Too Human

By Tom Bramwell Published 9 July, 2008

Swords and Norsery.

It's not really in the room yet, but playing through a near-finished build of Too Human, Diablo III is certainly an elephant on the horizon. Cruising around the universe as a cyberpunk Norse myth splattering tinsel-covered robots with a big blue hammer, something Blizzard's Rob Pardo said the other weekend springs to mind: "If there were a ton of games out in the market that are the isometric action-RPG model, then we probably would have more seriously done a different approach." Too Human is trying to be something like that - a mixture of hackandslash and shooter and customisation-heavy RPG, with an isometric camera among the various automated options - but if this had come out a year ago would Blizzard have looked elsewhere for its next big reveal?

Too Human is the story of the Norse gods - who in Silicon Knights' thoroughly articulated fantasy are cybernetically enhanced humans - and their struggle against a machine army. For the single-player campaign, you play Baldur, Odin's son, and split your time between chatting and tinkering with your weapons, armour and augmentations back at home base and smashing up massive hordes of robots in gigantic dungeon fortresses.

Initially it's the latter that's more pronounced. Using the left stick to move and the right stick to attack, with other buttons for jumping, rolling and specials, you build up combinations by moving fluidly between opponents with gentle analogue swipes, juggling them into the air and building up combinations with directional gestures on the two sticks. Baldur's packing, too, so you can build gunfire into your combos, pulling the triggers and targeting enemies with the right stick, locking on to some extent. Successful chains, calling on both skills, feed a special meter that lets you unleash a devastating multi-target ground-pounding stun attack.

There's depth here, but it's the RPG elements, which announce themselves gradually over the opening hours, that draw you in with greater urgency. There aren't that many enemy drops, but there's a mountain of loot to recover on your violent adventures, some of which can be applied and re-crafted through the hub level's cybernetics lab, or simply invested in new equipment, and there's an elaborate skills tree to explore, which differs depending on which of the five character classes you chose at the outset.

'Too Human' Screenshot 1

By relying on the right stick for combat, targeting enemies is handled as part of the motion to attack, but at the expense of fluid camera control.

The interface for this looks complicated, but always signals which items are the best at any given time, and there's a healthy mixture of logic and choice behind the decisions you make on these screens. For instance, armour items often have slots for runes, which have modifying properties that may suit your play style, and after a couple of hours you're invited to choose one of two broader progressions to pursue: cybernetics or refined, combo-heavy human attributes.

You have to pay attention to get to the core of the game's expectations, though, because while you're getting your head around all this you're being thrashed constantly with head-spinning in-engine cut-scenes plotting the machinations and politics of Too Human's elaborate fiction. There's your dead wife to consider, and a god on trial, and Thor's secret feelings for Freya, and whether the mystical three-bodied NORN spirit (part wench, part crone, part tranny) is right about your Wyrd. There's lots of shouting about who gets to go on missions, and lots of traipsing around the hub between cinematics.

Despite Silicon Knights' very public spat with Epic about Unreal Engine 3, the developer's dragged a lot of vast, detailed environments out of the Xbox 360 for these scenes and the hackandslash combat to occupy. Dungeons are cavernous fortresses of ornate stonework glistening amongst pulsing blood-red technology; lifts between levels hide behind massive carvings that fold away from crackling torches and relentlessly impractical masonry; and dozens of bowing NPC soldiers (you're a god, remember) and shiny robot adversaries can inhabit the same space without the engine belching any discomfort.

'Too Human' Screenshot 2

Baldur's not a pretty man, so it's a good idea to invest in a face-covering helm as soon as possible. Or failing that a paper bag.

The developer's proud of its fiction too, and waves its hybridised cyber-Norse flag at every opportunity. Thor takes a seat at the dinner table by plonking his hammer down and cracking the glass surface, which gradually reconstitutes itself as you stare through it from below and admire his hulking crossed legs, and death is punished by an unskippable animation of a robotic valkyrie descending out of a white light to scoop you up to the heavens (or more accurately to a save checkpoint a hundred-or-so feet in your past).

The occasional pop-in texture or pause before a door opens are the noticeable costs of the game's epic construction, but the rather more grating one is the absence of environmental interaction, with invisible movement buffers around jagged edges and rather a lot of walls you have to walk around rather than jumping over.

