Too Human Demo Impressions

E3 has more or less ensured that it's not getting covered, but the Too Human demo did show up on XBL last night, and at last the trolls at NeoGaf can play an hour of the game they've already declared a failure. Not surprisingly, the game is not as bad as the trolls would have you believe. But that's not to say it's an unqualified success. After two play-throughs, I would be interested in playing more Too Human, but the demo doesn't sell me on the game--at least not at full price.

People throw around a lot of references when discussing Too Human, but here's what I took away from it. The overall art style reminded me of Mass Effect, Halo 3 and Silver (how's that for an obscure reference?). The combat was a weird hybrid of dual stick shooters, Diablo II, Kingdom Hearts II, and the newest Alone in the Dark. The story...well, the use of Norse mythology is both goofy and pretentious, but it all ends up feeling like an early '90s comic book, and I have to admit it had its hooks in me by the end. It should already be obvious from what I've written that Too Human isn't doing anything new, and in some cases it doesn't do what it tries to do all that well. But then again, sometimes the whole experience comes together and is a mindless good time.

Of course the game has been sold as a lot more than a mindless good time, and that's the problem. Had Too Human been billed as a popcorn game from the beginning, the reaction almost certainly would not have been as negative as it has been. Whatever Denis Dyack might have hoped for Too Human to be, he should be able to tell that it's no masterpiece, and adjusted the hype accordingly. Maybe in the end Dyack will be proven right; maybe after an hour of gameplay the tide starts to turn and the true value of Too Human becomes apparent. But I doubt that's the case for the simple reason that most of the game's flaws are not of the "overly ambitious" variety, but the "feels like a last-gen game" variety.

Take the combat, for example. Attacking with the right stick is an interesting mechanic, and sometimes it's pretty fun. But aiming is spotty and frustrating, and precision targeting is nearly impossible. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the shooting is broken, but it's certainly well below average for this generation. There's something like auto lock on, but it's far too easy to randomly turn your back on battle and fire at nothing at all when trying to switch targets. It happens far too often for something that shouldn't happen at all. The moments when I had the most fun were when I was being swarmed by enemies, Drakengard style. When alien sword-fodder is all around you, it doesn't matter if the auto-aim feature randomly causes you to turn your back on the thing you're trying to shoot. And since melee attacks are acomplished with a flick of the right stick, there's no button-mashing fatigue.

Of course the fact that melee attacks are mapped to the right stick means that control of the camera is largely out of the player's hands. In 2008, I would really rather not play a 3D action game in which I don't have full camera control, and that goes double for a 3D action game with a broken camera. Remember 1997, when pre-rendered backgrounds were all the rage? Remember how, in those games, you never knew what angle the camera was going to switch to when you came around a corner? If so, then Too Human is a trip down memory lane. Worse yet, the angles are often the worst ones possible, forcing you to run blindly ahead, or constantly trying to pan away from the action, playing havoc with the already shoddy aiming. The left bumper centers the camera behind your character, but that's about the extent of useful control. If anything about Too Human is an unqualified failure, it's the camera.

The graphics also don't do much to impress. While the aesthetic is a strange and fairly likable cross between Mass Effect and high fantasy, the execution is far from cutting edge. The character designs are hit and miss (the women are much more interesting than the men, who are mostly grizzled, bald space marines, at least as far as the demo shows), but the actual models just don't look very good. The geometry is very obvious under the thin-looking skin textures, and characters look especially artificial when talking. Hair is ugly and very last-gen. Nitpicking? Perhaps, but again, when a game's developers promote it like Silicon Knights (or maybe just Dyack) has promoted Too Human, it's not unfair to expect more. The environments fare better, but I hope that more of the full game takes place in the lush outdoor environments which the game calls "cyberspace", as opposed to the dull gray hallways where all of the combat in the demo happens.

Finally there's the story, which is unintentionally ridiculous, yet successful in a way I'm sure Dyack never intended. As I said before, I couldn't shake the feeling of early '90s mainstream comics, especially Marvel's more sci-fi oriented titles. The pastiche of Norse mythology and Shakespeare (the Norns encountered in the demo are an obvious reference to the Three Witches from MacBeth) is trying so hard to prove that games can be high brow, but it really just ends up feeling like someone trying to show how smart they are by making very shallow references to classic literature. Still, absurd touches like angels coming down to take your dead squad-mates to Valhalla are undeniably entertaining, and the whole thing at least gets credit for gusto. It may sound like I'm just taking the piss out of Too Human with back-handed compliments, but I really would be interested to see how the story unfolds.

One of the big problems that Too Human is likely to encounter is that it's very easy to create a laundry list of complaints, and not nearly as easy to put into words how it succeeds. That's because, like some of the games it aspires to be--Diablo II, Mass Effect--what makes it fun is a certain intangible convergence of things that don't sound all that fun when described. Don't get me wrong--it is extremely unlikely that Too Human will be as good as any of the games it seeks to emulate. But it does appear to be worth a rental or even a used purchase for those who love the plentiful loot drops it offers enough to tolerate its occasionally overbearing flaws. Another six months or so of development wouldn't hurt it, but maybe if the already-announced sequels ever see the light of day, some of the problems can be fixed. If so, Too Human might end up doing all right for itself in the end.