Too Human combines a hint of Norse mythology with a futuristic cybernetic theme and a first-person shooter. Although it's good to finally see it in stores after a 10 year long development cycle, it's not the triple A adventure we hoped for.
The game focuses on a character named Baldur, who's had his fair share of grief over the years and deals with it through aggressive, unrelenting rage. He finds himself pitted against cybernetic enemies that follow their own code of conduct, and he can either retain his human side and forego any cybernetic additions to make him stronger, or abandon humanity in favor of the machines, thus losing his humanity
For the most part, the story is psychobabble, told through computer-generated sequences that look sloppy and unfinished. The entire game stays consistent with that same lack of polish, displaying unappealing visuals and several glitches. On the plus side, some of the enemies do animate beautifully, especially the complicated fire beasts you'll run across. Above-average voice work and an ominous and moving soundtrack are also of good quality.
The rest of the game becomes unnecessarily complicated. Players choose from five character classes: Champion, Commando, Bio-Engineer, Berzerker and Defender. Each one has strategic elements, such as Commandos perform better in long-range combat and Bio-Engineers regenerate health on the fly. Unfortunately, there isn't nearly enough diversity between them. All of them tie into a bland skill tree system, with not nearly enough branches to extend your attacks with. Even if you make your character all-powerful, you'll barely feel the effects.
That's because the gameplay is sloppy. Multi-directional combat is handled with the right analog stick, which you swivel around to attack surrounding enemies. Most of these foes are downright stupid, mindlessly charging at you. The bosses aren't that much better, save for the occasional beast that actually shows a skill or two. As for long-range combat, you're better off forgetting it entirely. Even after you defeat an enemy and flick the trigger to select the next one, most of the time it stays right on the guy you just shot. The lack of manual targeting is a tremendous pain, to the point that you'll want to smash your gun to pieces.
Using loot, you can level up weapons through a blueprint system, along with your armor. Unfortunately, this system is limitless, so you'll spend lots of time creating this super weapon, only to stumble across a better one moments later and repeating the entire process.
Too Human's only redeeming factor is online co-op play. You can log on to Xbox Live and experience the adventure with a friend, foregoing the crappy story sequences and sticking to cooperative combat. You can also trade items if you feel compelled. Had the developers focused more on this and less on the single-player experience, it might've gone somewhere.
All in all, Too Human isn't good. Its control mechanics are terrible, its presentation lackluster and its leveling-up system has too many flaws. It's sad to see a game that took years to get off the ground turn out so sloppy. This Human errs too much.
Reader Comments (30)
Lol does it really make a difference whether this game is bad or not? I mean all in all Halo 3 and Crysis totally own this so theres no point in making a big fuss about it.
Honestly, I didn't think it was THAT bad. I only played through the demo, though. I'm not going to buy it, but I really don't think that its worth saying this game is "bad". I think that its just dated. If it'd come out one or two years earlier, it would have been up for it, but since its coming out following a bunch of other great stuff, its shoved to the back. I would have given it somewhere around a 7.5, at least. Please, those of you at AOL, we're sorry that no one uses your internet service anymore. That doesn't mean you can pretend to be journalists, especially video game journalist. Please stop pretending.
The writing skills of this article are on par with the game. Both relatively bad.
i just think that kmoze08 needs a girl friend
To begin with, there are HUGE differences between the classes. The BIoEnginner's self healing is very noticeable, when compared to no self-healing at all. The Berzerker's attack speed when dual-wielding, once the skill points are set into his skills, is quite noticeable. But I suppose if you chose to put your points into the worst branch of the tree for your class, you could make them all about even. As for combat, it does have it's ups and downs. The ranged targeting is difficult, as at least with my game, the target likes to skip over three enemies in a pack, and then veer off somewhere behind me. Melee on the other hand is quite interesting, given the range of skills that have been associated with the right and left analog stick, it makes for some fun fights. Then you throw in the spider mine, battle cry, and sentient weapons, and you can have some epic battles that you come out on top of. I found the story to be good, but that may be because I was looking for a deeper story, which is what this "psycho-babble" is. The only real drawback to this game as I saw were the graphics. They weren't even close to on-par with a game that should be coming out now, and CERTAINLY not a game that took 10 years to develop. The animation and graphics in the cinematics were old, slow, and didn't really seem to flow together. All in all I'd say it was a good game, but for a game that took 10 years to develop, it's sorely lacking what it was hyped to be.
yeah, i go with everyone elses opinion that this game is pretty bad, and if someone says they dont like a game, don't try to convince them or put it in their brain that it is in fact a good game, lookin at u kmoze08. but im and all around gamer, from call of duty 4, to the katamari series, and any fighting series, i like to play it all. but like everyone is saying, this game doesn't appeal to me, there is another game that has the concept of losing your human self (Dark Void) but i actually seem very interested in that. this game on the other hand is just....... not for me, and nobody i know talks about it, but yeah i can't believe i typed all of this
lol @ Dennis Dyack
wow.... did you even play this game past 5 minutes?? Just because you don't like the multi-directional analog combat. Doesn't mean it no good. Its new and different, at first its weird, but you have to figure out how it works, not just flick the stick aimlessly. I played through the demo 4 times on all different classes available, i did commando twice. The analog combat inst broke or anything. i think you just suck at video games, because it works absolutely perfect for me. And as for long- range combat, again i say you fail, because i found ranged combat to be really powerful, And of course in any game that has ranged/melee combat, the ranged combat always takes more skill, Seems to me like you didn't play the game very much, and in the first 5 minutes you had it in your mind that the game was bad. Too Human is a very unique game, after 10 years of development, i think it was definitely worth the wait. id give it an almost perfect score if this was my game review site. id give it and 8/10 or higher. and thats just the demo....the actual is probably far more entertaining and complex than the demo.
The only reason most of the people who vote say this review isn't helpful, is because they are fans of the game. The majority of people whom this review will catch the attention of, will be fans of the game itself. The game might not be as bad as this review makes it seem, but just remember how long they had to make it. With 10 years of development time, this game should have been AT LEAST great. [About other comments:] Don't say other comments are "stupid" just because you don't agree with them. Everyone has an opinion and there will be plenty of people who disagree with yours as well.
Honestly, I think this game got robbed. What do you mean, "The game looks bad in motion"?? I think that is gorgeous. And if you do make your character 'All powerfull' you do too feel the effects! With a Bezerker the slide length and power dramatically increases. Try doing that, then try sliding with a defender.