Too Humanizing.

By lockeyness August 25, 2008 1 Comments

I decided not to wait to read reviews before picking up my copy of Too Human.  After such a long development cycle... Oh, sorry, apparently it wasn't that long.  After such a sordid development cycle, I had to have a copy of the game in my library, quality be damned.  After playing through the first area, Hall of Heroes, I was still on the fence about the game.  I liked it.  I liked what I played.  I liked killing wave after wave of the same creatures over and over again.  I liked managing my inventory and equipping new pieces of armor and weapons every five minutes.  After killing GRNDL-1, going to Aesir and choosing to be Cybernetic over Human, and watching more cut scenes that "develop" the story, I came to the inevitable conclusion.  Too Human isn't good.  But I liked it.

This isn't the same thing as watching a terrible movie and enjoying it because it's so terrible.  Too Human isn't a terrible game, it just has too many flaws that push it to the edge of mediocrity.  It suffers from what Alone in the Dark suffered from.  There's too many ideas and not enough execution.  Even in a four year development cycle, I'm surprised that Too Human shows such little polish and sports some heavy flaws like the frame rate and poorly animated features.

Too Human can't seem to do anything right.  The combat system tries to be so totally Xtreme but only manages to be mildly badass.  The environments are incredible, but only incredibly repetative.  The creature design is derivative.  Even the loot system suffers some flaws.  It's not that there's too much loot, but there's just... so much loot!  You'll find yourself upgrading anything and everything very quickly.  And that damned 30-second death animation... Patch that thing and let me skip it.  Please.  Don't give me that crap about background loading, because I managed to not see the valkyrie come down to get me twice.  No problems there.   In fact, you can't skip any of the cut scenes, even if you play through the campaign a second, third, or forth time.

Even with all of its problems, though, Too Human is fun.  Surprisingly fun.  That's what matters, right?  Well... I suppose.  With 730 points and plenty more achievements to grind out, I'm sure I'll throw some more hours into it this week.  With so many RPGs coming out, I doubt I'll find myself stepping into Baldur's boots after he hits 50.

I'm sure this question has been asked before, but if the trilogy does happen to be released, what's the second one going to be called?  Too Human 2?  Add in a second playable character and call it Too Human Too?  How about 2 Human 2 Furious?  Too Human: Tokyo Drift.  Two Human.  How many of you think the odds of a Too Human remake are better than a sequel?

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