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Too Human Review
by Generalissimo Furioso
More like Too Crappy! God, I hate myself.
I keep banging my head against the wall for ever deciding to keep using my Xbox 360 even though I have a PS3. To be honest, I don't know why anyone even bothers to continue using it. Sure, I hear nothing but praise for the excessively loud and hot deathmachine, but deep down inside every Xbox fan, there has to be a small piece of them that's screaming out "WHY ARE YOU SO FUCKING RETARDED? YOU WASTED GOOD MONEY ON THIS? I'M LEAVING!". Much like Homer's brain at the old cider mill, my mind is somewhere else when I'm talking about this fucking game. To be fair, your minds will probably be sailing out the window as you read this, not so much because it'll be boring, but more like your heads will explode for reading this. For those of you who aren't aware, Too Human has been in development for more than a decade. It was first announced back in the PS1 era, then it moved onto the Gamecube, then it went to Microsoft and the White Box of Fiery Death. I think this game would have been a lot better if this game was released back on the PS1. It would have been new, exciting, maybe even fun. Instead, it's just another piece of crap that is typical of the Xbox 360 exclusives.
GUNSPINNING!!!!!
Too Human takes place in a universe wherein Norse Mythology is real and is all cybernetic and googly with sparks and lasers and glowing blue crevasses on things. You play as Baldur (or something) and you go off to do stuff that's all heroic-like. The idea is not a bad one, but the fact is that it's executed poorly serves as a big blow to the concept of the game. For example, after playing through a good 2 hour chunk of the game, I felt no real impetus to proceed due to the fact that my primary goal was to find and kill a robotic version of Grendel (hilariously enough, referred to in-game as 'some sort of "Grendel"') and to do so, I was forced to talk to witches on the internet (I would have preferred bitches) and push blocks around with glowing green lines that emanated from my hands. For such an exciting new take on action RPGs, this game sure does seem familiar (see every fucking console RPG ever).
Get used to seeing this. A lot.
Of course, bad story and bad puzzles can be ignored if there's fun combat (HAHAHAHA, you know I'm fucking lying, but let's just pretend I'm not so this goes by faster). Unfortunately, the combat in Too Human is roughly akin to being violated repeatedly by a sex offender whose dick happens to have razor blades protruding from all angles. Melee combat is handled by using the right analog stick, failing to note that every game with analog based combat was a horrible failure (as shown by Jet Li's Rise to Honor and Tekken: Death by Degrees). See, the inherent problem with analog based combat is that analog sticks are designed with motion and camera control in mind, so attempting to use it for combat results in a clunky system that requires more fumbling than finesse and camera control issues up the fucking ass. In my time with the game, I can name over 10 separate occasions where the camera pulls out to some fucking far-out cinematic shit for no good reason. This happens on all the different camera settings too, so don't fucking whine to me about how I should put the camera up on Baldur's ugly Aryan ass just to fight. Ranged combat is even worse though, since it involves having to press down a button while fumbling around with the analog sticks constantly to make sure that your bullets are hitting enemies that are still alive and not dead from the previous round of gunfire. Yes, you read that right, the game's targeting system will target enemies that are already dead meaning that while you nobly attempt to fend off the mechanical goblins that are rushing you, the game will gladly force you to fire into the few that are already dead.
Contrary to popular belief, robot blowjobs are quite uncomfortable.
Speaking of death, expect to do it often in this game and not just due to the shitty combat system. You see, somewhere in the universe, someone decided that it wasn't fun or realistic enough to give players the ability to heal themselves with healing items in action RPGs so they just removed them in lieu of a system wherein enemies drop health recovering items. If you played Marvel: Ultimate Alliance or God of War you should be familiar with this system. Unfortunately, in Too Human this idea is poorly implemented, resulting in seemingly random health drops that often result in you dying in places and having to receive a visit from the Valkyrie. Now, dying will result in you being forced to go back a little bit in your current area and suffer loss in the effectiveness of your items, which is annoying in and of itself, but often times the enemies that killed you will be exactly where you left them, in a position ripe for the killing of you. Oh yeah, the enemies, I forgot to mention them, they're all robots that eat people or something. But don't worry about it because they're all pretty much the same thing except that some explode when you kill them (SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT FOR KILLING A HUNDRED OF THESE FUCKERS, YAY!!!!!).
Yes, every fucking enemy has a name like this.
Overall, Too Human is more of a disappointment than a rage-inducing pile of shit. It has a novel premise which is sheared to bits by what appears to be crappy forced design and what is most likely the result of Microsoft threatening to incinerate Silicon Knights' families if they didn't come out with something before Fable 2 and Gears of War 2 hit the shelves. Expect a lot of crap like this from Microsoft this fall, kiddies, loads and loads of it.
I can't tell what's going here, it looks like garbage can with sparks coming out of it is fighting a giant garbage can.
RATINGS TIME
How many needles of black tar heroin to make this game good?:
Enough to make you think that you're Thor.
What made up George W. Bush word would best describe this game?:
Norseriffic
Anger Scale: 1000000000/100, I'm so angry, words cannot describe it.
Distraction Scale: HIGH, after the third fucking flashback, you'll wish
you could reach into the screen and start stabbing people.
Most Comparable to: Jet Li's Rise to Honor. Hahahahahahha.
Best Line in Game: "Today is a good day to die" "You say that every day"
"Every day is a good day to die!"
Final Comment: Fuck Silicon Knights and their ten year development
cycles.