Mano
09-02-2008, 10:44 AM
Hello all !
Well, as some of you may know me from the forums, my english is poor, so please don't be offended if i do obvious mistakes.
Here we go for another player review, since we're on a "fan website" i don't expect much people not knowing the game to come read this, but i just wanted to share my opinion (in the end, forums are made for that i believe).
Too Human at first offer an original background, on this i won't teach you anything. Trying to give life to myths through really advanced technology is kind of new, close to the genre called "steam punk" where 19th century technology was pushed to the extreme to make a new world. I do believe that TH created a new genre with this game, even if it lacks a lot of stuff, as i'll tell you later on.
Let's talk about usual stuff in a review :
-Graphic: it's inegal, we can clearly see that some places were polished to extreme (i love the whole aesir zone) but other were made "too fast" and lack of personality (the whole cyberspace for example). There's a lot of nice effect, the WYSIWYG system is very well used, and your character look unique, which is rare enough in hack n slash games to be mentioned. The four (only four, *sigh*) world are gorgeous, very detailed in every way, and the level design gives me a felling of "oldschool style". In fact, many games today offer a huge variety of places, but they look all the same, the best example if oblivion, once you've seen a cavern, a tomb, you've seen it all. Another example could be mass effect, where all planet look the same, apart from the ground texture, and the weather.
All in all, TH won't please everyone, but offer a really deep design, deep character customisation on screen (did i mention that there's dozens of color pattern that you can buy for a ridiculous price to customize your gear ?)
Graphic note : 16/20
-Sound : I've experienced something weird with sound in this game, background music are fantastic (i used to love the work of SK sound team in other games, so i might not be very objective). BUT, there's no option to switch volume, and when you face dozens of ennemies the sound is too loud, and after the battle is over, you barely hear what people says. Every sound of weapon and enemies are well done, and credible. I like also the sound effect when you gain a level.
Sound note : 15/20 (because we can't customize it to make background louder than bullets, but i guess you wanted it this way)
-Story : I don't have any experience of North myths, so i won't be able to judge if the transposition to the game is well done. The story starts slowly, and by the end you want to know more, but the end of the first episode is already here, very frustrating, but i do think that there were so many (too many) dramas over the press and internet about this game so they wanted it to be released ASAP, to have a strong base for next game (which be way better i'm confident on that).
The Story telling is well done, cut scenes are nice and sometimes epic, but a story in a hack slash is hard to make i think. Your goal is basically to slash through thousands and thousands of enemies, so seing them being spawned from nowhere is weird, but we're used to that.
The different characters need more personality, while the baldur's background is detailled, other gods are sometimes just here for no reason,i do hope character like Thor, Freya, Heimdall will gain more background later.
Story note : 14/20
-Character Customization (special feature for all hack n slash, so there is a separate paragraph)
You have 5 classes, Champion (balanced between ranged and melee), Defender (tank, but not only that, trust me), Commando (the shooter, my favorite one), Bio engineer (meant to be healer, but is the best tank of the game, and well played with good items is so damn powerfull) and finally Berserker (the DPS of the game, faster than anyone, and potentially the most powerfull at melee).
Each class tree seem basic at first glance, but add it a choice in your alignement (being "human" or "cybernetics") and you can create your own character, fitting your own gamestyle. That's another thing i love about this game, during the first hours you must endure the gameplay to learn it, but after you make the gameplay kneel before your needs as a player. And so you can play each character the way you want, examples :
I made a "commando defender", using the left path (ice / laser one) and choosing human way. I'm not playing it with melee, even if he's meant to be in the frontline, protecting everyone, i don't care, i prefer being able to shoot at everything from a distance, and freezing anyone daring to go too close, and having a huge defense as well a good amount of life. With the appropriate runes, i do good damages, that a commando can surpass, but can't live as long as me.
I made also a "zerker bio E", the Bio is one my fav class, instead of too many games, your job as healer is not a pain to do, you don't have to care about your people, you heal them by your own regeneration skill, wherever they are, regardless of the distance between you two. So even if you sometimes need to pull out your healing battlecry (middle path FTW) you can rush in the battle and be even more persistant than the best defender, having a tremendous amount of life, huge defense and allways being able to heal yourself.
Those two examples to show you that you don't have to follow pre made templates, there's no way you're screwing your character, if you find it too weak, change it, you can do it in a wink of an eye. (WE NEED A BUILD PLANNER IN GAME !)