This isn't a massive problem in a genre where tinkering and whacking are the key components, but it does frustrate a little when the game over-elaborates certain sections with long treks to out-of-the-way smashables (usually harbouring bounty or red orbs, which are the only in-game health pickups), and in the sections where you step through the water into the NORN "cyberspace" and do something to affect the real world. "Puzzles" would be too strong a word in most cases; you often walk to a designated spot, push a button, and then watch a cut-away scene that shows what you just did, allowing you to trek back to that point and take advantage.

But while this sort of thing is forgivable (not to mention optional), our real concern with Too Human is that the combat and plot struggle to carry you between the bits you like: most often the RPG character-customisation elements, which are arguably meant to be the supporting act in the first place.

There's a lot you can do to your enemies on the battlefield, but there doesn't seem to be a lot they can do to you - and certainly not a lot you'll struggle to get past. The analogue controls are a little groggy and the combo system takes a while to accept, but despite this and despite an automatic camera that seems to be in league with the opposition whichever option you choose, you're not in any lasting danger. The checkpoints deposit you back in the action with no more enemies to face than when you expired, so if you can't get the measure of a situation you can always watch a few death animations and eventually advance through weight of respawns.

That said, enemies rarely do more than take up basic roles against you, so you prioritise the pesky ranged ones then despatch the rest in a close-quarters frenzy, which is borderline button-mashing until you learn or decide to restrain yourself. Gunplay feels like an afterthought throughout. More exotic, boss-style adversaries usually have various components to target, but in the absence of a party to back you up there's little strategy to enact.

'Too Human' Screenshot 3

The Grendel monster chases you around a big room smashing up pillars for a bit, but you can grind him to death after a while - whereas all his painful-looking chest-weapon can do is spit you back to a checkpoint without restoring his health.

The original idea was to have drop-in/drop-out four-player multiplayer, which would have made sense given the different classes available (there's a tank, a healer, a ranged attacker, etc), but this has been reduced to two-player over Xbox Live. With no local play that we could uncover, we didn't get to test this, but reports abroad suggest that there's no change to the forgivingness of the death/respawn cycle, so in theory there's no need to fight together to survive, just another greedy inventory to feed with loot.

For all its scale, gizmos and Norse namedropping, there's little personality to the places you visit and the people you encounter, either. Soldiers in the dispensable human wolf pack that back you up banter back and forth but it's frat-boy mercenaries on a road-trip. The dialogue throughout is part daytime soap opera, part school play, and the sets - far from giving the game a sense of place and atmosphere - are just bizarre. Okay, you're meant to be gods, but does this really mean the boss's office should be in a sort of whale ribcage construct with giant sparrow statues suspended over a mountain range accessible only by a magic floating platform? After witnessing what BioWare achieved with Mass Effect a few months ago, it's all a bit pantomime.

'Too Human' Screenshot 4

The cybernetic Norse crossover canvas is impressively coherent, but the locations and drama painted across it are less agreeable.

Which is a shame, and hopefully something the game conquers as you cast off the stabilisers and get stuck in properly. We've deliberately avoided racing through what must be a near-final build so as not to prejudice the review too much, so there's still the chance for it to surprise us later. The problem is that after a handful of hours in Baldur's shiny, customisable armour, it really would be a surprise. There's a nice resource management and skills-chasing sub-RPG lurking in the menus, but the rest is repetitive, overly forgiving and quickly forgotten. In answer to our original question, then, we suspect the elephant would have pitched up anyway. We'll see next month.

Too Human is due out exclusively for Xbox 360 on 29th August.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (73) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • malteaserhead #1 4 years ago

    (P)review?

    edit - bum, now you changed it completely to make me look silly ;)
    Edited by 2 at 09/07/08 @ 20:21

  • HolyJebus #2 4 years ago

    I think this article is for all the idiots who think EG are biased towards MS

  • tnt_2008 #3 4 years ago

    this game is suposed to be awful terrible graphics and very short game as was post on video gamer 247

  • dan13l #4 4 years ago

    "repetitive, overly forgiving and quickly forgotten" - So a bit like Dennis Dyack then?

    It really does sound like you've written this off already Tom - I can't see the final review code changing much after its been in development for so long.

    Shame, for a brief moment I was interested again.

  • Darren #5 4 years ago

    This game looks horrible in the videos I've seen... generic art design and dull, empty, box-like environments to fight in. Urgh! Maybe it's better to play but its bland looks certainly don't sell the game to me at all.

  • IronGiant #6 4 years ago

    Yet another massively over-hyped and long delayed disappointment awaits. This game will quickly end up in the bargain bins i suspect.

  • Xensor #7 4 years ago

    This game is unfortunately doomed to fail. It has some good ideas but it seems blighted by poor design decisions and the 800lb gorrilla that is Diablo 3. In fact it reminds me a lot of Hellgate.

