Too Human discussion...

[TCrouch]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

This game isn't anywhere near as bad as the reviews are making it out to be. I love loot whoring in Diablo or any action RPG, and this fits the bill perfectly. Pretty much got exactly what I expected. A lot of fun last night in the 3 or 4 hours that I played it.

[spankdatazz22]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

LOL

<span style="display:none;"><span>Too Human: Screw the Haters</span><span>My two pennies concerning the negative reviews Too Human has been receiving. Relax: The game is FUN!</span></span><span style="padding:0px; margin:0px; display:block"><object width="435" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://seesmic.com/embeds/wrapper.swf"/><param name="bgcolor" value="#666666"/><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><param name="flashVars" value="video=bC3G2bh7jy&amp;version=threadedplayer "/><embed src="http://seesmic.com/embeds/wrapper.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashVars="video=bC3G2bh7jy&amp;version=threadedpl ayer" allowFullScreen="true" bgcolor="#666666" allowScriptAccess="always" width="435" height="355"></embed></object></span><span style="display:block; width:435px; margin:0px; padding:0px;background:url([url]

Thx for posting that; was a good take. I was one of those that was meh on my first playthrough in the demo, but really enjoyed it the second time - and more the third. The internet overreaction made me less enthused on picking it up week one, but going to go ahead and get it

[Skitch Beatz]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

I will still be picking the game up...

Spoiler

when it hits the bargain bin.

looks like a decent sub $30 experience.

[Spectre]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

This game isn't anywhere near as bad as the reviews are making it out to be. I love loot whoring in Diablo or any action RPG, and this fits the bill perfectly. Pretty much got exactly what I expected. A lot of fun last night in the 3 or 4 hours that I played it.

Absolutely- I think a lot of sites just ripped the game because of Dyack and how long Silicon Knights has worked on the game. It's been ripped by some sites but many have also given it good scores. You get what you're looking for if you buy the game- an action RPG.

It doesn't belong in the category of overhyped busts like Lair (metacritic score of 53), Haze (metacritic of 55) or Kane and Lynch (59). Too Human's metacritic score is at a mediocre 68 but miles ahead of the previous two. A game has to be epically bad to get a metacritic score in the 50s like the previously mentioned titles.

It's a disappointment and I might pick it up when its cheap. I wasn't a huge fan of the demo

[Cyros]

Re: Exclusive: Inside Too Human

I think I'm in the TCrouch crowd because I'm enjoy being a loot whore.

[Flawless]

Re: Too Human discussion...

Kotaku Review

Too Human is neither as good nor as bad as many have made it out to be. The action role-playing game, nearly ten years in the making, built up quite a storm of controversy and expectations as it tumbled its way to completion and release. The game tackles a retelling of Norse mythology with a cyber twist and works to reinvent the way people play button mashers. In the game the most loved god in Norse mythos, Baldur must contend with enemies on all sides and balance his desire for revenge with thoughts of the greater good.

Too Human set out to be epic and it delivered on at least one level: Denis Dyack's painfully personal reaction to the previews and reviews made for a soap opera drama of epic proportions on gaming forums and websites international. But what about the game, did it deliver on the same epic level as Dyack's wounded ego?

Loved:

• May I Have This Fray?: Too Human is a button masher free of button mashing. That's one of the things the action title does so well. Initially, playing with very few button pushes is strange, even unnerving. But as you master the art of double thumbstick combat, the rolling dungeon brawls become more about spacing, tactics, timing, then they do about tapping A over and over again. Combat becomes almost terpsichorean as you slip from attacker to attacker, unloading powerful blows that some times launch them through the air.
  
• Bountiful Armor and Weapons : Too Human is packed to the gills with different weapons and armor, hundreds of thousands of them. While the Too Human naming convention can result in some pretty goofy titles, the sheer volume is a role-playing gamers fantasy. Throw into the mix that each looks quite unique, that you can collect sets, and the fact that you can augment almost everything with Runes and you turn equipping almost into a mini-game.
  
• Unique World: Silicon Knights' blending of Norse mythology with cyberspace initially comes off as a bit hackneyed (especially when you're introduced to a seemingly random taste of Beowulf), but it grows on you. The concepts are all solid, and some are even sublime, like the body snatching Valkyries and robot goblins, trolls and dark elves. It's a peculiar take on a familiar world that doesn't try to take center stage to the game but still manages to slightly bewilder you in its delivery.
  
