Osea's lukewarm review

[osea]

I decided to write a review after playing over 30 hours of TH and having a character reach lev 50. I currently have 85 % of all achievements so I have pretty much seen much in the game.

My biggest complaint (and I'll keep this short) is combat. Combat is absolutely great, the analog stick works wonders for the melee as it is a pure joy to see Baldur hack and slash at phenomenal speeds. Here is the bad part, the scaling slows down the game too much at higher levels as I work myself into a frenzy with my beserker just to die a few seconds later because my class can't handle the higher levels. The aiming system is also screwed when it comes to trolls and bosses as I find it really hard to target the vulnerable parts of trolls using melee. I rarely kill trolls without mounting because I simply can't target the left-over parts effectively. Boss battles are also pretty imbalanced and tend to favor the ballistics approach.

The story is okay allthough it's told in a strange way. It doesn't really flow as well as Mass Effect's story and it doesn't ever reach the "epic" feeling; there really isn't a big shock or big secrets revealed towards the end. The animations are pretty dated if you look at how ME does character faces and emotions. The lighting effects are great though and so are textures in general. It flows really well with so many enemies on the screen and the enemies are better animated in general than say ME's Geth.

My last complaint is that the game is too short which doesn't make it feel "epic." Mass effect also ended up shorter than expected but at least there were plenty of things to do besides the story. It also felt longer when playing the mainstory. The 4 levels in TH feel the same.

Overall it's a good little game with some really exciting moments but unfortunately those moments are quickly spoiled by frusterating and imbalanced combat and the end of the game that doesn't really feel satisfying. I feel like I've played Too human .5 and I feel cheated on the other .5 to make up the first installment in the trilogy.

Score: 7.9/10 (C+)

I will play it until something better comes along, namely, Infinite Undiscovery for me personally.

[Speak]

You still have to remember, this is 1/3 of a Trilogy, they are not going to give away so much content in the first game! Makes you want to come back and see the Epic ending, For such a unique game, breaking the frontier i think they got the controls near perfect. Seen as this was the first of its kind. It was never going to be perfect.

[506_Deano]

There are some camera issues for sure, but it's really not enough to impede my enjoyment. As for the story length, I don't mind a shorter story at all - especially after playing GTA4. After 100+ hours of driving people to their dentist appointments, driving to missions, or driving to restaurants, (etc.,etc.,etc.... ) I like the fact that the story portion isn't brutally long.

[sfubear]

I would also point out that this game is not mass effect and the reason I don't listen to a lot of other peoples reviews is because like you they have a hard time being objective about a game and letting it stand on it's own merits and flaws. I can't say that I am completely innocent of this but I would be careful in what you assume is a design flaw and what in actuality is a player flaw. I have been playing a bereserker and am like another hour away from the end and have a total death count of 8.......tat really isn't that much compared to a lot of other people, so I don't see how the bereserker is so soft like you suggest, It may be that you are scared to use your spider, ruiners, battlecrys the way you are supposed to. I respect your opinion but do not like how it is tainted with comparisons to mass effect

[exkon]

I see your points Osea, good and concise review.

Mass Effect DID NOT have a lot to do other than the main storyline:

- Go kill things
- Maybe talk things over if your skill is high enough
- While I do like how the sidequest each had their own little backstory, it was still a "short" game for an RPG. But then again it's part of a trilogy.

Maybe people should really stop judging Too Human until all the games were out.

Remember with LOTR movie series? ALL the movies were great, but it didn't really any of the awards it deserve until ROTK came out.

[Estacado]

To start... i love mass effect... I did finish my first play through in less than 14 hours though... and i swear a quarter of that time was spent wandering around the citadel.