Too Human (Xbox 360)
In a typical Too Human scenario, I'm face-to-face with a giant mechanical troll-thing flanked by endlessly respawning goblin creatures. My allies, not surprisingly, are nowhere to be found. I target the troll. No, not that body part. The other one. No, not the goblin. The troll. Camera careens wildly. Goblins swarm all over me. I'm dead. A valkyrie descends from Valhalla and cradles my character in her arms. After precisely 26 seconds, I return to battle.
alt="Battle scene"/>With both analog sticks used for movement, there's no way to manually adjust the camera on the fly -- a shame.
Goblins coming. Run away. Camera careens wildly. Can't see anything. Swivel around. Can't see anything. Center camera. Oh, there's the troll. Fire at it. My shots miss. Why am I firing off to the side? Troll coming closer. Goblins. Death. Valkyrie. Twenty-six-second wait. (Check e-mail while reincarnating.) Run. Swivel around. Center camera. There's the troll. Target body part. No, not that body part, the other one. Crap, goblins. Death. Valkyrie appears...
Clearly, something is wrong with this picture -- and for the record, it isn't my hack n' slash skills. I love a good monster-thwacking, loot-hording dungeon crawl as much as the next person, but in spite of its grandiose ambitions in that direction (complete with skill trees, multiple player classes and a mind-boggling array of equippable and customizable weapons and armor), Too Human largely fails to deliver where it matters most: gameplay.
alt=" An Aesir"/>The Aesir's cybernetically enhanced bodies make them more powerful than mere mortals.
The game's story puts a unique spin on ancient Norse mythology by fusing it with advanced technology. The main character, Baldur, is one of the Aesir, gods represented as superhumans with cybernetic implants who wield both sword and machine gun, and reside in the hallowed halls of Asgard where bronze statues and red wall tapestries are side by side with potted plants and secretaries wearing grey skirts and high heels.
This juxtaposition of medieval and modern is the most intriguing part of Too Human, if for no other reason than it makes for some truly messed up loot, like the Pure Shockplate Traction Pads of Battle Prayer, the Silver Effector Implant of Swiftness, the Reciprocal Blast Array of the Cunning, or -- my favorite -- the Willful Gunslinger's Drawplate of Ventilation.
But man, does the gameplay stink. To be fair, I should append that sentence with "at times." When Baldur and his contingent of allies are simply wandering through the game's cavernous halls dispatching waves of lesser enemies, things are pretty much hunky-dory, if a little bland.
alt="Baldur and Ice goblins"/>Ice goblins are one of several enemy variants that can negatively affect Baldur's status.
You use the left analog stick to move and the right analog stick to perform melee attacks. Simply press the right stick in the direction of an enemy, and Baldur will glide there all godlike and start swinging at it. Keep the stick pressed on the enemy and Baldur will hammer away at it until it's dead. It's a straightforward and, in its most basic form, elegant, approach to combat. Most importantly, it takes button-mashing completely out of the equation, which is a good thing. There were certainly some Zen moments to be had while happily gliding from one enemy to the next, laying the beat down with my Wilful Quarterstaff of Sharpness.
The serenity doesn't last for long, though. Once the game starts to add in the beefed up "leader" characters, and variations on basic goblins that pack projectiles or the ability to freeze, flame, poison, or slow Baldur down, combat takes a nosedive. It's at this time that the game's primitive targeting system and completely broken camera (not "quirky," not "innovative," not "temperamental," but broken) conspire to send Baldur up to Valhalla more times than I care to remember.
When faced with these clusters of enemies (which, by the way, have no advanced strategy beyond "let's all swarm Baldur at the same time"), gameplay becomes like that of Dynasty Warriors but without the sense of invincibility and reckless abandon that comes with having a ridiculously long life bar and enemies that merely chip away at you like gnats on an elephant. You'll start to die quickly and often, whether it's due to getting cheaped from afar by five sharpshooters at the same time or getting snagged by a fire or poison status drain and watching in despair as your health meter goes to zero with no hope of recovery because there are no randomly appearing health-replenishers nearby. Cue the valkyrie and reach for the laptop to check the weather.
alt="Baldur holds companion's head."/>One of Baldur's companions is a severed head who gets dragged around by his brain wires. At least he has an excuse for not helping with the fighting.
Baldur's computer-controlled companions prove to be stunningly useless on the battlefield. They actually seem to pop in and out of encounters at will, and when they are in the same vicinity as you and an enemy they're likely to stand there immobile, or inexplicably walk in the opposite direction of a foe.
Even bad-ass Thor kind of sucked. On one occasion he literally stood there, not fighting back, as a giant spider attacked him over and over again, leaving it up to me to drain the thing's life bar -- once I managed to target it, mind you. As I ran towards the spider and took out my gun to fire, Baldur abruptly turned and started firing into the thin air behind him. It happens a lot.
On the upside, there is a ton of equipment to scavenge and most of it looks pretty damn cool. There's so much of it, though, that you'll either spend literally hours meticulously re-equipping after every battle, or you'll ignore it for so long that, when you finally do access your inventory, you'll have to trash the first nine sets of armor unworn.
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If it seems like I'm harping on the combat, it's because that's the meat of the game. The locations are too barren and linear to be interesting from an exploratory perspective, the NORN challenges (brief side excursions that take place in an alternate reality known as cyberspace) are too basic to be true brain-teasers, and the cut scenes are too graphically pedestrian to be breathtaking for their own sake.
Too Human isn't a total train wreck, but it does contain too many examples of gameplay and design that can only be described as primitive -- it's as though beautifully dark epics like Gears of War or loot-hording havens like World of Warcraft were still a couple of years away. I, like many gamers, was expecting better from the makers of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and Legacy of Kain.
This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.
Think the game deserves a shot? Check out David Chapman's Dissenting Opinion: Too Human.
