MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN

You would think a futuristic war against machines with characters ripped right from Norse mythology would be a geek’s dream come true. Unfortunately, said dream became a reality on the XBOX 360 in the exclusive title, Too Human.

Too Human is an Action/Adventure title with RPG characteristics brought to you by Silicon Knights, the same people that brought such original games as Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem to home consoles.

Now, this isn’t a bad game by any stretch. The story is just not as original as hyped and the gameplay is nothing new. You play as Baldur, the youngest of the Aesir, a group of cyborgs regarded as gods amongst the dwindling human population. Baldur is regarded as the greatest warrior of the Aesir, combining both sound military stratagem and brute force. His older brother, Thor, and his father, Odin, both hold him in high regard and send him forth on the most dangerous missions. These missions usual force him to take on the evil war machines that have overrun the planet and have wreaked endless havoc upon the human populace. The machines are constantly trying to one-up the remaining humans and the nearly indestructible Aesir by building themselves bigger and better, simply because it is what they are programmed to do.

As the game starts, machine Trolls and Goblins are numerous. And a new menace has appeared on Earth courtesy of the machines. A machine that feeds on human flesh for fuel called Grendel.

As the game progresses, you find out that Loki has escaped his prison (Norse god of Mischeif and often a villain) and he has befriend the machines and what were once thought only to be myth, the Frost Giants. You also find out more of how the war started with the machines and why Baldur cannot remember everything of who he was beyond a certain point.

If you haven’t already noticed several Norse references, then you must be under the age of 10 and/or have never read a Thor comic. The difference is they decided to combine the Norse legends with the Matrix. This is all well and good, but by no means original. As the story unfolds, it is interesting but, again, if you know anything about Norse mythology, it comes as no surprise that your overall objective is to prevent Ragnarok (the Norse version of Armageddon).

The worst part of this is that they decided to stretch this out over a trilogy a la Star Wars. I wonder what sacrifice you will have to make in the second part to go with the Empire Strikes Back theme. Could we come up with an original idea please?

Another thing that brings this game down is the fighting system. Using the XBOX 360’s second analog stick, you flick it in the direction you wish to attack with your handheld weapon and the right trigger to fire your guns. Overall, your guns are the easiest to use, but against large hordes of enemies, the handheld weapon is necessary because of its power and ability to take out several enemies at once. The idea was solid in using the second stick because it allows you to attack quickly in different directions as enemies try to dogpile on you. The implementation is where this falls apart as glitches swell up as you swing right through your target many times, costing yourself precious time and health.

Not that health matters since you come right back to life where you were when you died. The only thing is you have to wait for the “Valkyries” to come down and carry you off and you have to watch the cutscene the whole way through every time. After a while, it does become a good motivator not to die, but the penalty is not nearly as costly as in other games.

Rankings are based on a score of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.

Graphics: 7.5: There were a lot of loose lines in this game and the backgrounds were dull and blended into each other often. I understand that with the wealth of enemies being thrown at you that you put a lot of processing power towards that, but a game that you put so much time, effort, and hype into should look a little more polished than it was.

Audio: 9.0: Strong music, great sound effects, and alright voice acting gives this a strong score in terms of audio. The voice acting felt a little over the top at times, but I guess this is what happens when you stick 1000 year old mythological characters into a future that we can’t even begin to dream of.

Plot/Plot Development: 7.5: Something stolen from 1000 years ago and the Wachowski brothers is not something that should be sold for $60 a pop. The plot, no matter how unoriginal it was, at least was developed at a decent pace and left enough surprises to make the ending worth it if you are familiar with the Norse mythos.

Gameplay: 5.5: Very glitchy fighting style mixed in with constantly hitting invisible walls in terms of jumping and the actual gameplay suffers at times. Again, just some overall polish to this could have corrected a lot of these problems, but instead they will just throw more enemies at you that you swing through.

Replay Value: 4.0: After you beat this, it is almost a relief. You could go back to into the game to try to keep leveling up and find new items or to try different warrior classes, but there really isn’t a point once you beat it.

Overall (not an average): 6.5: A decent story and a solid musical score is the only thing that keeps this game passable. Glitchy graphics and gameplay make the game more of a burden than it should be for something at this point in the current generation of games. A disappointing effort from the guys at Silicon Knights. I hope the second installment improves on these problems.

-Ray Carsillo