To tell you the truth Too Human wasn’t on my „Most Wanted” list. Actually, it wasn’t even on my “Interested in” list. Ok, it wasn’t on any of my lists, because it was one of those games I couldn’t care less about. Even though Silicon Knights is one of my favourite companies (Twin Snakes – yeah!, Legacy of Kain – Yeah!, Eternal Darkness – YEAH!) my initial thoughts about their new game were less than favorable. I don’t like the art design – all the screens and videos look way too colorful for a game of the type (action RPG…or is it a hack’n’slash?) and seem motley. I feel a particular distaste for the main protagonist – Baldur who is probably the worst character since Johnny Cage. Deprive him oh his blue face-tattoos and he could be a random goon in a GTA game. His design is so mediocre and boring the person responsible for it should be dressed in a silly suit, given a fake, red nose and a mustache and hung upside down as an example. When I think that I would have to play through three games (Too Human is almost certain to be a trilogy) with that monkey-man I can’t help to flinch. Also, the HUD is terrible in design. It looks like it was taken from a plastic watch for small kids. It should have a friggin’ Mickey Mouse on top of it.
Fortunately the locations look much better although there are some bland textures here and there (the ground in grassy sections – yuck). I particularly like the lighting that isn’t as over exaggerated like most of the art choices in this game. You can see that the game is made on the Unreal Engine; there is no doubt about it.
Next thing I’m not too sure about are the enemies designs – the main mechanical goblins look like a cross between DOG from Half-Life 2 and the Geth from Mass Effect. Actually, to me they look like a total rip-off, but whatever. In the demo the only other enemy (although there are a few types of the goblins) is some sort of a robot giant. Enough to say it looks silly.
Oh, I have to mention that I really like the sound in this game, especially during combat – swords clashing with metal enemies and energy weapons sound really cool. On the other hand the voice acting is not very impressive – it’s a bit too much a B-movie class which doesn’t fit the game.
Ok, I guess I’m done bashing the design, so I should move to the game mechanics. I must say that this game’s presentation is top notch. There are great camera angles not only during the well directed cut-scenes, but also during exploration and combat. Ok, that wasn’t about mechanics. Now I’ll tell you about mechanics.
From the playstyle point of view this game is a bit of like Diablo. You have a choice of five character classes which are supposed to be different from each other, but during the demo I couldn’t see much difference between them. Keep in mind though that the demo if relatively short so you can’t develop your character enough to see his more advanced skills.
The combat is fairly simple, but deep enough for a hack’n’slash to prevent itself from being boring. A word of warning - you won’t realty appreciate the combat unless you play the demo at least two or three times. At the beginning the combat seems very awkward and somehow “fake” and you’ll be constantly trying to change the camera angle with the right analog stick… which you can’t since the right stick is responsible for attacking. The concept seems strange at first, but once you get used to it you’ll be able to pull off some nice combos. Also, the camera might seem unruly at times, but it’s actually designed to give you more dramatic shots during combat, which it does. And you can always manually re-center it.
The item system is also similar to the one from Diablo. You’ll be collecting various pieces of randomly generated armor (which is nice) and many types of weapons – also randomly generated. There are two types of the latter ones – melee and projectile. The melee weapons include swords, hammers, staves, etc. and the ranged ones include pistols, shotguns, rifles and so on. Some of the projectile weapons even have alternative fore modes, which is great.
The demo itself is about 40 minutes long if you skip all the cut-scenes. You may thing that is a lot of time to get to know a game, but in case of Too Human it’s not. You will barely scratch the surface. I think it would have been better if Silicon Knights made the demo from a later portion of the game, with Baldur at a higher level as it would give more insight into the mechanics and combat.
Still, after checking all the character classes and playing through the demo a total of six times I must say that I am pretty interested how the final product will turn out. I won’t say that Too Human will find a place in my games collection, because I will wait for some reviews before I decide to buy it, but the demo did boost my hopes and interest.
I encourage you to check it out. And do not be discourage with your first few minutes with the demo. This game requires some getting used to. I’m sure this game will the “love or hate” kind, but maybe you will actually be the ones to love it.
Oh, one more thing. Most of the character classes are on a timer, and are currently locked (right now you can play two), but there are ways to play all five. Try to google it and you’ll find it.
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