Published by:
Microsoft
Developed by: Silicon Knights
Available only on:
XBOX 360
INTRO: Too Human lets you assume the
role of Baldur, a cybernetic God. The story is thick and layered but
essentially you’re in the middle of a war between humans and machines in a
post-apocalyptic warzone. Machines have mostly won the war since they were
not affected by radiation, and the humans left endowed themselves with some
cybernetic parts in order to take on their foes. Based on Norse mythology or
something, this one weaves a twisted path and unless you’re deep into that
sort of thing you probably won’t catch any of it.
GAMEPLAY:
First things first, you must decide what class you want your fellow to
be: Berserker, Bioengineer, Champion, Commando or Defender. Of course, they’re
all different with varying strengths and weaknesses. I played the game a few
times though and it doesn’t really matter which class you pick, especially by
the time the game’s over. Then you choose where you align, with cybernetics or
humanity. This is reminiscent of Space Siege, except a little better done.
Cybernetics lets you get cool weapons, and Humanity lets you focus on combos and
speed and things like that. The plot isn’t affected either way though.
Anyway, onto the gameplay itself. You fight your way through dungeons,
huge, long dungeons. Here in the dungeons you fight hordes of dudes. You kill
the dudes, and repeat as necessary. If it sounds exceedingly simple, it is, but
the developers managed to blow it on one of the most important aspects of the
game. Combat is relatively easy, as you move with the left stick and attack with
the right stick ala Fight Night (not that detailed though). You can get fancy
and juggle dudes or do extra damage too.
The problem with this type of combat is that it gets so old, so fast. You
kill guys with no problems and you’ll almost never use the strong moves because
the weak ones kill them all so easily and handily. You can also use guns of
various shapes and sizes but I thought the guns were quite terrible. A lot of
enemies need to be shot too, so that makes the system extra terrible. The aiming
is awkward as can be and the targeting system is so terrible that a lot of
enemies will be right in your face by the time you’re ready to shoot. Your
weapons have state (to tell you how damaged they are) but it’s very
unrealistic and you have to die a whole bunch to be affected by it.
There are some upgrades and special abilities you’ll learn, but they
don’t add much either, besides looking cool and killing a bunch of guys. That is
a simplification, but even your class abilities aren’t that cool, and not a
single one can heal but that’s ok cause there are lots of health pickups. You
can get charms and ruins to upgrade stuff but it isn’t that exciting. You also
periodically go into ‘cyberspace’, these sorts of afterthought levels that are
really linear. You’ll spend your time walking on water and moving things around
with telepathy. These levels were weird and felt tacked on.
There’s more I could tell you about this game but the basics are this:
the foundation is flawed and this makes the rest of the game a bit of a chore.
Believe me, I was pumped for it and wanted to like it despite all the negative
juju. Unfortunately, the hype was wrong.
Gameplay: 6/10
GRAPHICS:
Too Human’s graphics aren’t much to write home about but they’re
serviceable. There are a good few characters on screen at once and they draw
in from far away but the character models are terrible. Like Space Siege,
the game is mostly generic looking with simple space colors all over the
place. The landscape does change from time to time, but they’re all vast,
and all familiar.
Graphics: 7/10
AUDIO:
Sound on the other hand is great, top notch stuff. The voice acting is
really good, and although the battle noises tend to repeat themselves quite a
bit, I really thought the sound was worth noting. It’s great sound design!
Audio: 9/10
FINAL VERDICT:
Although I can’t sum it all up in a short review, Too Human is a game
that should have been awesome and ended up being okay. The story is weird
and doesn’t really work very well. The combat is really repetitive, the
story choices are fairly linear, the upgrades don’t add much, the classes
don’t really matter and the game is too short. Is it playable? It is, but
it’s not worth buying. The rest is up to you, friends.
Final Score: 6.5/10