Too Human Xbox 360 Demo Impressions
Too Human is due to release on August 19th, 2008 and this demo was release on July 14th as part of Microsoft’s E3 promotions. I was told that this game was a hack-and-slash game with RPG elements (like Diablo) so I was enthusiastic. Let just say that I slightly disappointed and here’s why.
You start the demo by choosing what class you want to be. The character selection interface vocally explains each type of classes but only the Champion is available for play in this demo. The Champion is the most balanced class in the game. It is explained that he is the master of 1 handed weapons and small firearms (pistols). After you have selected your class, you are immediately transported to the opening cut-scene where the main character and a small unit of soldiers are dropped in a remote icy location in front of a temple. You then get attacked by different robots and you don’t know much about your mission. (It is later explained in another cut-scene.) You don’t feel attached to the character and the story at all.
The part that disappointed me the most was the fighting. Since this is supposed to be a hack-and-slash game, I was expecting some fast paced fighting with big combos like Devil May Cry. The fighting seemed a little awkward as well, since you have to use the right analog stick for melee. Both triggers are used for firing your guns. I tried the various attacks described in the Advance Fighting menu, but nothing was really spectacular. One thing I liked was that the soldiers fight beside you and if they die, they get transported by a human/robot angel. This scene is cool to watch and it happens if you die. (I purposely died in order to check it out!) When fighting, I didn’t like the fact that you cannot really move the camera (except center it) as you use your right-stick for fighting. Some fights were really crowded and finding where to go was hard at time. For a demo, I thought that the cut-scenes were a bit long, but it was probably needed to give you a hint to what the story is and what your mission is to. In about the 40 minutes of gameplay, there were at least 15 minutes of cut-scenes. One thing I liked is the RPG elements of it. I liked the fact that I change my weapons, armor, runes, etc. When you change those, your character visually changes as well. You can customize your player’s skills as well by spending points in a skill tree like Diablo did it. These RPG elements are a plus for me since I was a huge Diablo fan.
Graphically, the game looks good but not great. There were a few visual hiccups and the animations looked a bit awkward at times (especially in combat) where characters seemed to port from one place to another instead of gliding. The cut-scene suffer from the same problems since they are made with the in-game engine. I like the combat effects (explosions, lightning sparks, etc.), they were very brilliant and added visual value to a dull fighting system. With a mixture of robots and humans, some characters look pretty cool. The main character, Baldur, has permanent glowing scars in his face that gives him a bad ass look.
You have to remember that it’s a demo and the actual game might change my opinion on it a bit. Even though the demo disappointed me, I will probably rent the game when it comes out as it has some potential.
