Too Human

So you're left with a rather awkward action game built on top of a rudimentary loot-hording RPG framework. There's no obvious AI to either enemies or allies, so any attempts to craft something deeper from the one-note gameplay are doomed to partial success at best. Sadly, where Too Human continues to flounder is in the lack of polish, a generally impenetrable approach that will turn off less experienced players and a very unsatisfying story.

Graphically it's passable but nothing spectacular. The draw distance is impressive but character models are less endearing. Despite occasional flourishes that turn the Norse inspiration into something unique, the whole game is draped in generic videogame cloth. It's all metal corridors and hangars, cast in the same shades of green, grey and blue that we've seen a hundred times before. The final section lowers the bar yet further. As Baldur storms Helheim, the Norse hell, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the rusty, dusty brown and red industrial landscape filled with shambling cyborg zombies came from Quake. Or Gears of War. Or take your pick.

The whole Norse mythology angle is consistently half-baked. There's no context for this mash-up of Vikings and technology, and the way the mythology is woven into the new tale is of limited success. Certain stories, such as Tyr's fateful encounter with Garm, are cleverly worked into the boss battle narrative framework, but mostly it seems rather ad-hoc, with the fantasy elements sitting clumsily alongside clichéd SF imagery. Asgard, for instance, comes across as a shopping mall built inside a cathedral. The majestic home of the Gods is nothing but a large soulless hub, populated by anonymous humans in modern-day clothes, all milling around aimlessly. In a real RPG this would be a place to engage in some NPC conversations to unearth new info, or discover some side-quests, but here it's just a pointless space where you stock up on items before triggering the next level, tediously trekking from one end to the other to do so.

This brings me to the final and perhaps biggest problem with the game: it's too short. Now, I don't subscribe to the notion that games must justify themselves by length - I believe that a game should be as long as it needs to be. But with just four worlds - essentially four long, linear levels of constant combat - my first playthrough clocked in at around twelve hours, and I thought I was taking my time, exploring every last dead-end corridor for more bounty. Of course, if you want to play with every class, and unlock every last Achievement, then you'll have to play it through several times. But you can play any game over and over. That doesn't mean it offers 80 hours of entertainment. While Too Human can be replayed, it's not the sort of game where you'll uncover new stories or quests that you missed first time around.

And it's not just a question of truncated gameplay, it's the narrative as well. Based on the story, I was convinced there was at least one more section of gameplay to come after a hardly conclusive cut-scene, but instead I was unceremoniously dumped into the credits. If that's supposed to leave players hungry for the next instalment, it does a piss-poor job. Planning an entire trilogy of games is a bold undertaking, but you need to make each part work as a game and story in its own right. Too Human doesn't build to a cliff-hanger or thrilling crescendo, it simply stops in one of the worst-paced conclusions to a game since Halo 2.

And even with my word count threatening to burst like a fat melon, there are still more scribbled notes that I've not even touched on. Like how at least half of the character classes are of limited value in a single-player game, and are presumably throwbacks to when it was going to offer four-player online co-op (now it's only two-player). Like how useless the NPC characters are in battle, cluttering the speakers with constant clichéd action movie prattle yet adding nothing of value to the actual combat, and often inexplicably vanishing completely. Like how weapons offer effects such as "Annulment +8%" with no explanation as to what that means in tangible gameplay terms. Like how so many of the mythological characters are poorly established, their motivations often incomprehensible unless you know your Norse. Like how many of these criticisms, and more besides, were being voiced in previews as far back as 2006 and yet still remain relevant today.