Too Human is an amazingly addicting RPG, that despite its short length will keep you occupied for a while.

User Rating: 8 | Too Human X360
Every so often, I encounter a game mechanic that I just cannot comprehend. It may be the save system, or the camera, or the story-telling device, but I will sometimes really find myself puzzled at a developers odd choice. Like I said though, it doesnt happen very often. So when I tell you that it happened twice in Too Human, I want you to understand what I mean. There are two major mechanics that I dont understand, but we will get to those later. Let's start with a quick introduction first.

Too Human is a game from Silicon Knights (the makers of Eternal Darkness) and it has been on and off production for approximately a decade. Yeah, this game just pulled a Team Fortress 2. It went over several system, has undergone some major game overhauls, and is now finally in our hands. The game stars Baldur, a Norse God according to mythology who protects the Norn from the dangers of the world. They are all children of Odin, and he is constantly referenced in ominous respect. You hear him once or twice in the game, but never actually see him. It's probably to enhance the mysterious nature of his character. Anyway, the deal is that a strange machine has begun feeding on humans as a life source, and you try to find out why. The story snowballs from there, but you get the picture.

Now, this is an action RPG, so one of the major elements has to be the combat. This is where the two elements of the game I didnt understand come in. First off, instead of having a push to attack button, you swivel the right analog stick to swing your sword. That's a little wierd, and at first I was majorly skeptical. Why didnt the devs keep the normal control layout? My bet is, to both establish the games originality and keep it from degenerating into a button masher. They succeeded on both fronts, but unfortunately the reprocussions are somewhat evident. As can be expected, the combat stick doesnt always do what you want it to. It will sometimes preform random attacks you didnt want, or the targeting will go crazy, or it just wont do exactly what you tell it. However, though this can lead to some untimely demises in the game, its not really a problem.

The reason why those deaths due to a lack of proper control arent a problem, is because this game has taken the bioshock approach to dieing. It has absolutely no negative effects on you whatsoever (well okay, it drains your combo meter) and you spawn with all of the enemies at the exact health they were at. You will just pop back to the beginning of the room, and you can continue from there. While this is a good thing due to some cheap enemy attacks, hordes of powerful foes, and sometimes unresponsive combat, it makes the game feel pretty easy and sometimes unrewarding. It's like playing through a game with an invinsibility cheat on. You will still beat the game, but its not like thats a huge accomplishment. Furthermore, it can lead to you simply suicide bombing bosses and tougher enemies as many times as you can manage before you die. However, there are quite a few high points to combat.

The combat is amazingly fast paced and visceral, and slamming into enemies again and again can be satisfying. Some of the larger enemies like Trolls and Spiders are fun to take down, and do require some timely dodges if you want to live (not that it matters). There are tons of weapons and combat styles to choose from, so now matter how you like to play, you are probably going to find something that suits you. This leads me to the next major success of this game. The customization.

I have played many RPG's before. I have played Oblivion, WoW, Hellgate: London, Diablo II, Dungeon Seige, Baldurs Gate, and quite a few others. With the exception of maybe WoW and Diablo II, this game surpases every RPG I have ever played in terms of armor/weapon/character customization. You start out picking one of five character classes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. They range from the Berserker, who is great at dealing damage but doesnt have as much health as other classes, to the Guardian, who has tons of health and armor but doesnt deal much damage combared to the Berserker. From there, you start to pick a talent tree. Talent trees allow you to strengthen up your character in one aspect of their class. For instance, the champion is a well-balanced character, and his skill tree allows him to either make his sword attacks stronger, and make him a formidable ranged foe. You cannot just fill out the whole tree, so you will have to choose what matters most to you. If you decide you change your mind, you can respec for a small fee.

From the character spec, you move on to armor and weapons. If you are a WoW, Diablo II, or Hellgate London fan, then you are going to love the loot in this game. There is TONS of loot, and trust me, you will get it pretty constantly. You have seven different armor slots on your character, as well as seven different weapon types that can be collected. Now, your character is going to have a certain weapon type that they are strongest with, such as duel wielding, two handers, or one handed swords. Still, there is tons of loot, and its all great. Trust me, if you are a loot whore you are going to have a blast with this game.

You can mod your weapons in all sorts of ways which makes the customization even better. However, the last facet of customization is just as interesting. After the first level, you get to choose between a Cybernetic path or a Human path. This will even further increase your proficiency in one way or another. So that makes the customization even deeper. You are going to play through this game more than once...trust me.

So all in all, you now understand the core mechanics of the gameplay. The graphics and sound are both fine, so I wont waste time with them. If you like RPGs with loads of loot, then this is a game for you. However, I have to warn you, the controls gives the game a bit of a learning curve.