Character customization note : 19/20, surely the deeper i've seen so far, and trust me when i say i've been playing games for decades.
-Game Length : Great, you're clearly told to do the story twice to discover everything, so you can count 30hours doing so, by this time you shall hit 50 (highest level), and then you can begin the loot hunting fest, playing co op, or trying one of the 4 other classes.
Game Length note : 17/20
-MultiPlayer : Two players on xbox live, the game was clearly made for four, but they didn't do it, that a big issue here in this forum, and i'm confident that since SK delivered us a GREAT game, they're working to keep us busy :) so be confident people !
The multiplayer is great, there's a little lag when playing with people from other place of the globe, but nothing you can't handle. There's a lot of good ideas, and here are some examples :
-From the lobby (aesir) you can launch a game from anywhere, change the place you wanna start in a wink of an eye, and choose if you wanna invite your best pal or try to find new friends. You can trade with the other guy, and you can choose the exact amount of cash traded by using a keyboard (or the chatpad of the paddle) which isn't that important, but this is the kind of thing you miss when they're not here.
Multiplayer note : 16/20 (this game is such a great fun and rich experience for us gamers, we want to share it with more than one other guy, please make it three at least in the second TH)
And last but not least, the reason i gave such title to my review : Gameplay.
What Too Human gives us is a new gameplay, a subtle one that needs hours to get used to. I was waiting for a good alternative to a phantasy star game or diablo, but i found myself discovering a new way of playing games.
Maybe you felt (or you'll fell) the same way, but i felt like playing my first shooter game, i couldn't aim well, dodge, and do headshots... so TH is that, it tells you "forget what you've learn so far, we bring you a new way to prove that you've got some skill"
In fact TH needs a lot of skill to be played, you can rush everything if you want to, but if you fully understand all the aspect of gameplay you discover that there's a tremendous number of thing to consider when playing, if you're planning to play it well.
To sum up it for new players, you swing the right stick to do melee attack, so you can aim for any enemy you want (again you need time to learn how to do it well, so you don't fight something you don't want at the moment).
If you double tap the right stick in the desired direction you throw the enemy in the air, then you can jump after it to finish it off some nice combo, or devastating finish moves called finishers (how original :mrgreen: ).
You can also unleash fierce attacks from a distance by moving the two stick in the same direction, and when you'll now how to use it well, it will become one of your best friend.
That's a summary, because you can find all that by reading the game manual, but that's not all, knowing that you can do all that is great (as well as jump on trolls back, or aim for missiles instead of enemies by double taping right stick when you're shooting), but to fully use it in the game you must give it time to get used to, and to discover that your hears are as needed as your eyes or fingers in this game. Since the camera is looking to what you're fighting (use the strategic view, it the easiest to get used to), you can't see what's coming from behind, but you can hear it. I find it cool to know when to dodge missiles of a hammer attack from a troll just by hearing it, and not enough games makes us use our sense like this one. You need timing, you need reflection, you need to be patient and be attentive to your surroundings, because this games needs you to be good if you wanna survive.
I can keep talking about my experience as gamer for hours, but i'll just say that : I'm deeply thankful to SK for giving us such a great experience, it's been a HELL of a long time since i felt myself like a newbie, dying every 5 minutes from being careless. And being able to discover the game mechanics by our own instead of following a boring tutorial is great, please keep this. It is much more rewarding when you discover things by your own than being told (that's why i won't teach you anything about how to play deeper than what manual tells you).
Gameplay note : 18/20 (still needs a few things to be perfect)
So to sum up this long review, TH is a perfectible game in many different aspects, but it deliver a strong experience and a new gameplay to anyone patient enough to endure the first frustrating hours of dying, and when you finally have this little thing that makes you understand everything (or so you think) you start to get a great pleasure to slash through enemies without dying at all, and doing amazing things. I wouldn't be surprised, and i'd like to see perfect run for this game, as we see for shooters and shoot m up games. This is the typical kind of game where watching other people play it better than you makes you "WOAAA i need to train to do that"
Overall note : 17/20, to show my great respect and thankfulness for Silicon Knight, you've created a new genre of gameplay which i thought was impossible until i spend hours on this game. There's few games delivering new gameplay like TH do, so it's worth the try, and buy to give support to see it fully used in the second game. I can't wait for it, and i'll keep my copy as one of the greatest game on the xbox360, even if i'm well aware of its defect, you can overpass it so easily it becomes invisible :)
To everyone who read that far, thanks for your time, if you wanna share your opinion on my view of the game, feel free, i'll be glad to :)
Well, as some of you may know me from the forums, my english is poor, so please don't be offended if i do obvious mistakes.
