Previously, Too Human was planned to be set in the future but it seems now that the theme has now moved onto Norse mythology. You play the game as a character named Baldur, who happens to be a God. However, all the other Gods make fun of him because he’s a bit too human and he fights against an army of machines in order to protect the humans.
Too Human promises to be too epic
The game is meant to play like an action game but will have dashings of RPG interlaced. A large portion of the game will be the continual collection of upgrades for Baldur. These upgrades will obviously make him faster, stronger and meaner. However, the main course of action will combine gunplay and melee attacks. When you’re using your guns, the camera zooms out to give you a wider view. However, when you pull out your melee weapons, the camera will zoom back in. Melee weapons will cover a selection of halberds, hammers and staves.
The melee combat felt very fluid and natural. We were never forced to fight against the controls, as the scheme itself was had a very minimalist approach to it. It wasn’t bad but it was at least accessible. With the gunplay, the guns were controlled but the left and right triggers. The only small issue was that the auto-lock was in need of some work. At times we were attacking enemies that we weren’t intending but it’s an issue that will likely be worked on before the games release.
Attacking enemies will build up your super move gauge. Once it fills up, you can pull off a super-charged attack with merely a press of a corresponding face button. However, if you are hit by an enemy, the gauge will be decreased. You will also be able to play the game co-operatively with up to four players. There is no word on how the game will be changed in order to cater for the game other than you and your cohort will be roaming the world “hunting and gathering” the upgrades that are available.
In the hands of the Gods
One thing that was unique about the game was the way that the camera was handled. Even though there have been lots of games where the camera has been controlled completely by the game but none have tried such a different use of angles. For example, when an enemy was first encountered, the camera switched to a view that was behind the enemy’s eyes. The view was complete with orange robotic terminator-esque HUD. It’s not that you’ve lost control of your character, it’s only that the view has been changed. As you jump down to the enemy, the camera will shift around in a cinematic fashion. At another point, the camera switched to a side on view of a corridor. This was touted by the game’s director, Dennis Dyack as a “Contra moment”, and it was quite impressive.
Despite our reservation about not having any control over the camera, Dyack assured us that the final game would work out just fine. It helped that the camera posed no problem at any stage during our playtime. Despite some lengthy load times between levels, we were also assured that by the time the final game ships, these will not be present, at all.
We were later privileged to take a look at a portion of the game known as “Cyberspace”. This is where all the exploration of the game will take place. It was actually a very different place to the levels where we were fighting hordes of machines. Where as those places were artificial, sterile, metallic and cold, Cyberspace is meant to be an artificial representation of the real world. That is, you’ll be exploring places that covered in trees, flowers and grass and so forth.
Next-gen enough?
The game looks like it is really taking advantage of this next generation hardware. The levels were absolutely massive and had something of an epic feel to it. The best part about it was that objects actually looked like what they were trying to represent. The rock actually looked like rock and the metal actually looked like metal, not plasticine and not plastic. This shouldn’t be a surprise given that the game is running off a heavily modified version of the Unreal Engine.
Overall, our experience with Too Human was a positive one. However, the general reactions on the game have been mixed so far and there is no indication with regards to how long this game is. Is there a higher expectation placed on this game because it has been in development for such a long time? If we come out at the end of the day with an enjoyable experience, that’s all that really matters.
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