Silicon Knights’ latest epic has a bit of a problem. The only ones who may fully end up understanding it are those that made it. In fact, Too Human seems to have been created as an in-joke that the rest of the gaming populace is simply supposed to pick up and understand. They won’t because it’s not worth it.
Underneath the inconsistent Norse mythology backdrop (friendly allies speak like they’re in Gears of War, story dialogue remains medieval in style) lies a typical action RPG. Hundreds of enemies spawn, the player kills them, and gains experience along with some new items in the process. Too Human throws in a small twist to this though: Lots of death. No, not to the enemies, but the player.
Technically, it’s impossible to die in Too Human. Death is more of a frustration as you’re spawned directly where you die. In the end, the downside is that you’re stuck watching an aggravating animation sequence every time it happens, it’s far too frequent, and armor can be destroyed. Death can be tough to see coming, as the limited animation doesn’t always indicate you’ve taken a hit, and you’ll need to stop focusing on the fight to check on your health.
Too Human isn’t just unfair. It’s cheap, and never lets up. Even with a decently leveled character (making replaying the overly long, dull levels a necessity), enemies can still routinely wipe you out. Part of this has to do with combat, which is wholly offensive minded. Enemy attacks come from nowhere, and the defensive roll takes the player out of the combat, leading to jerky flow that’s hardly any fun.
A secondary issue is with the right analog stick controls. It never really delves out a feeling that you’re doing damage for one. The entire process feels automatic as the character Baldur glides around the screen hopefully killing something weaker than he is. Secondly, hitting certain enemies could cause them to blow up or freeze Baldur. Not only can it be difficult to pick out these specific foes in a crowd when they’re mixed, the camera doesn’t always let you see the entire battlefield. Press the right analog stick in the wrong direction and it’s an instant cheap shot, purely based on the design of the game.
Worse, the game forces ranged weapons into the fray. You need a balanced character to stand any real chance, but even then, you’ll consistently be at the mercy of a targeting system that stays locked onto dead things even after a living one pulls into view. Picking a specific target is touchy and rarely correct.
The level design causes extreme repetition. There are only four stages, but each lasts for multiple hours. Environments may initially seem fresh, but the whole thing becomes overwhelmingly stale. The ability to save at any time is helpful, but extended sessions only cause the player to lose interest.
As an aside to combat is cyberspace, an idyllic vegetation filled alternate world to the cybernetic story space. Entering these is necessary, yet so dull and ridiculous, you’ll tire of them after the first one. You may walk down a path to do nothing more than open a random door by pressing one button. Why make the player waste the time?
Fans of collecting armor or weapons will have some fun. The naming of some of these items is nothing short of hilarious and ridiculous, but there’s a ton of them. It’s plausible to spend more time in the menus equipping them than in combat. However, there’s a lot of take in, no help to let you know how it works. Runes and blueprints will likely remain a mystery to some.
Online co-op is a missed opportunity as well. Both players need to be on the same level, or the lower ranked player will die in seconds. The game doesn’t scale or change the difficulty to help the lesser of the two. Even with a second person tagging along, the game still suffers from the same ludicrous difficulty, taking a capital F out of “Fun” and moving it into “Frustrating.” Add that to a sound mix that’s completely overdone in terms of bass, and the game can be flat out stupid at times.
It’s hard to screw up an action RPG. However, Silicon Knights was determined to do more, push the genre forward into a world that’s unique to gaming. All the time spent creating the world should have been spent refining the game into something that’s fun to play, like the brief splashes of combat that actually work. Sadly, that’s not what happened.
Tags: action rpg, denis dyack, online co-op, rpg, silicon knights, too human, xbox 360