Here we go for another player review, since we're on a "fan website" i don't expect much people not knowing the game to come read this, but i just wanted to share my opinion (in the end, forums are made for that i believe).
Too Human at first offer an original background, on this i won't teach you anything. Trying to give life to myths through really advanced technology is kind of new, close to the genre called "steam punk" where 19th century technology was pushed to the extreme to make a new world. I do believe that TH created a new genre with this game, even if it lacks a lot of stuff, as i'll tell you later on.
Let's talk about usual stuff in a review :
-Graphic: it's inegal, we can clearly see that some places were polished to extreme (i love the whole aesir zone) but other were made "too fast" and lack of personality (the whole cyberspace for example). There's a lot of nice effect, the WYSIWYG system is very well used, and your character look unique, which is rare enough in hack n slash games to be mentioned. The four (only four, *sigh*) world are gorgeous, very detailed in every way, and the level design gives me a felling of "oldschool style". In fact, many games today offer a huge variety of places, but they look all the same, the best example if oblivion, once you've seen a cavern, a tomb, you've seen it all. Another example could be mass effect, where all planet look the same, apart from the ground texture, and the weather.
All in all, TH won't please everyone, but offer a really deep design, deep character customisation on screen (did i mention that there's dozens of color pattern that you can buy for a ridiculous price to customize your gear ?)
Graphic note : 16/20
-Sound : I've experienced something weird with sound in this game, background music are fantastic (i used to love the work of SK sound team in other games, so i might not be very objective). BUT, there's no option to switch volume, and when you face dozens of ennemies the sound is too loud, and after the battle is over, you barely hear what people says. Every sound of weapon and enemies are well done, and credible. I like also the sound effect when you gain a level.
Sound note : 15/20 (because we can't customize it to make background louder than bullets, but i guess you wanted it this way)
-Story : I don't have any experience of North myths, so i won't be able to judge if the transposition to the game is well done. The story starts slowly, and by the end you want to know more, but the end of the first episode is already here, very frustrating, but i do think that there were so many (too many) dramas over the press and internet about this game so they wanted it to be released ASAP, to have a strong base for next game (which be way better i'm confident on that).
The Story telling is well done, cut scenes are nice and sometimes epic, but a story in a hack slash is hard to make i think. Your goal is basically to slash through thousands and thousands of enemies, so seing them being spawned from nowhere is weird, but we're used to that.
The different characters need more personality, while the baldur's background is detailled, other gods are sometimes just here for no reason,i do hope character like Thor, Freya, Heimdall will gain more background later.
Story note : 14/20
-Character Customization (special feature for all hack n slash, so there is a separate paragraph)
You have 5 classes, Champion (balanced between ranged and melee), Defender (tank, but not only that, trust me), Commando (the shooter, my favorite one), Bio engineer (meant to be healer, but is the best tank of the game, and well played with good items is so damn powerfull) and finally Berserker (the DPS of the game, faster than anyone, and potentially the most powerfull at melee).
Each class tree seem basic at first glance, but add it a choice in your alignement (being "human" or "cybernetics") and you can create your own character, fitting your own gamestyle. That's another thing i love about this game, during the first hours you must endure the gameplay to learn it, but after you make the gameplay kneel before your needs as a player. And so you can play each character the way you want, examples :
I made a "commando defender", using the left path (ice / laser one) and choosing human way. I'm not playing it with melee, even if he's meant to be in the frontline, protecting everyone, i don't care, i prefer being able to shoot at everything from a distance, and freezing anyone daring to go too close, and having a huge defense as well a good amount of life. With the appropriate runes, i do good damages, that a commando can surpass, but can't live as long as me.
I made also a "zerker bio E", the Bio is one my fav class, instead of too many games, your job as healer is not a pain to do, you don't have to care about your people, you heal them by your own regeneration skill, wherever they are, regardless of the distance between you two. So even if you sometimes need to pull out your healing battlecry (middle path FTW) you can rush in the battle and be even more persistant than the best defender, having a tremendous amount of life, huge defense and allways being able to heal yourself.
Those two examples to show you that you don't have to follow pre made templates, there's no way you're screwing your character, if you find it too weak, change it, you can do it in a wink of an eye. (WE NEED A BUILD PLANNER IN GAME !)
Character customization note : 19/20, surely the deeper i've seen so far, and trust me when i say i've been playing games for decades.