• Diverse Skills and Alignment Trees: Running there right along side that mammoth, almost never-ending selection of weapons, armor and runes, are the ever branching skill and alignment trees. Each of the five classes in the game have more than a dozen skills to choose from and build up, running along different paths. Players are also asked to choose an alignment a bit into the game, giving them another nine skills to work on. It's all lends itself to a high level of customization in the way you want to play the game and plenty of tweaking, almost reminiscent of a pen and paper RPG.

Hated:

• I'm a God Not A...: Mountain climber, or hiker, or guy who likes to walk anywhere that isn't strictly defined in the game. Come on! Baldur is a God, why can't he walk the less traveled path? It's down right annoying that I can't make my way though a collection of shrubs in the middle of a map, but that each of this god's mighty leaps results in the sound of rolling thunder.
  
• Graphic Glitches: When I played through the preview of Too Human I was struck by how beautiful the game can look at times, but I was more struck by how many graphic glitches and annoying little visual and audio bugs there were in the game. Then when I received the review code I saw much of the same issues, so I waited for the review code. Guess what? Still there.
  
• CyberWTF: I get what Silicon Knights is going for and in many ways I like it. The modernization of an ancient mythology is very tantalizing and gives gamers a lot of meat to chew on. But the element of cyberspace, how ever good it might look on paper, feels like a time-fluffing waste. Instead of opening a door I have to go to a well, walk twenty steps, push a button, walk back, leave the well and open a door. I'm sure the developers will better explore this concept in future games, but that's no reason to punish gamers now.
  
• Epic Confusion: Too Human sets itself out to be an epic tale, one so vast it needs to be told in three games. I buy that and actually can't wait to dive into the second game. But the first felt like a plunge into the middle of a story that I wasn't even sure I wanted to care about yet. This sort of starting in the middle approach might work for some, but Silicon Knights just doesn't have the chops to pull it off. The result is a storyline so convoluted that a gamer's initial pass is likely to leave them more confused than caring.
  
• Character Development: If you want to sell a game with its story you have to make characters people care about. In Too Human the main characters are so flat, so underdeveloped that it's hard to feel anything when they start dropping like flies. The same can be said for game lead Baldur, who with a complex back story and conflicting motives should be someone you easily empathize with. But that connection never seems to happen.
  
• Multiplayer: When is multiplayer co-op not multiplayer co-op? When it's delivered in bite-sized chunks that strip out the cut-scenes and plot. Multiplayer gaming is supposed to be about the act of mutual discovery, experiencing something together. But the fact that characters of any level, no matter how disparate, can make their way through the game in any order they want turns the experience into more of a treasure hunt than voyage.

The most exciting part of Too Human is its ending. That's not meant to be a back-handed compliment. I'm not saying I relished not playing the game anymore. I'm talking about that final cut scene, one that delivers more hope, more possibility than almost all of Too Human managed to muster in its relatively short play through. The fact that it excited me, though, also means that over the course of the game I guess I grew to like Too Human and become a bit fond of its idiosyncrasies. I'd hate to suggest a game based on what it's sequel might deliver, but that's what I'm doing.

The absurdly diverse reaction Too Human is more a product of expectation than any major flaw in game design. Sure it could have used some more polish and this first game in a trilogy, perhaps, should have kicked off at a more interesting point in the overarching story, but it wasn't a bad game.

[thaima1shu]

Re: Too Human discussion...

I definitely think I'm going to buy the game, but probably not for a little while until I can find it for cheaper somewhere. That's not really saying anything about the game, it's just that I'm running low on cash.

[Flawless]

Re: Too Human discussion...

Holy crap at this Epic Charm: Gravity Projector.

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I'm strongly considering picking this game up. I enjoyed the demo and the impressions I've been reading have been overwhelmingly positive. Also, I was listening to a podcast, and Denis said they have big plans for DLC, and pretty much confirmed that the level cap would be raised too.

[Bighoff]

Re: Too Human discussion...

This game is just fun. I've only progressed to the 3rd area but I'm having a blast, so much so that I've gone back and created a new character using a different class. So far I've used the Defender and the Bio Engineer and I plan on taking all 5 classes through the game. I'm curious as to what is everyone's favorite class of character?

[marshallfever]

Re: Too Human discussion...

This game is puzzling me. I enjoyed the first 2-4 hours but now i'm finding it a chore to complete. What makes this even worst is that i was looking forward to this game since they announced it at X06 with Mass Effect.

I've defended it to the death recently, but after really getting deeper into the game, i see why it has gotten poor reviews. It tries to do a little too much even for its own good.

For starters, the opening Cut-scene was great, but after that nothing looked that good anymore. The remainder of the cut-scenes lacked the fluid animations the first one had.

