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Too Human Review Microsoft Xbox360

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  • Too Human Review Microsoft Xbox360

    Too Human is an interesting hybrid, taking the predominantly stat-driven nature of the action-RPG genre and infusing it with the kind of interactive, skill-based combat that would typically be associated with a brawler. The player takes on the role of one of the more minor gods in a retelling of the Norse mythology that takes place in a technologically advanced society. In this version, the giants and their various minions take the form of machines who are at war with humanity, while the gods exist as cybernetically enhanced humans. This is set against the backdrop of an ongoing nuclear winter caused by the conflict, and whether the events depicted are a part of our future or past is not known.
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    Without doubt the setting is one of Too Human's strongest points, with the developers combining the wealth of background material with a highly creative, original style, managing to find credible modern corollaries for so much of the lore. The new incarnations of the various monsters are wholly convincing, with the enemies evoking much of their traditional character through a combination of high-quality art, design, detailed animation and well thought out attack patterns.
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    Where Too Human really separates itself from the pack is in terms of its combat mechanics. Attacks are mapped to the right stick rather than the face buttons, which, given the thousands of enemies faced in just a single play-through, helps to avoid the early onset of carpal tunnel syndrome. Pressing the stick in a direction launches a melee or ranged attack towards that point, but the skill comes from combining simple attack rhythms with the more advanced combat techniques.
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    For example, double tapping the stick launches an enemy up into the air and away from the player, while tapping both sticks in the same direction will perform either a finisher or a powerful mid-ranged Fierce attack, depending on the distance to the targets. Additionally, directing melee attacks towards enemies further away will cause the player to slide towards them before releasing a powerful strike - an ability that can also be employed mid-air. All kinds of combinations of these are available and by consistently linking between them, without taking any hits themselves, the player will deal more damage.It is all too easy to become overwhelmed by the large numbers of enemies if these are not used; employ them, however, and large, impressive spectacles can be pulled off.
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    Efficient usage of these also leads to the build up of a combo-bar which enables the use of various other abilities. These include Battle Cries that bestow additional effects for a period, Spiders that perform a specialised attack and Ruiners, which decimate nearby enemies in a large pyrotechnics display. Through chaining all these abilities together, fights take on a real rhythm and although the number of different enemy types is limited, their attack patterns and minor variants are well designed. As a result, even though technically fights can end up playing out similarly to each other, they manage to avoid feeling repetitive.
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    The game features five main classes, each with their own skill-tree. Additionally, part way into the game the player will also pick one of two subsequent trees that are common to all classes. While there is certainly a lot of variety in terms of the total number of options, the actual number of progression paths through these are few. For all intents and purposes each class is limited to 3 main character types with little variation within each. This also unfortunately ties each Spider ability to one corresponding Battle Cry, with no ability to pick from these freely. It is disappointing to see such stringent limitations placed on this aspect of the game, although at least the developers have allowed the player to reallocate their skill points at any time, which does give them the chance to try all possible flavours of a class.
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    In terms of the game's levels, the designers have mined the rich vein of background material to produce some very solid results. The world is full of Norse imagery, with statues of giant, mighty warriors ten-stories tall towering over the battlefield, doorways with fearsome-looking birds of prey carved into their stonework and massive caverns and architecture wrought out of the surroundings. Then there are sections full of highly detailed industrial design, light sources wrapping the areas in colour. The levels really are designed on an epic scale and although the battle areas feature generally quite plain geometry, the high resolution textures and prolific use of normal mapping manage to gloss over this. The Aesir Corp. tower stands out in particular, with a beautiful marriage of the two aesthetics and its combination of scale and style leaves a lasting impression.

    On a purely technical level the game is a real accomplishment, representing, to date, one of the most impressive uses of the hardware. Despite its large draw-distance the game will happily throw around dozens of independently animated enemies all with highly detailed character models and various stats rendered around their bodies. Alongside these are a large number of independently targetable projectiles, numerous explosions and several large, translucent effects all going off without the frame rate ever stuttering. Barring the initial loading screen, all areas are streamed into the game as you play, with the action happily switching between levels without the player ever seeing a load-screen again. Although the death animation is a little on the long side, through good use of the advanced combat techniques, a reasonably skilled player should not die more than once or twice an hour. This all helps to keep the player involved and immersed in the experience for quite long periods.

    The one big let-down is the anti-climactic boss fights, of which there are five spread out over the ten-hour duration. While battles against huge mobs of enemies feel like epic encounters, particularly at the higher levels of play, bosses predominantly require the player to jump backwards while firing ranged weaponry at them. None of the more complex and exciting melee-based combat, which is undoubtedly Too Human’s unique gameplay hook, comes into play and these encounters end up as rather lacklustre, unsatisfactory experiences as a result.

    The same criticism can be levelled, to a somewhat lesser extent, at the whole of the final quarter of the game, which takes place in the Norse equivalent of Hell. The machine enemies from earlier in the game are swapped out for a whole new set, this time made up of various types of undead. These enemies are altogether far less interesting and diverse in terms of attack patterns, and lack all the character of their earlier counterparts. The result is that fights become less engaging and turn into repetitive slogs, as the emphasis shifts to a more defensive, less dynamic style of play. Given that this is a title where much of the value comes from repeated play-throughs of completed levels, there is no real need to ever revisit this portion of the game, but it does somewhat take the sheen off the package as a whole.

    There is no doubt that Silicon Knights have failed to live up to their early promises regarding Too Human. The reduction of the online co-operative mode from 4 to 2 players, the over-simplification of the cybernetic versus human upgrade paths and the overly restrictive skill trees all help to make it fall short of original expectations. What is left, however, still manages to stand out as an enjoyable, fresh experience. The well-designed combat makes both its single-player and co-op modes enjoyable - surprising for a game in this genre, where too often the single-player experience can feel like a grind. When the action heats up and the player wades into a huge melee they really do feel like a god. Too Human deserves to be checked out by fans of both Streets of Rage and Diablo alike.
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