  • UncleLou #8 4 years ago

    Yet another massively over-hyped

    This game has been hyped? O_O

    Everywhere I look, people have been slagging it off for years, even before the "pirotic incident".

    Should add that I always thought it looks interesting, but then I love this kind of game. If it really is short though, then that's a major failure for that genre.
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/08 @ 14:18

  • hulahoops #9 4 years ago

    So presumably the enemies will all be using mistletoe tipped weapons then?
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/08 @ 14:18

  • LunatikCajun #10 4 years ago

    This game had me when I found out about the Bezerker Class. Dual Wielded Hammers? Yes Please

    As for Repetative Combat, well, I like the Dynasty Warriors games, so I'm sure I'll live.
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/08 @ 14:19

  • berelain #11 4 years ago

    I was always a little skeptical of Too Human, given that preview videos always looks rather stunted and, well, unfinished (as you'd expect! I hear you cry), but I did harbour a secret hope that it might surprise me.

    Looks like it won't.

    Oh well.

  • Gnort #12 4 years ago

    I don't think Too Human is doomed to fail by Diablo 3, if you consider that this is a console-exclusive and D3 is a PC-exclusive. Also, TH is out in August, and, knowing Blizzard, D3 will be out in 2010.

  • sanctusmortis #13 4 years ago

    I'm awaiting reviews on this one. A lot of people have slated the repetitive nature lately, but if we're honest, isn't that a genre trait? I'll just wait and see what there is beyond that for now.

  • Quint2020 #14 4 years ago

    Shame, was really looking forward to this.

    /Resumes waiting for Sacred 2

  • Prodigy_BE #15 4 years ago

    People who are interested in this, should look up the Denis Dyack vs Neogaf saga on the web.

    And seriously, don't buy this. It's Microsofts answer to Haze :D

  • Darren #16 4 years ago

    Well Haze wasn't an awful game but it was terribly, terribly bland and uninspired. That's the vibe I'm getting from Too Human too. Could do well if it gets 6/10+ reviews and Xbox 360 owners are looking for something to play after the July/August games drought, who knows?

  • systems #17 4 years ago

    A demo of the starting levels is meant to be out during E3 isn't it?

  • UncleLou #18 4 years ago

    People who are interested in this, should look up the Denis Dyack vs Neogaf saga on the web.


    The day I deliberately read the Neogaf forum is the day I quit gaming...

  • Snidesworth #19 4 years ago

    I really want this to be good, but I don't expect it to be. Hopefully a demo will let us evaluate it before we have to hand over hard cash.

  • samaran #20 4 years ago

    "Okay, you're meant to be gods, but does this really mean the boss's office should be in a sort of whale ribcage construct with giant sparrow statues suspended over a mountain range accessible only by a magic floating platform?"

    yes

    that sounds amazing

  • darc #21 4 years ago

    "The Grendel monster chases you around a big room smashing up pillars for a bit, but you can grind him to death after a while - whereas all his painful-looking chest-weapon can do is spit you back to a checkpoint without restoring his health."

    One of the biggest complaints - the inevitable and inconsequential death/respawn rythym - reminds me of a little 2007 game called Bioshock. Oh wait, wasn't that like game of the year or something? ;)

    I can't recall ever reading such a harsh preview on EG before. This must be in pretty rough shape. Shame, the opening paragrahs had me thinking this was right up my alley. Anyway, if the multiplayer is co-op (and there's some measure of co-op strategy involved) my wife and I might enjoy it.
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/08 @ 14:39

  • Killerbee #22 4 years ago

    Sounds... um, rubbish?

    Definitely one to wait for the final reviews on - that's if the level of interest even lasts that long.

    Ho hum. Next?

  • systems #23 4 years ago

    @darc - the co-op is over Xbox Live. There is no local co-op so you'll need a console and TV each.

  • Dizzy #24 4 years ago

    Repetitive?

    That is the trademark of Diablo style games. The fun is usually the loot and the skilltree.

  • klem578 #25 4 years ago

    This comes out the same day as Mercenaries 2,right?

    Now, this OR Mercs 2? Tough decision - NOOOOT !
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/08 @ 14:46

  • mikeck #26 4 years ago

    "This comes out the same day as Mercenaries 2,right?

