portable for example - you will encounter a tough enemy by itself, or paired up with another one of the same enemy. Not combinations of many enemies making for a maddening encounter. The lay of the level is terrible too, nothing but similar looking fields peppered with "man-cannons" for reasons unknown. If you can make it past this level, than you've suffered the worst Too Human has to offer - but really, why bother?

The Combat - This "innovative" stick combat is nothing more than a replacement for button mashing. You hold the right stick in one direction until the enemy dies instead of mashing A. It's nothing new, or exciting. It's just frustrating. There's even less depth to Too Human's combat than many of the other games in it's genre - thanks largely in due to the nearly useless skill tree system. You will have at your disposal a whopping number of four abilities you can use during combat. And guess what? They're pretty much the same skills for every class. You have a battle cry buff, a spider drone that'll blow up, shoot stuff, or slow enemies, an AoE Ruiner ability, and Sentient Weapons which fight for you. It should also be noted that some of these abilities take a while to cool down, so you'll rarely see them in combat. Another thing worth noting about the combat is that it's really buggy at times, and the animation looks terrible. Your character will jerk around from enemy to enemy, than clumsily swing his weapon at the enemy in a really awkward fashion. That's not the worst of it though, the moment you attempt to perform "air combat" you'll notice how unresponsive the controls are, and you'll get stuck in the air while over a hoard of enemies. This is the core of the game we're talking about here folks.

The Loot - Another vital part of the game is all the loot you'll get along your travels. Problem is the loot system sucks. For starters, the inventory system is terrible. You can hold a max number of items, not too surprising. The catch though? If you're inventory gets full, you'll waste items you try and collect. Sound familiar? Yeah it was one of the most glaring problems people had with Mass Effect which released late 2007. Luckily Bioware fixed Mass Effect's inventory system in the PC release of the game. Too late for Silicon Knights to fix Too Human though. You'll spend a good portion of your time wading through crap that you'll never equip, only bothering with equipment that'll last you a maximum of two or three levels. Yeah, that Elite item you just got? Totally going to be replaced by some random blue in about 30 minutes. Finally, the loot doesn't look appealing either. The most important part of a loot game is to get cool shit. None of this shit is cool, it's very bland and never changes much from the gear you start with. And since the stats on equipment don't matter for very long, there's really no reason to get attached to anything.

The Bosses - The game has five bosses in total. One for Levels 1-3, and two on the last level. They're all really fucking stupid. I haven't touched on this yet, but most of the enemies in the game are either resistant to melee or ranged attacks. Most every single enemy in the game will shrug off any ranged attack save for the easiest of peons... and the bosses. So one whole class is fucked right there - The Commando class which specializes in firearms. Sucks for him, so why not pick one of the other four characters? That's still the smart thing to do, but once you encounter a boss you'll quickly realize that your primary method of killing shit doesn't work anymore, at all. The first boss requires you to walk backwards around a large open arena full of fire traps, aiming at the bosses' weak points with your shitty ranged weapon for about 20 minutes. If you get close to him, he'll pick you up and grind you against his... uh grinders. Oh and those fire traps? They play no part in the game whatsoever. The second boss requires you to shoot a series of five platforms.... four times. So that's 20 platforms that you can ONLY attack by shooting. Meanwhile he blowing you away with his amazing gun. Fun, and fair! The Third Boss requires you to drain 6 or so weak points with ranged attacks, and the fourth boss has the same deal. Notice the pattern? You will die on these bosses, several times before you chip away all their health. The only exception to this rule is the final boss encounter. The big epic battle that will floor you for all of the three minutes it takes you to melee the shit out of the bitch. Most disappointing final boss battle EVER.

The Death - Dying in a game usually presents you with a penalty of sorts. Too Human is no exception. However Too Human's death penalty is unlike anything I've ever been forced to experience 87 times before. When you die in Too Human, a Valkyrie will descend from the sky, and drag your worthless corpse to Valhalla - or back to the last check point. The problem is - this scene takes 25 seconds, Twenty Five fucking Seconds. And you know what else? You CAN'T skip it, ever. So that means I spent 36 minutes of my total 11 hours of playing this game, watching the fucking death animation that I'm sure Denis Dyack is so god damn proud of. 36 minutes? Are you fucking serious? I guarantee if you took this shit out the game would be presentable for fans of the genre to play around with once. As it stands, it just made me hate video games. Oh, and your armor breaks.

Characters, Art, Graphics, Story, Ending, Etc - Everything else about the game is equally shit. The game looks ugly, it's too bad you guys were too dumb to figure out how to use the Unreal engine, because at least than your game would be a pretty brown and gray like every other next gen game on the market. The art style, character designs, enemies, and environments are all equally appalling to look at. It's a real shame, because as I mentioned earlier - the setting is pretty cool. The characters themselves are very boring, or just plain retarded. Thor is supposed to be some super bad ass tough guy, and Loki is supposed to be diabolically evil - but they both come across as cheesy and uninteresting. The story is far from epic, and is in all honesty pretty cliche at this point in time. And the ending? What ending? Halo 2 says Hi.

The Hype - Assuming they fixed the death animation, the placement of enemies in the Ice Forest, and made melee combat a viable option for Boss Fights - if we could turn back the clock, and cut Denis Dyack's tongue out - Too Human would be a decent game. I think fans of the genre would be able to enjoy it, especially with their friends, and most people would be able to overlook it's other short comings. Thanks to Denis Dyack though, that's impossible at this point. The man just doesn't know how to keep his fat fucking mouth shut. He has gone on and on at lengths about how revolutionary this game is, how it'll change the industry, and redefine gaming. He has started flame wars with members of the video game community, and tried to justify it as a social experiment. He has claimed that people that give Too Human a bad rating "just don't get it". The game is out, the verdict is in, the game is average at best - Yet the man keeps on talking! Shut Up Denis, Shut the fuck up. It's over, you lost. NeoGAF owned you, people weren't amazed with your game, you haven't changed gaming, and the industry will go on without you. Throw in the god damn towel and get to work on your next project which will hopefully redeem the sullied Silicon Knights name. Above all else, it's the hype that has killed this game. When it comes down to it - Denis should've just kept quiet.