Old Norse legends meet high-tech hack-and-slashery. A flawed gem.

User Rating: 7.5 | Too Human X360
Poor old Too Human – it doesn't get the love, does it? Years in development costing millions of dollars, behind-the-scenes bad blood between Silicon Knights and Epic, and it finally gets released to – what? Not a great deal, if memory serves. Personally, I enjoyed this game very much, but I'm not blind to its faults. Graphics are inconsistent; some areas are beautiful, others (especially Cyberspace) are bland and unappealing. Similarly, the characters generally look good – zooming in on Baldur resplendent in his armour is particularly impressive – but in the heat of combat there are animation issues. Combat control isn't perfect; hand to hand is generally fine, but firearms take a little getting used and smoothly switching from one to the other while fending off ravening hordes of Goblins and Elves isn't as friendly as it should be. Also, I found that there was little variety in enemies and locales.

That's the negative out of the way, now on to the positive. I found this, warts and all, to be simply one of the most more-ish games I've played in recent months, with unexpectedly addictive combat. Control issues notwithstanding I just kept coming back for seconds and thirds. The array of classes added some welcome variety; going through the game as, say, a Berserker and then trying it again as a Commando forces you to change the way you've been playing the game, creating a new combat experience. Different classes also bring with them a whole host of different skills and high-tech killing tools to get physical with. The other thing I'll mention is that as I played I got a sense of a whole world and history behind the game, as if what was taking place on the screen was just one more battle in a conflict that had been raging since forever. I got a similar feeling the first time I played Halo and Gears of War. It was also interesting to note how closely the game follows the Norse legends from which it takes its inspiration.

To summarise, I would say give Too Human a chance. At this point it's probably not high on your list of gaming priorities but if you see it very cheap or you're looking for something new to rent or you're at a friend's house and notice it in their pile – give it a shot. You may end up as pleasantly surprised as I was.