    Now, this OR Mercs 2? Tough decision - NOOOOT ! "

    Exactly...Too Human all the way ;)

  • mikeck #27 4 years ago

    "Okay, you're meant to be gods, but does this really mean the boss's office should be in a sort of whale ribcage construct with giant sparrow statues suspended over a mountain range accessible only by a magic floating platform?"

    "yes

    that sounds amazing"

    My sentiments too, that sounds like it should look pretty cool...

  • seasidebaz #28 4 years ago

    So, this is the 360's answer to Haze ;)

  • Zelos #29 4 years ago

    Isn't repetition kind of a selling point for dungeon crawlers?I'm just playing through Diablo 2 now, and it's not exactly varied. Not all that difficult, either, with the same ability to get through difficult encounters by dying and respawning.

  • darc #30 4 years ago

    "@darc - the co-op is over Xbox Live. There is no local co-op so you'll need a console and TV each."

    Stranger things have happened...

  • Feanor #31 4 years ago

    The EG forum has as much per capita nonsense as NeoGAF.

  • PlugMonkey #32 4 years ago

    This game is going to rock.

    Edit: Also, how has this game been massively over hyped? It's been massively over *panned* based on an ill-advised showing of some very early code. I can't say I've seen that much actual hyping inbetween the spite and bile.
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/08 @ 15:17

  • septimus #33 4 years ago

    @HolyJebus: Indeed, this one article about a shit game really does set the record straight. Tool. If you can't see the strong EG/MS link on this site you must be blind.

    Anyway, all the previews of this game ever have read disappointingly so this is no real surprise.

  • TitusCrow #34 4 years ago

    eek! never read a preview with so much negative energy in it, i think this game will bomb and if its in the shape this says it deserves to as well.

    meh sacred it is then till D3 for isometric hack and loot :)

  • HolyJebus #35 4 years ago

    Well septimus I guess that makes you one of the idiots I referred to above.

  • koji_m #36 4 years ago

    loot? yes
    stats? yes
    menu screens? yes
    glowing stuff? yes

    ok

    GIEF!

  • Paukl #37 4 years ago

    Did anybody hear Dennis Dyak on 1up Yours this week? Spent an hour discussing social interaction and technology's affect on society and whatnot, really interesting stuff.

    On topic, the game doesn't appeal to me at all, I just don't like either of the genres it seems to be straddling (RPG and Dungeon Crawler), so it never had a prayer as far as I was concerned.

    It does seem odd, though, that folk are so hyped on Diablo 3, yet so down on Too Human, surely there's some crossover appeal there?

  • Widge #38 4 years ago

    "borderline button-mashing until you learn or decide to restrain yourself"

    The same problem with Heavenly Sword and Crisis Core. No need to really involve yourself in the combat engine if mashing away at X does the trick for the entire game.

  • anomagnus #39 4 years ago

    hmmm, still undecided

    EG gave viking 6, and i thought it was stunning.

    Personally, though, i think this game gets bashed because its fashionable to bash (looking at onefag/neogaf here)

  • drumbaby #40 4 years ago

    Sounds marvellous.

  • glaeken #41 4 years ago

    I am keeping an open mind on this one. It just seems its become cool to constantly bash it and the bashing is actually gettting tiresome now. Lets wait until its actually released and see what the reviews are like for the finished product.

    @anomagnus this site actually gave Viking a 5/10 which is quite frankly shocking when I think how much I enjoyed that game. I don't think I have ever seen a review so out of touch with my own thoughts on a game.

  • PlugMonkey #42 4 years ago

    I feel like I'm reading a different article. I'm reading this getting a generally positive impression with a few reservations, none of which are particularly troubling me. I'm at a bit of a loss as to what the massively negative bits are.

    For example, I thought this bit sounded good:

    Using the left stick to move and the right stick to attack, with other buttons for jumping, rolling and specials, you build up combinations by moving fluidly between opponents with gentle analogue swipes, juggling them into the air and building up combinations with directional gestures on the two sticks.

    The graphics got a positive write up. The gear and the levelling and the skills tree sounded good. The only reservations seemed to be the overblown cyber-norse plot (which I think sounds rather cool) and the combat being a bit repetitive and easy (which is a criticism I could level at every action RPG I've ever played, from Diablo through to Oblivion by way of Knights of the Old Republic and even God of War).

  • Feanor #43 4 years ago

    "Did anybody hear Dennis Dyak on 1up Yours this week? Spent an hour discussing social interaction and technology's affect on society and whatnot, really interesting stuff."

    It was interesting, but he doesn't half talk some hypocritical bullshit. Endlessly repeating that review scores are meaningless doesn't make it so, and it sounds terribly self-serving coming from him.

