Too Human discussion...

[Flawless]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

End Game Approaches

I have logged my last polish bug today listening to “Machine Gun” by Portishead and writing this blog. There are only two known rare crash bugs still left in the game. I personally have not seen the game crash in the last four to five weeks, and have been playing through it constantly. Once we fix these rare bugs, we will start to prepare “Release Candidate” for RTX (gold master disc) approval – this is likely just days away.



In the last play through, I decided to try a “Cybernetic Bioengineer Skuld’s Embrace Shooting Variant.” What does this mean? Through the combination of skill selection in my skill trees I was able to create a kiting shooting class that not only is a healer, but turned enemies to fight each other at the same time. Oh the chaos! Not only did I find this effective, but also significantly different from almost everything else I have tried in the game.

Dear Mr. Shane Bettenhausen, I beg to differ with your calling the Bioengineer a “nurse”! Just kidding. Given the short playtime you have had with the game, I understand the label. The depth in “Too Human” is pretty staggering, though, and despite playing the game for months now I have not been able to exhaust all of the combinations. It is definitely not reasonable to expect anyone to understand all the depth by playing limited demos. With the latest uproar on perfect scores and rushed review processes, we have good news – there will be plenty of time for press to critique Too Human as they will receive evaluation copies well in advance of the release date.



Finishing the game my last time around, I received 605 achievement points – I ended the game at level 29. Usually I get about 680-700 points for completing the game. We expect the average gamer to get at least 600 points their first time through. Here is shot of some of characters stats:



Despite it being a very rough road, I feel we have gone beyond what we expected to achieve with “Too Human.” Through the pure talent and determination of the team, we have created an awesome experience that gamers should appreciate for a long time. It is our best game to date. And, with our deep love for “Eternal Darkness” that is saying something! Hopefully gamers will agree.

I look forward to reading about different character build strategies, and stories on how well they worked on the boards.

[Flawless]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

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[Flawless]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

Some interesting info (mostly touching on the short video above) posted by Henry Sterchi (director of design on Too Human).

The hammer's special property is that it AOE juggles. You can "rack" (one example would be to deploy, say a freeze mine with your spider and freeze a batch in a clump) enemies up, AOE juggle the lot, then hold them up in the air with plasma pistols (which hit and detonate in a radius, keeping multiple targets airborne), the other player can then jump up in the air and ping pong between them or even air finisher them (done with stick movements/combinations).

In the video, the player juggles, holds the one enemy completely in place with the laser, and the other player jump slides up and performs a finisher since it's a leader that takes quite a few hits to kill, he focuses on finishing this one.

Keep in mind, based on class (and loot/stats bonuses), you can slide faster/slower, do more/less air hits, more/less damaging finishers, etc. The juggle height for some classes can be powered up via skill tree, and the AOE radius of the hammer juggle can also be increased via loot drops/rune bonuses. So there's lots of different possibilities and different ways you want to approach different enemies and situations.


As for levels, replaying through them has quite a bit variety. Some of the structures in the areas change (an open bridge, can later have a walled maze structure), obelisks (treasure chests) have different locations, enemy types change (an area filled with Goblins could change into an area with Trolls, etc.), enemy levels and sub types (RPG variations) and even quantities can change. Some areas even open up new side paths with repeat playthroughs.

[Flawless]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

Impressions from Tycho (Penny Arcade)

Oh, ho! It would appear that things are heating up! Particularly near the booster rockets, I would imagine, but that's not the only place.

Not ten minutes after I posted this, which briefly chronicled my quest to make sense of Too Human without the benefit of the actual product, the actual product materialized on my desk. Not the retail build exactly, but a largely complete one, with the ability to play multiplayer online and to finish the campaign mode in its entirety. This was the build all the recent preview content has been based on.

Perhaps it's because we so rarely receive games from Silicon Knights that by the time one does arrive, we have forgotten what it means to be a Silicon Knights game. Put succinctly, they create games with ridiculously complete universes, where technology and gameplay are important, but it is the purpose of the latter two to reinforce the story. So even when I saw the ill-starred E3 demo, the knell that may still seal the game's fate, I knew that without a narrative voice I wasn't really seeing "Too Human."

It's not science fiction generally, and it's not really Sci-Fantasy, like I assumed it was. The trappings threw me off. It's very specifically a cyberpunk casting of Norse mythology, and it creates an incredibly original conceptual space in which to kill robots. Somewhere between Blade Runner and Lord of the Rings there is a powerful venue for storytelling, and they have found it.

The combat is not difficult, by which I mean that it is not hard to do what you want. You can still easily get overwhelmed, which results in an unskippable cutscene of a cybernetic Valkyrie hauling your dumb *** to Valhalla. Then, you're back. It's unskippable because it is the punishment for death. I guess your **** gets damaged too, but you're perpetually upgrading your equipment, so I never found that bit of number juggling poignant. If you don't like this cutscene, my advice would be to die less.

