Too Human

Let me start by saying that never have I been so conflicted on a game in my gaming life. Games are generally quite easy to categorise in your own mind – the ones you love and the ones you hate. This game however, left me thoroughly confused as to how I felt about it.

You play Baldur, one of the Aesir, who is the son of Odin. In the Too Human universe the gods themselves are not as we would assume but are cybernetically enhanced humans who use their abilities to fight for the humans and generally make their lives that little bit easier. The enemies in question that are plaguing the humans are the machines who with their various shield and weapons capabilities can make for a varied and interesting enemy (especially when you find yourself up against twenty or thirty at the same time with you only helped by a handful of guards that seem to find themselves dead very quickly unless you try to protect them!). So you’ve got human gods with cybernetic implants and machines that appear to be using human blood to fuel themselves therefore bringing the races ever closer although on opposing sides. This is the premise of the title with the machines becoming “Too Human”.

The first thing to mention is the unusual fighting setup. As well as the standard right trigger brings out a huge gun you also have a melee weapon. Unlike most games of this sort in which you would find yourself manically bashing x and y to pull off attacks Too Human offers something more flexible and very refreshing with the right stick being the control for your weapon allowing you to pull off seamless combos and feeling incredibly natural when you get use to it.

The problem with this innovative idea is that we are all obviously use to right stick being to move the camera around. Although there is an option to move the camera round it only happens whilst standing still and general doesn’t allow a wide enough spectrum of the area to make it worth your while therefore leaving your camera controls in the “capable” hands of the creators. However, the camera angles are slow to react with you general unable to see what’s in front of you for a few seconds if you suddenly change direction and leaving you only with the ability to zoom in and out, which is essential considering you will come across miniboss fights that are so zoomed out you can barely make out where the enemies end and you begin. It’s just a good job that death means a short trip to Valhalla before you are conveniently placed back at the beginning of the area!

There are so points to this game that have been said a thousand times but they are necessary to repeat. Graphically this game is spectacular and you will never experience any lag even during the most complex battles. Additionally the story sucks you in from the moment you begin with a more sci-fi vs mythology type edge than most action RPGs will provide. However, within two minutes of playing the game I found myself standing on thin air and as the game continue this occurred more frequently. I also had my men running straight into a wall, all be it in perfect syncronisation, and refusing to follow me and with many of the enemies getting temporarily stuck half way up the scenery it becomes incredibly hard to lure them down and kill them to move on to the next area. In short, although I am aware that not everyone is experiencing these problems there are a lot of glitches that can raise their ugly heads and can really spoil the gameplay for you. And therein lies my conflicting views with this game – it is filled with a amazing views, innovative battles, plenty of choices to customise your character with a skill tree idea used to pick the direction you wish to take your character, everything you could want in this game really but the glitches really do undo all the hard work and effort put in to the game to make it different.