 Review By: Nick Arvites |
Developer: | Silicon Knights |
| Publisher: | Microsoft | |
| Genre: | Action | |
| ESRB: | Teen | |
| # Of Players: | 1 (1-2 online) | |
| Online Play: | Yes | |
| Accessories: | Xbox Live (online play, DLC, leaderboards), HDTV 1080p, In-game Dolby Digital |
Too Human. If you are a tuned-in gamer, you probably already have an opinion on this game. Combining a lengthy development cycle over multiple systems with an outspoken project lead in addition to a lawsuit against Epic is just a PR nightmare waiting to happen. By the time Too Human hit shelves, most gamers already had an opinion on the game, and that opinion was to treat the title as a massive punch line. I tried to not get caught up in the Too Human hatred-meme, and just kept tabs on the development of the title. I prefer to form my opinion on the actual finished product of the game, not videos/demos of early builds or the meme-like cries of forum-goers and blog comments. Ultimately, I went into Too Human with something that many of my “peers” haven’t done: an open mind. After playing Too Human, I found that it did more things right than wrong. This review will examine Too Human as it stands. It will look at legitimate shortcomings, elements that worked, and blatant flaws as it attempts to define and explain the game that Silicon Knights has dropped in our laps.
The first major task with reviewing Too Human is to determine exactly what kind of game Too Human wants to be. The title overlaps into several different genres. Obviously, there is an RPG element and an action element. However, it also has a Diablo or MMO style progression and loot. The best description I’ve been able to make of Too Human is a combination of Ninja Gaiden peppered with elements of Diablo. If you’re coming in expecting a slow-paced RPG, you will be extremely disappointed while action-title fans should feel at home.
The control scheme has moderate learning curve. While this may sound like the standard for action titles, Too Human attempted to simplify the controls. Too Human is designed to be a semi-automatic action title similar to Diablo. Instead of having three different attack buttons, all melee attacks are simply assigned to the right analog stick. You also have a jump button and two power buttons (one is a robot drone, the other is a weapon ability). Guns are mapped to the triggers. The easiest thing to compare melee combat to is a point-and-click system like Diablo. While controlling Baldur, you simply point in the direction of an enemy and he charges them and swings his sword/hammer/lance/whatever at them. Once that enemy is dead, point to the next one. Each enemy generally only takes a few swings, so combat becomes fast-paced and involves your character basically flying from enemy to enemy. You can also create juggle combos similar to Devil May Cry, and you can easily mix in guns while the enemy is in the air. As far as “special moves” go, they’re pretty limited. You can pop an enemy into the air, shoot energy from your swords, or perform a finishing combo. All are easy to perform, so you’ll actually use them as the game goes further.
I actually enjoyed the melee combat. I found the system to work well if you learn it. I like action titles, but I often found myself just not using advanced combinations because I’d get lazy and have no desire to play a mini-fighting game. Take Ninja Gaiden: I like the series, but I rarely do anything outside of normal button presses. I almost never do the huge combos or cool looking moves. That’s why the Too Human system appeals to me. The most complex thing I can do with the melee attacks is either double-tap in one direction to pop an enemy up or point with both the right and left sticks to get an energy blast. The problem is that there really isn’t a tutorial mode that “teaches” you how the stick actually works. Once I figured out that there was a difference between slightly tapping and holding the attack stick, I found myself actually enjoying the combat much more than I was when I just jammed the stick. Getting the feel for the combat is really the toughest part of the learning curve, and it took me roughly two full playthroughs of the demo to figure it out, and even then I didn’t have a full grasp on the controls until I was almost through the first stage in the retail release.
Ranged combat is a different story. While mixing swords and guns in a stylized action title can be really cool, Too Human’s implementation of firearms is just critically flawed. Firearms are divided between pistols, rifles, and cannons. Pistols are great mixed with melee, but several later enemies and bosses/minibosses require rifles or cannons to kill. Rifles are standard assault rifles and have special attacks (grenades). Cannons are high powered machine guns or high powered laser cannons. Targeting is automatic based on where you’re pointing. While that is simple, it takes control out of the user’s hand and makes fighting with ranged weapons a chore and a hassle. One boss could only be hit with ranged weapons and had several different points which had to be damaged. This was basically an adventure in sidestepping, as that’s what the entire fight turned into. Ranged weapons on the standard mobs of enemies really don’t work well (outside of pistol/juggle combos and grenades/cannon-overcharge attacks). The ranged damage never gets close to the melee damage, and I hit a point where I just wouldn’t use the ranged weapons because it took three or four times as long to score a single kill. I understand keeping the ranged weapons underpowered, but they’re underpowered to the point where they border on uselessness. The ranged weapons, especially cannons and rifles, simply need more attack power to be useful.
There is a divide among gamers concerning the analog stick. Many people view it as camera-control only, and decry any attempt to use it otherwise. That is the traditionally easiest use of the right stick, and manual cameras tend to be easier to work with than automatic cameras. Too Human uses an automatic camera setting, and it dynamically shifts periodically to showcase—for example—a cinematic view of your group entering an area. However, it stays fixed at a good angle for combat, and the point of view can be changed in the menus to zoom out. The only points where I missed an automatic camera was points where I was looking for hidden treasure/passages and didn’t feel like stopping and using the “LOOK AROUND” control. Outside of that, I felt the camera handled itself well and I didn’t really have a moment in Too Human where I felt that the camera artificially made the game harder (like Ninja Gaiden).
Posted: 2009-02-22 14:11:03 PST