The Diablo comparisons go right down the line. Killing monsters results in a piñatan festival of loot, which is drawn to the character as though by a powerful magnet. There are various futuristic chests which also contain loot. Each class has unique trees they can use to customize their experience. Diablo III continues its isometric metaphor, but if you want to make an experience like that without a fixed camera position, how do you do it? Too Human suggests one way: try to interpret that player's intention in the space as much as possible by making movements of the right analog synonymous with attacks. You don't have to hammer away on it, simply holding both sticks in the direction of an enemy will do. Want them in mid air? Double tap. Want them in mid-air, held aloft by gunfire? Double-tap, right trigger. You can slide to a new target by pressing toward them even before you've arrived at the first. Putting these tools together in different ways is the core experience. You may not want to do that. For me, the basic combat was like the notes of a scale. It was in constructing improvised combinations that I found the game I wanted.

The biggest challenge the game has to face is probably the camera, and the problem here is twofold. One, gamers really expect that the right stick should control camera position. It doesn't here, because it's the right stick that enables the game's combat. It might take you an hour to come to terms with this idea, so ingrained is that mental program. It's compounded by problem two - the reason you'll want to wrest control of that camera is that the built-in camera can be pretty dumb. Complaining about cameras is a longstanding gamer tradition, but this one has earned some scorn. It wasn't a deal breaker for me, eventually you learn how not to anger the camera gods, but Jesu Christe.

I don't think the game expresses its own virtues quite well enough. These slides from enemy to enemy work well as a gameplay mechanic, but they're not made to seem epic by virtue of their audio or visual effects - if anything, they're undersold. The Too Human equivalent of Cyberspace - a place of pure magic, what Thor calls "women's work" - has a few mild puzzles you can manipulate to effect the real world. But these are almost always simple affairs, with one or two obvious inputs, when they're presenting a really huge idea here that should take the fore more often. Also, contrary to other previews I have read, I think the game is a little too long - some levels are just long to be long, likely to counter complaints that the game is too short, which hasn't worked anyway. My playtime was around the fourteen hour mark, similar to Mass Effect, because just like Mass Effect I spent a lot of time twiddling my character and making the most of my equipment. Inserting runes to increase my effectiveness, completing slottable quests called Charms that confer powerful effects, or crafting items from rare blueprints to build sharp looking sets are things which I find fun. The replayability here should be in the escalating difficulty, the co-op multiplayer, and the inherently addictive quest for more powerful, cooler-looking ****.

I dont know exactly how far along this build is, I would assume very, very far. I imagine it will be quite similar to what will see store shelves. They've made a kind of cyberpunk Diablo, with a fast combat system and a deep world. It's not perfect. But it's much, much better than I expected.

[Flawless]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

Too Human Demo Finally Coming

Microsoft has announced that its "Bringing it Home" E3 initiative will start up this year on July 14. Through Xbox Live, gamers will be able to download various content from E3, including game trailers, news from the show floor, interviews, gamerpics, themes and demos.

This will include the long awaited Too Human demo that Silicon Knights has promised would come out before the game's launch this August. Keep your Xbox 360 hooked up to a high-speed internet connection and be on the lookout for your first chance to try out Too Human.

[ESPNdeportes]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

Too Human Demo Finally Coming

From what I've read, I'll definitely be trying the demo before buying.....

[burnwood]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

I'm fleeting away from a purchase myself. Just a little skeptical on all the sliding around for combat. And I tend to agree with the preview from what I've seen. It says 'the game doesn't express its own virtues quite well enough'.

If there is so much of a factor in gathering lute and assimilating it to your own armor and such, there sure isn't a showcase to see your stuff vs someone else's. At least they should've done something like WoW where you're near someone and can click on them to bring up their character page to check out their items. There doesn't seem to be a reason to lust after anything other than to look pretty in a mirror.

[in mid air]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

Too Human - E3 2008 Trailer

[Cyros]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

I've already got this pre-ordered and about half-way paid off. I'm simply expecting a solid game that allows me to horde ridiculous amounts of phat loot.

[in mid air]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

Just to inform you all, the Too Human demo is now up!

[Cyros]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

Downloading. Should be finished by the time I get back from working out.

[LBzrule]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

99%, come on baby, hehe.

[SkunkWurks6]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

Downloaded, dammit ANOTHER game I have to buy now, lol. I quit playing about 10 mins in, I knew I wanted it and don't want to ruin ANYTHING.

[Flawless]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

I enjoyed the demo and it was quite a bit longer than I though it was going to be. I read some previews a couple weeks ago and even impressions today of people complaining about the voice acting and dialogue, and I fail to see what there is to complain about. Combat took little getting used to, but after a few battles I got the hang of it and I started having a lot fun. Even though a big sword I got at the end started to give me more feedback, I wish there was definitely more. Seems like it will be a solid hack and slash dungeon crawler with a potentially good story, and there's not a lot of these games around, so this is more than likely a purchase for me.

[Cyros]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

I really loved the combat once I started understanding what I was doing and started sliding around the battle field like crazy. I think my first class is going to be a Berserker because of how much I love the sliding.