  • groovychainsaw #44 4 years ago

    Really disappointing after the complexity and originality of eternal darkness - what have they been doing with their time? Knocking out a hackandslash clone without plot or even intersting locations to fight through? I don't mind basic combat, but the short length coupled with the lack of interest from the story and locations suggests it hasn't moved on from baldur's gate:Da (which i enjoyed, but don't need to play through again!)

  • Widge #45 4 years ago

    MORE SOUL REAVER GAMES

  • Darren #46 4 years ago

    klem578 - "This comes out the same day as Mercenaries 2,right?"

    IMO, Mercenaries 2 looks shit too so it looks like I won't be buying a 360 game that week! ;)

  • penhalion #47 4 years ago

    usually harbouring bounty or red orbs, which are the only in-game health pickups)

    I hope the diablo 3 team are reading this!

  • Bartacus #48 4 years ago

    6 out of 10 I reckon.

    An average score for all the effort thats gone into this game is a sad shame, but I don't buy Shite, no matter how much work it took to make; I'm not a charity.

  • penhalion #49 4 years ago

    At this stage I don't think even a delay in release will save it. Clearly this is the gameplay they meant to create and just as clearly, they didn't listen to a damned thing either the original critics or gamers said about the game so long ago....

  • RedSparrows #50 4 years ago

    I've seen both positive and negative previews. Length wise, it seems most previewers have criticised it, despite the fact, as a loot-based game, there is evidently much time to be had from fighting, levelling and building up epic sets - 40 hours+ or so, I've heard. Which is an addictive and fun style, if it works. Most previews I have read have also utterly missed things, or said something in contradiction to others, and the like. Dyack on 1up, playing the game, was funny: he showed the guys stuff which they had quite simply, missed. Add in co-op and the scaling enemies, and I sense fun.

    It's not going to be perfect, but it's not going to be terrible. Groovychainsaw: did you not read this very preview, that commented on the complex fiction? The fact that for a dungeon crawler, this has relatively COMPLEX combat? The Diablo series is hailed and has click click done 'combat'. I understand this game is not for everyone, and neither is it even going to be (necessarily) amazingly good, but as I said, it ain't gonna be terrible, I reckon.

  • malmer #51 4 years ago

    GamePro had a very positive review, and a couple of IGN staffer's blogs were also very positive. So everyone isn't doom and gloom about this game.

    I will buy it, warts and all, and I've read most of the stuff you can read about this game. I guess it will in an objective review get around 8/10.

  • malteaserhead #52 4 years ago

    Darren
    09-Jul-08 17:28:50
    IMO, Mercenaries 2 looks shit too so it looks like I won't be buying a 360 game that week! ;)

    ___

    I bet you do ;)

  • mcmonkeyplc #53 4 years ago

    6/10

  • creepylizard #54 4 years ago

    from what I saw it looked like it moved horribly. weirdly floaty and stilted at the same time, which is difficult to achieve..
    oh, and I agree with whoever said that viking battle for asgard was stunning. But for different reasons, probably....
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/08 @ 20:00

  • Gearskin #55 4 years ago

    [link url=http://www .1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3149993
    ]http://www .1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3149993
    [/link]

    Great 1up show Podcast with Dennis Dyack. He kicks the crap out of the internet, with a huge number of valid points.

    This game rocks, so long as it doesn't fall into the same rut as Circle of Doom.

  • SomaticSense #56 4 years ago

    "The checkpoints deposit you back in the action with no more enemies to face than when you expired, so if you can't get the measure of a situation you can always watch a few death animations and eventually advance through weight of respawns."

    So, it's pulling a Bioshock/Bad Company?

    Utterly pointless. Why not just give us a fucking level select as well while they're at all, so we can just skip to the ending like flicking to the last page of a book, thus wasting even more of our money?

    I really hope this doesn't become a trend. Although it seems it already might've...

  • creepylizard #57 4 years ago

    just looked at a few vids of this and it seems vaguely similar bioware games in a way. apart from the combat. in fact, apart from the combat I like other aspects to the game. its visually quite striking and I like how much care they seem to have taken with the story and everything.....I'd give it a chance based on that and the fact that I want to have eternal darkness babies
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/08 @ 22:24

  • hiddenranbir #58 4 years ago

    Considering the budget on this game, I expect piracy to be blamed for poor sales. Even though it isn't a PC game. :D

  • BigJonno #59 4 years ago

    After EG's review of Mass Effect, I'm expecting a review that completely ignores all RPG aspects in favour of slating it for not being as good as Ninja Gaiden 2 in the combat department.

