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Playing a Role: Too Human, Tales of Vesperia, and Zoids Assault

Because I am the go-to role-playing guy, I find myself going through periods where I am pumping out fewer reviews, because I am playing much longer games. I apologize for not getting Spectral Force 3 written sooner; juggling things can get more complex than you may imagine when it comes to stacks of RPGs, and SF3 is a long, occasionally difficult, game.

The good news is that I have three RPGs on my desk, and all three reviews should be published by release day. Atlus is always good about getting us review code early, and Zoids Assault plays on a retail machine, so I can get the achievements for myself! Sadly, the discs for the other two games--Too Human and Tales of Vesperia--play only in developer units, so I will be unlocking achievements for a non-XBL gamertag.

However, you can see some of these achievements pop up in some video I took of Too Human this morning. Microsoft is allowing us to post screens and video in advance of the review embargo date, though they do not wish us to include cutscenes or story points, in order to avoid spoilers. Still, I can share with you some gameplay footage. This isn't official site footage--I recorded using an SD deck, and the image resolution is a bit off. But it should give you an early taste.

Here is a short clip of an early mini-boss:

We've already sent an inquiry asking for permission to post blog entries about Tales of Vesperia; if I get the go-ahead, I will do some entries showcasing gameplay there as well. Keep your eyes on this blog!

22 Comments

  • Diernes

    Posted Aug 29, 2008 1:49 am PT

    Kevin, I just played too human and I am really scratching my head after reading your review. I have been slowly losing more and more respect for gamespot these days. Games like Oblivion, and Halo 3 which I found incredibly boring after a few hours get really high scores, and you guys give too human a 5.5.

    5.5? come on. The horrible Kingdom under fire: circle of doom even got a 6, If i remmeber and this game is 100 times better than that rubbish

    Ok the camera can get into trouble sometimes. But it works pretty well i think all things considered. The only really flaws I have with the gameplay are regarding some of the collision detection and motion capture animations and the sometimes finiky gun targetting, but it hasnt really lessen'd my enjoyment of it at all.

    The Valkyrie death animation serves a purpose. It was done that way with co-op in mind. Have a think about what this means for gameplay there are quite a few things everyone is missing here... And lets be honest its much nicer to look at than a 20 second Loading please wait screen that we are treated too in most games.

    If you bothered to play the game a little more. (it only really starts after the campaign is complete in my opinion) you would have noticed their actually is a pretty steep penalty if you die to much. Those armor repairs on the high level items get insane!

    The combat never gets into a groove? really? I happen too think once you work out the combat system its always in a groove! and by looking at the gameplay video's on this page it seems like you didnt have a handle on it. Actually the footage on display here does make the combatlook incredibly stiff and ugly. Trust me with a good player you would see the difference. I have had a blast so far its a really nice and addictive gameplay system i think that just takes some investment to get a handle on its nuances, and this is fine.

    All in all this has been one of the most enjoyable games I have played this year. its not perfect, no game is. But I think everyone is picking on its flaws a little too much. Oblivion had a horrible loot system, repetitive combat and long load times and had the extensive scaling which ruined the game for me (it actually works ok in too human) and yet this game wasnt critisized for it.

    It just seems GS review of this game is a little unresponsible. It's really a nice innovative hodgepoge of different game genre's and is better than the sum of its parts.

    Even your review text doesnt really justify the score it got, Personally I think it should have got a 7.0 at least. I would rate it about 8 to 8.5

  • LordAzael

    Posted Aug 15, 2008 12:58 pm PT

    Too bad the camera still looks awful.

  • digi_matrix

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 4:46 pm PT

    @ColdfireTrilogy: Epic fail on reference to God of War. The Troll stuff is not a QTE, it's more akin to Shadow of the Colossus if any comparison is to be made. The Level 29 gameplay looks insanely fast!

  • Jokis

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 4:24 pm PT

    Hope Vesperia gets a good score (at least an 8.5) - it looks like an instant buy for me, I love RPGs.

  • athenian29

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 11:35 am PT

    Aw man, Too Human looks iffy. Pity...

    Seriously, how could they? When you jump and land on top of a baddie, it looks stiff. PLEASE be better than it looks!

  • Kevin-V GameSpot staff member

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 9:37 am PT

    Orion, this is from the full game.

  • OrionNM

    Posted Aug 11, 2008 5:28 pm PT

    Is it just me or is that the demo?

  • Mindchamber

    Posted Aug 11, 2008 5:21 pm PT

    too human looks painfully stiff and boring

  • Lord_Alan

    Posted Aug 11, 2008 4:05 pm PT

    Kevin: You know if you hold down the stick you continually attack enemies rather than tapping it which flips them up... right? Took me a while to grasp that too!

  • Zzunbao

    Posted Aug 9, 2008 7:37 pm PT

    *sigh*...we need more JRPGs...

  • ColdfireTrilogy

    Posted Aug 9, 2008 3:27 pm PT

    man that game looks bland imo all i saw was slapping up enemies and a miniboss fight that honestly looked like a tone down version of GoW2 :S Jeez i sound pessimistic .... anyway the fights just dont look that interesting to me. Heres to seeing a mediocre score in the review.

  • DA_SHREDDER

    Posted Aug 9, 2008 9:07 am PT

    looking good? wow, easy to impress much guy?

  • polsci1503

    Posted Aug 8, 2008 8:40 pm PT

    looking good... I'm very interested in what you have to say about Too Human when all is said and done... get through that stack!

  • soldjango

    Posted Aug 7, 2008 5:40 pm PT

    You always write great reviews, Kevin! Personally, I can't wait for your Tales of Vesperia review, that's my most anticipated game for the next little while. Go Kevin!

  • teirdome

    Posted Aug 7, 2008 3:51 pm PT

    Nice job on the Troll! Most people don't get what you did figured out for a while.

  • Allicrombie Site moderator

    Posted Aug 7, 2008 2:14 pm PT

    looks pretty sweet

  • Lexxzilla

    Posted Aug 7, 2008 2:07 pm PT

    Thanks for the sneak peek Kevin.

  • besighyawn

    Posted Aug 7, 2008 1:55 pm PT

    I'm not too into JRPGs so Too Human has me interested

  • carolynmichelle

    Posted Aug 7, 2008 1:51 pm PT

    Thanks for the update! Hang in there and have fun. You'll always be my go-to role-playing guy, Kevin!

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