I’m going to try something a little different on here, I’ve always wanted to put up my own reviews on things (games, movies, etc.) and figured why the hell not. Soo, here’s the first…
The demo for “Too Human” came out last week, available for download on in the marketplace for XBOX Live users. I’ve been waiting for this game for awhile now, especially after getting a chance to hear one of it’s creators – Dennis Dyack – talk about the game at GDC 2008.
To say I was…disappointed…would be an accurate subject line for this. Please keep in mind this is about the demo for the game, and for all I know when the full version comes out some of these issues won’t even matter (I have no clue how they address the story in the game). Also, while displeased I was interested enough to plan on picking up a copy eventually of the game, it just may be a previously owned copy is all.
To start with, while I can see there is a definitely a rich story lying somewhere in the shadows of Too Human, it also stuck out that the cinematic approach was sorely lacking for the game. To be blunt, I’ve seen better from games 4 – 5 years older than this game which is just unacceptable from a game that’s had this long to be polished up. Especially a story-driven game, where the storytelling is important. Like I said, though – this may not be the first few minutes of the real game, and a scrunched up version instead for the demo.
The other elements have no excuse as being shortened in a demo, though. The first thing that surprised the hell out of me was the character art…to me, it looks like a sloppy launch title’s art to me. I could have forgiven the flat, horribly proportioned characters if this was a couple years back. The male lead? NO TORSO! Literally, there is no sign of a torso or ass at all there, it’s just this kind of alien-looking straight shot down to the thighs. Textures are sharpish, but uninteresting and flat.
Animation of the main character looked like it was a joke to me as well…ever heard of “air lats?” Those guys who think they are buff, so they hold their arms out at their sides a foot or so beyond what is natural and look like idiots doing it? Apparently the main character’s insecure about something.
Those can kinda be attributed to one’s own tastes I suppose, but it’s just the surface. For some ungodly reason, Silicon Knights decided to remove the camera-control of the right thumbstick all players have been used to for damn near a decade now and moved control of your mêlée weapon there. Oh yes – you have NO control over swinging that sword unless you’re jamming in the direction you want to attack with the sword. I’m the first to give thumb’s up on trying new things, but I can’t see any reason to fix what isn’t broken. It left the controls feeling unresponsive and clunky to me the entire time I played the game, at one point ready to just drop the game altogether which seems like something a demo should never make you want to do.
It could be somewhat mitigated if the camera was at least intelligent enough to keep up with me while I played, but during combat I instead found myself fighting the camera to keep it where I wanted it focused while trying to slash around like a fool. To me the game just screams for the need of smooth, easy controls over the character and instead I felt like I was being punished for trying to fight.
Overall I felt like I had been playing a Bollywood version of Mass Effect with survival-horror controls, which is an ugly baby best left with the dirty water.
I do hope they’ve had time to fine-tune certain aspects of this in the meantime, and pray there’s an option to turn the damned right-thumbstick deal off altogether (which I doubt will exist). Like I said, I will pick a copy of this up when it comes out despite all of this…I’m sure I’ll eventually get used to having sub-class controls in order to explore the story more, and I am quite interested in rying co-op out. Perhaps I’ll rent it first and see what happens from there.
Comments are disabled for this post