Too Human

Too Human has been shrouded with bad press. With gaming forums talking both the game and Denis Dyack down, it could of been easy to put this game off to the side. I went into the game with a lot of negativity, but it quickly flew out the window. Too Human, at its core, is a very fun game. With an interesting story, addicting gameplay, and so much loot to wrap your head around, Too Human is absolutely worth giving a shot.

The game’s story is based around Norse mythology but is set in the far flung future. You’ll play as Odin’s son, Baldur, who is basically a Cyber Viking God. Throughout the story you’ll be fighting off hordes of robots and eventually zombies who are attacking your city. The first half of the game will have you watching flashbacks to catch up on what’s been happening. This God named Loki has escaped prison and is out to kill the rest of the Aesir Gods. The whole story will last just over 10 hours and remains pretty interesting throughout, with an ending that sets itself up nicely for a sequel.

Besides the single-player mode, there’s online co-op. You and a friend can fight through hordes of enemies, trade items, and collect loot together. Unfortunately you won’t be able to view any cut-scenes while playing co-op, which might lead you to wonder why you’d even want to do that. The answer is simply the game’s five different character classes. From the Berserker; who specializes in melee combat, to the Champion; a well-rounded fighter, to the Bio Engineer, who acts as a healer class. These different classes all work well together, as one class can always benefit from another. No matter which class you choose to play through in the single-player campaign, it won’t make much of a difference since you’ll mostly be hacking through hundreds of enemies.

As I previously stated, an interesting aspect of the game is that quest for more loot. Almost every piece of loot looks different, something sorely needed in more RPGs, so no two characters will look exactly alike. As you start to ascend to higher levels, the armor and weapons start to look more impressive as you’ll improve on your God-like status. Aside from the loot looking cool, the character models look pretty good themselves. On a close-up shot of Baldur, the blue lines on his face look great. On the down side, facial expressions seem to be non-existent, which hinder in the telling of the story.

The four environments you’ll travel through look pretty good for the most part. One part that sticks out in my mind is the beginning of the last level. Fighting through a horde of zombies while these huge tanks in the background move around and try to shoot down a wall was pretty impressive. Not everything looks good in Too Human though. Some stiff animations, visual clipping, visually rough-looking levels make the graphics seem a tad dated.

The gameplay isn’t very challenging due to the lack of a real death penalty. When you die you’ll be forced to watch a beautiful Valkyrie come down from the sky and carry you up to Valhalla so you can resurrect. This whole scene will take about 10 seconds. Once it’s over, you’ll continue exactly where you left off in the battle. Personally, I’d rather watch that than start over at a checkpoint and re-clear a room. In single-player, you’ll be be teamed up with some AI teammates. They aren’t very smart or useful. Instead, they like to stand back and tell silly jokes about the situation.

The musical score in the game is nice to listen to, but it can become misleading at times. Sometimes when you pick up a certain item or are just running through a room, some over-the-top epic music will start playing, making you think something important is going to happen when, in reality, there’s nothing going on. To help with the lack of facial expressions, the voice acting is good for the most part, but nothing really memorable.

Too Human is not a bad game. It could give you 20 hours of enjoyment if you’ll just let it. It’s best to put all the bad press aside and give the game a shot to see what it’s all about. With downloadable content and a sequel clearly on the way, I recommend giving Too Human a shot.