Don't get me started on the combat. At first it felt awkward, but i got the hang of it and started to like it about 2 hours in. But now being 8 hours in, i find it to be horrible. Since there are so many enemies at one time, just swinging around the right thumbstick doesn't get the job done. They should of just kept a combo centric combat system. Half way though the game, i feel like i'm just mindlessly swinging around a sword now, since the waves of enemies make it hard to actually have a good fight.

And about the enemies, their all horrible ********, wtf is wrong with their A.I? None of them have any interesting attacks at all, its just them constantly attacking you. Again, with a combo centric system and smarter enemies this game would be awesome.

The biggest issue i'm having so far now though is just the plain repetitiveness of the game. Each level is mindless and dull. The entire level is an hour or two of you walking around fighting mindless droids without any real interaction with the enviroment, not only that, but it feels like that goes on forever. I don't get it though, most of all action adventure games do the same, but for some reason it sticks out like a sore thumb in this game. Trying to compare it to Ninja Gaiden is impossible because Ninja Gaiden is about combo and A.I.; all about you and your reaction time and how great of a fighter you are. That mostly pulls you away from thinking about just going from corridor to corridor fighting enemies. This is definitely my biggest gripe and is what is making the game very hard to play, it just tends to get boring.

However i am enjoying the story, that and the achievements are probably the only reason i'm still playing the game. Some may not like it, but so far i'm interesting. Whats happened is intriguing me. However i don't understand too much about the stuff in cyberspace. The norms were telling me something about the purple stuff that permits you from go to certain areas, but i couldn't hear what they were saying.

So far i just completed the "Normandy" level which i think is the 3rd level of the game. Hopefully it picks up from here since i hear there are only 2 levels left.

Overall i'm sort of glad i didn't purchase the game and only rented it, i do feel as if Silicon Knights has themselves here a real contender, but its going to need some serious tuning and polish to shine. If their able to incorporate 4 players online with retaining the story and fixing the boring corridor feel of the game, its a winner.

[TCrouch]

Re: Too Human discussion...

I went all the way through it with a Champion and had a blast. It did tend to drag a bit in the last level, but I really enjoyed it. So much so that I started again immediately and went on a 2nd romp's first level.

[marshallfever]

Re: Too Human discussion...

I'm going crazy here, i really want to punch Denis in the face now like every neogaf member. I think i'm at the last level of the game (fighting the Zombie enemies in Heil).

Really i liked the first level, it was maybe due to playing the demo a couple of times, but it was what i expected. It didn't feel that long. I also didn't mind the second level so much. But after that everything just fell apart. The repetitiveness of the game came out. Instead of the game ramping up, i feel as if it stayed at the same pace the entire time through. Nothing exciting has happened at all. And now its becoming a chore.

Every 10 steps its a group of enemies, i mean c-mon i now its a dungeon crawler but this is ridiculous. Its getting so repetitive and boring. He hyped the game to be so great, but all it is a sh*tty dynasty warrior without any real moves set. All he has is his one combo move where he spins around and its basically the same for every weapon; It maybe that i'm angry at the game right now, but really i hate the fact that i wasted $8.50 on this game. Really every 10 steps or less there's a group of sh*tty enemies to fight who get re spawning in groups of like 10-15. At one point i swear I died at least 5-6 times in one fight. A group of dead wolf soldiers with guns just kept shooting and shooting me while i was trying to fight the fat blob on the chair.

Right now i feel as if this my most disappointed game of the generation. When they announced it, i was so pumped, i was actually more hyped for this then Mass Effect at one time since it was linked to Norse mythology which i knew nothing of. Playing it right now, i really am glad i did not purchase it. Right now i'm dying to finish it so i can return it. I have never been so bored playing a game this generation.

I guess i can now call myself a Too Human *****. But i still think Denis has the chance to make the sequels much better. It does have good roots in a way, and is probably a lot more fun online; but the execution didn't pan out well, especially the mindless fights that happen every 30 seconds.

[jmood88]

Re: Too Human discussion...

This is the most repetitive and annoying game I've ever played. I don't understand how Dennis can think that doing the same thing and fighting the same 5 enemies over and over again is fun and whoever designed the Ice Forest stage needs to be fired. At first it was fun beating up on things but after going through the same looking areas and fighting the same enemies it got really old and boring. I hate this damn game. Oh yeah, the camera is horrible. It's just as bad, if not worse, than Devil May Cry. Whatever happened to the camera being out the way and not having to worry about it? It was supposed to have cinematic angles but I guess they just threw that out.

Edit: The graphics are also pretty bad. They should've stuck with the unreal engine cause the screens released a couple years ago look way better than they do now.