When Too Human was announced for the 360 I kept my eye on it and waited patiently for its completion. With its release I was hesitant to purchase due to some less than stellar impressions from a variety of sources, but I still wanted to play it regardless because of the undeniable talent of the Silicon Knights studio. Luckily I had acquired a number of free game rental coupons at Hollywood Video, so I figured this would be an ideal game to use a coupon on.
Though I had been following the game for years, I wasn't quite sure what to expect and the negative impressions lead me to believe I should not expect much. Setting everything aside, I started my Too Human experience.
Though not obvious for most of the game, the story is some sort of modern interpretation of Nordic mythology pertaining specifically to Ragnarok. The world is in somewhat of a Matrix-like state where machines have seemingly dominated the world pushing the world's population into a particular area, while destroying the entire environment creating an eternal winter.
The protagonist of the story, Baldur is an Aesir, a god of sorts though not God himself (that title goes to Odin). The Aesir are cybernetically enhanced human beings and are extremely hard to kill. As a result they have become the protectors of the normal humans and are at the forefront of the war against the machines.
As the game progresses, the story is carried out through a collection of cutscenes that occur between excursions to the outside world where Baldur, accompanied by the human army are on a particular mission to destroy someone, something, or acquire intel. The game's settings are all massive and gorgeous, giving the world a very particular personality. The environments, story, and characters clearly try to convey an epic feeling and they definitely succeed in doing so. In this regard, the game evoked memories of Shadow of the Colossus which took a similar approach to giving the game's epic monsters, an epic world to populate.
Of course all of this means nothing without actual gameplay to fully convey the epic notions of the title. Anyone familiar with games like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance or Champions of Norath will have a good idea of the core concept of the title. Essentially players are fighting massive amounts of enemies in dungeons and all the while are acquiring weapons, armor, charms, runes, weapon blueprints, armor blueprints, and bounty. Every enemy in the game will drop at least something. Whether it is one of the listed items or health, pickups will appear on a constant basis. Additionally, all listed items can be acquired through various beacons in dungeons and through scattered pods.
With all of the pickups constantly flowing in, players are constantly selling (salvaging) unusable or unneeded extra armor and weapons, and equipping the best available of both to keep pace with the increasing difficulty of the game. In this regard the game falls short because the flow of armor and weapons are literally necessary to keep pace with enemies. Even though you are leveling up and gaining new weapons, the enemies are constantly doing the same, so the game never gets easier over time and the difficulty is constant from beginning to end.
The whole system for equipping and salvaging never gives you an edge which is a frustrating feeling. Even collecting blue prints feels like a waste because crafting higher level items is impossible due to locking based on level. So if I am at level 20 and the weapon blueprint I acquire is at level 23, forget about crafting it for an edge; you won't be allowed to use the resulting weapon until you reach the required level. As a side effect, money is practically useless because the best of the usable weapons (ones in your level range) are typically dropped by defeated enemies.
Thankfully the control and combat are actually quite fun and fulfilling. I would describe it as almost Devil May Cry like, because the player is given control of a melee weapon alongside a gun of choice, primarily dual wielded guns. The gun control is delegated to the Left and Right Triggers, each controlling their respective gun, while the melee control is handled by the right control stick. Flicking the stick towards enemies will rush Baldur in that direction and perform the attack which can be coupled with use of the guns for juggling. Enemies are auto-targeted with the guns, but can be selected by using the right control stick while shooting. Sometimes the auto-targeting system can get a little unwieldy but most of the time it works just fine. Players can also perform special moves with the Right Bumper Button, clicking of both control sticks, and the Y button. These moves will depend on your alignment, and can be reassigned at any time throughout the game. The final layer of combat are QTEs which are worked in for defeating particular enemies.
Considering most games in the same genre have a, "Mash on the A Button," style of combat, it was nice to see Too Human take a more layered approach to the system. This ultimately provides for a more interesting experience than any other entry in the genre does.
Now my biggest gripe with the title outside of the enemies leveling up at an equal pace to Baldur is the lack of local co-op. For a game in this style, co-op is practically mandatory. It adds an enormous amount to the game and makes it feel more enjoyable and tactful. As it stands the game tends to drag in the longer dungeons and can easily get boring especially when fighting room after room of hordes of the same enemy types. Co-op would've alleviated some of this tedium or at least masked it.
Other lesser gripes include the mandatory Valkyrie cutscene and the story. Upon dying a Valkyrie rescues Baldur and reincarnates him. The whole sequence takes somewhere in the range of twenty seconds and is unskippable. Thankfully I didn't die much in the game, so it didn't aggravate me quite as much as it seems to with other people, but overall it felt unnecessary. Considering there are really no other penalties for death, I considered this annoying system to be my penalty, and on that level it definitely works.
Also, the story doesn't make any sense for the better part of the game, and still leaves you questioning everything after the game is over. I suppose it is necessary in order to drag the game into a trilogy, but it was fairly annoying.
At the end of it all, the game is decent and can be quite fun at times, especially with co-op over Xbox Live. Anyone with the ability to do so, particularly fans of Silicon Knights games should give the game a go through at least once. It isn't quite a "must buy" game, but it is passable and a perfect candidate for a weekend rental. Most critics seem to have been unnecessarily harsh on the game regardless of the game itself being above average. I guess the years of build up around the title coupled with the Neo GAF controversy left a bad taste in most people's mouths.
I hope Too Human 2 is eventually made, but I hope that Dyack and company compress 2 and 3 into a single sequel and finish the story there. I think the next title can ultimately be a AAA title if they fix some of the flaws of the first and get to the point with the story.