  • PCRist #60 4 years ago

    I had hoped that this would be good, especially considering that it has been in development for almost 10 years and is being put together by Silicon Knights, a studio with an impressive portfolio. But recent previews, developer diaries, in-engine footage, and screenshots have all but banished any hope that Too Human might escape "development hell" to a triumphant reception. I am now merely hoping that it turns out average so that not everyone who spends their money on it will feel cheated, though even that hope is now waning. It seems as though Too Human will be to the Xbox 360 what Haze was to the Playstation 3, a bitterly disappointing exclusive by a developer who seems intent on damaging their reputation.

    I would be very interested to learn the story behind the development of both of these games to find out what went so wrong. Of course, this interest might be premature with Too Human given that there have not been any reviews published.
    Edited by 1 at 10/07/08 @ 11:57

  • Krun #61 4 years ago

    Sounds like a game that will go to the bargain bin really fast. I may even buy it when it's about £10.

  • elvenearth #62 4 years ago

    Game looks fine to me. Very similar to Diablo with the Resurrection feature, so why the problem?

    From the makers of Eternal Darkness, so I would tend to trust this game to be decent.

  • The-Bodybuilder #63 4 years ago

    Now I see why MS have been slow to market the game.
    Personally, I would be a hypocrite to like this games. I find the diablo games tedious and boring, so it would be strange for me to hype this too.

  • muscleblade #64 4 years ago

    "If it really is short though, then that's a major failure for that genre. "

    I really hope its short (6-8 hours would be perfect). Then i can finish it in time for Forced Unleashed. Too many interesting games i want to play so im for shorter games all the way as long as theres a steady flow of good/interesting games to play i dont mind shorter games.

    edit: That was a bad sentence i know. Im Norvegian so forgive me.
    Edited by 1 at 10/07/08 @ 09:37

  • mechamonkey #65 4 years ago

    I'm still holding out hope for this. Glad its not too long too!

  • RedSparrows #66 4 years ago

    People, read some other previews. It's not all doom and gloom. Some seem to hate it with an irascible and slightly irrational passion (with some justifiable gripes), some say it's brilliant fun. Go figure.

  • Oldern #67 4 years ago

    It is not lengthy enough?

    Well, you can say that to almost all of the games coming out in this generation.
    If it has the magic inside it, the replay value will go up - and I really think that co-op is multiplayer too, even if it is not 4-man co-op.

    We'll see soon enough.

  • timberwolf #68 4 years ago

    sounds vita chamberific...

  • winnah #69 4 years ago

    One of the most over-hyped games this gen. I've watch some of the clips of this game and the animation of the player characters are shit, they, themselves, look like robots. Even world of warcraft has better animation than this game. lol, just lol

  • Connobi #70 4 years ago

    Played the demo - average at best.

    Its like a generic 3rd person shooter, but with dodgy controls. The melee stuff feels tacked on & the camera perspective is just downright annoying. Menu system is a bit sloppy too.

    The whole mythology thing with all the techy stuff thrown in feels disjointed & out of place.

    This was a sure purchase for me, but now I think I'll be waiting for a price drop c/o play.com.

  • Cider86 #71 4 years ago

    I liked it

  • Kyuudo #72 4 years ago

    I liked it too. I wasn't expecting much and it didn't grab me straight away, but once I got into the rhythm of melee combat I started to get that feeling of slightly crazed catharsis that I remember from first playing God Of War. The transition to ranged combat ought to be a little snappier and the weapon effects are a little weedy; enemy AI... umm... not sure there was any; the environments are not particularly inspiring but the visual direction is quite nice; story telling in the demo was all non-interactive scenes, but they were pretty well made with decent "acting" and about as good a script as you could expect for a story about spacenorsemen.

    It gradually began to feel like a game from the guys who made Eternal Darkness - doubt the full game will live up to that, but it has its own distinct personality (despite some rather generic art), and the demo was fun enough for me to happily spend some cash finding out. There's a slight lack of punch & responsiveness in the controls that makes the combat not quite as good as it should be - it's not quite there, but it feels like it ought to be a combination of Mutant Storm twin-stick shooting and Die By The Sword (fuck me, the perfect game!) - but it ain't bad. No masterpiece, but pretty good fun.
    Edited by 1 at 23/07/08 @ 00:44

  • dryden555 #73 4 years ago

    if the enemy AI is any good, the game has promise. If the enemies just stand around while I slash them up -- that's not good