-Game Length : Great, you're clearly told to do the story twice to discover everything, so you can count 30hours doing so, by this time you shall hit 50 (highest level), and then you can begin the loot hunting fest, playing co op, or trying one of the 4 other classes.
Game Length note : 17/20
-MultiPlayer : Two players on xbox live, the game was clearly made for four, but they didn't do it, that a big issue here in this forum, and i'm confident that since SK delivered us a GREAT game, they're working to keep us busy :) so be confident people !
The multiplayer is great, there's a little lag when playing with people from other place of the globe, but nothing you can't handle. There's a lot of good ideas, and here are some examples :
-From the lobby (aesir) you can launch a game from anywhere, change the place you wanna start in a wink of an eye, and choose if you wanna invite your best pal or try to find new friends. You can trade with the other guy, and you can choose the exact amount of cash traded by using a keyboard (or the chatpad of the paddle) which isn't that important, but this is the kind of thing you miss when they're not here.
Multiplayer note : 16/20 (this game is such a great fun and rich experience for us gamers, we want to share it with more than one other guy, please make it three at least in the second TH)
And last but not least, the reason i gave such title to my review : Gameplay.
What Too Human gives us is a new gameplay, a subtle one that needs hours to get used to. I was waiting for a good alternative to a phantasy star game or diablo, but i found myself discovering a new way of playing games.
Maybe you felt (or you'll fell) the same way, but i felt like playing my first shooter game, i couldn't aim well, dodge, and do headshots... so TH is that, it tells you "forget what you've learn so far, we bring you a new way to prove that you've got some skill"
In fact TH needs a lot of skill to be played, you can rush everything if you want to, but if you fully understand all the aspect of gameplay you discover that there's a tremendous number of thing to consider when playing, if you're planning to play it well.
To sum up it for new players, you swing the right stick to do melee attack, so you can aim for any enemy you want (again you need time to learn how to do it well, so you don't fight something you don't want at the moment).
If you double tap the right stick in the desired direction you throw the enemy in the air, then you can jump after it to finish it off some nice combo, or devastating finish moves called finishers (how original :mrgreen: ).
You can also unleash fierce attacks from a distance by moving the two stick in the same direction, and when you'll now how to use it well, it will become one of your best friend.
That's a summary, because you can find all that by reading the game manual, but that's not all, knowing that you can do all that is great (as well as jump on trolls back, or aim for missiles instead of enemies by double taping right stick when you're shooting), but to fully use it in the game you must give it time to get used to, and to discover that your hears are as needed as your eyes or fingers in this game. Since the camera is looking to what you're fighting (use the strategic view, it the easiest to get used to), you can't see what's coming from behind, but you can hear it. I find it cool to know when to dodge missiles of a hammer attack from a troll just by hearing it, and not enough games makes us use our sense like this one. You need timing, you need reflection, you need to be patient and be attentive to your surroundings, because this games needs you to be good if you wanna survive.
I can keep talking about my experience as gamer for hours, but i'll just say that : I'm deeply thankful to SK for giving us such a great experience, it's been a HELL of a long time since i felt myself like a newbie, dying every 5 minutes from being careless. And being able to discover the game mechanics by our own instead of following a boring tutorial is great, please keep this. It is much more rewarding when you discover things by your own than being told (that's why i won't teach you anything about how to play deeper than what manual tells you).
Gameplay note : 18/20 (still needs a few things to be perfect)
So to sum up this long review, TH is a perfectible game in many different aspects, but it deliver a strong experience and a new gameplay to anyone patient enough to endure the first frustrating hours of dying, and when you finally have this little thing that makes you understand everything (or so you think) you start to get a great pleasure to slash through enemies without dying at all, and doing amazing things. I wouldn't be surprised, and i'd like to see perfect run for this game, as we see for shooters and shoot m up games. This is the typical kind of game where watching other people play it better than you makes you "WOAAA i need to train to do that"
Overall note : 17/20, to show my great respect and thankfulness for Silicon Knight, you've created a new genre of gameplay which i thought was impossible until i spend hours on this game. There's few games delivering new gameplay like TH do, so it's worth the try, and buy to give support to see it fully used in the second game. I can't wait for it, and i'll keep my copy as one of the greatest game on the xbox360, even if i'm well aware of its defect, you can overpass it so easily it becomes invisible :)
To everyone who read that far, thanks for your time, if you wanna share your opinion on my view of the game, feel free, i'll be glad to :)