Video Game Review | Too Human - Download Free Phim, Nhac, Phan Mem, Karaoke

conmeo · #1 (**permalink**) 10-24-2008, 09:52 AM

It’s the Gods of Norse Myth Against a Plague of Robots

Too Human, an action role-playing game for the Xbox 360, was in development for a decade.

I can’t remember the last time a game grew on me as Too Human has. I also can’t remember the last time a game with so many problems and frustrations, one that could have been so much more polished in so many ways, was nonetheless so much fun.

Most big-budget console games these days take at least a dozen hours to play through. Players rightfully demand that much entertainment for the $60 they generally have to shell out to buy them (a price that makes video games the most expensive packaged media around). But the bald fact is that you can usually tell if a game stinks within the first half-hour. And if the initial experience is not making you happy — the animation is jerky, the controls are sloppy, the story is unbearably insipid, the interface is unintelligible or, worst of all, it is just plain boring — it almost never gets better.

Likewise, most great games grab you by the imagination from the very beginning and don’t let go until you realize that the sun is coming up. But Too Human, the new action role-playing game developed by Silicon Knights and published by Microsoft for the Xbox 360, does not fit either of those models.

The basic premise of Too Human is a meld of science fiction and Norse mythology. In Too Human the deities known as the Aesir have been rendered as cybernetically enhanced godlings with the charge of protecting the human race from a plague of insectile robots. The player controls Baldur, son of Odin and brother of Thor, with Heimdall, Hel, Loki and Tyr all playing important parts in the story.

The opening noninteractive movie is exciting, but after that the game makes an almost intolerably bad first impression because most of its myriad flaws are on display from the get-go.

To quote directly from some of my initial notes while playing the game: “A soldier behind me just said, ‘Why in Odin’s name are we here?’ I find myself asking the very same question. ... Nice production values, but the controls are kind of clunky and disjointed. ... I can’t control where I’m looking; the camera is horrible. ... No map? ... If I have to spend 30 seconds watching this same Valkyrie lift my body to Valhalla every time I die, this is gonna get real old real fast. ... The design is obtuse; it’s not run-and-gun, and it’s not really strategic either. ... I’m getting all this loot, but it doesn’t explain what the stats on the items mean; like what does ‘efficiency’ mean on a two-handed hammer?”

After about 90 minutes I was convinced that the more than a decade that Too Human spent in production had been utterly wasted. Incredibly, Too Human was shown in 1999 as a game for the original PlayStation. (Sony is now up to the PlayStation 3.) Then Silicon Knights made a deal with Nintendo, and the game moved to the GameCube. (Nintendo is now up to the Wii.) By the time I saw my first demonstration of the game, about three and a half years ago, it was slated for the 360. And after playing the opening levels, I literally had my head in my hands, wondering where it had all gone wrong.

But I persevered — it’s my job, after all — and slowly this little tingle began at the base of my neck. The phone rang, and I didn’t answer it. I started nodding to myself as I blasted the legs out from under the next hulking death machine with my plasma rifle. I spent 20 minutes in the inventory screens optimizing my load-out, debating which ability-granting rune to insert into which piece of armor. I started getting the hang of the controls, which came to remind me of the arcade classic Robotron, with one joystick controlling movement and the other independently controlling the direction of weapon fire.

I began to appreciate Too Human’s rendition of cyberspace: a verdant, pristine wilderness filled with gates and bridges meant to represent complex data structures. I found myself likening it to the scenes in William Gibson’s “Count Zero” in which a fabulously wealthy tycoon has ensconced his identity in an almost tactile digital representation of Antoni Gaudí’s Park Güell in Barcelona, Spain.

In short, I started having fun. From the notes: “O.K., so the controls are a little weird, but the action is fast and furious, and the actual combat seems fairly well balanced. ... Gorgeous vast landscapes, evocative and creepy. ... Does a very nice job of giving the player a sense of constantly increasing power; the intermittent rewards and overall pacing are nicely done. ... I like how the game rewards exploration; you can go down the main path, but if you poke around a bit, you can find more cool stuff. ... The noninteractive scenes are great, better than the scenes in Mass Effect if not quite as awesome as Metal Gear Solid 4. ... The whole back story and world are very richly imagined.”

The game franchise that Too Human owes most to is Diablo, the seminal PC action role-playing series from Blizzard Entertainment. And to be clear, Too Human is no Diablo. Blizzard would never have let a game get anywhere close to the door with even a fraction of Too Human’s interface hassles, not to mention that Too Human’s online component is positively anemic compared with Blizzard’s online services.

But in its core gameplay and in its ability to keep you firmly planted in the chair or on the couch — the game took me about 20 hours to complete — Too Human winds up the best console game in this often-neglected genre. (Remember, Diablo is for PCs, not consoles, at least for now.) It’s a shame that Too Human makes you work so hard at the beginning to get past all of the things it gets wrong. But by the end I found myself wanting to play the already-planned sequel.

Just as long as it doesn’t take another 10 years to make.

Tigerclaw159 · #2 (**permalink**) 10-26-2008, 06:15 AM

oh this look interesting thanks conmeo ^^

conmeo · #3 (**permalink**) 10-26-2008, 06:54 AM

tiger,

need money to give to uploaders?

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