The last few nights, late, I've been sinking my gaming teeth into Too Human. It is the gaming equivilant of David Lynch's Dune movie. Both endeavors represent deeply flawed works that nonetheless, to a mind attuned to their special appeal, is compelling. I loved Dune and, at this moment, am loving Too Human.
The media and the internet have mostly spent this week kicking Too Human squarely in the teeth while a minority have found things to like (or even love) beyond, or despite, its flaws. Some of this rancor has been generated by the game and some of it by Denis Dyack, president of the developer, Silicon Knights, and erstwhile promoter/mouthpiece. I won't linger on Mr. Dyack, about whose trials and tribulations the internet has chronicled at length (and breadth). Instead, I'll focus on the game.
The game is, at its core, utterly simple: kill, kill, and kill. This is an extreme dungeon hack. It's mostly linear with very few puzzles to interrupt the flow or clutter up the gameplay. This game is a total dungeon crawl: hack, slash, and hack again.
Like any good dungeon crawl, loot plays a major part of the game. There's tons of it with appropriately silly names, escalating with the rarity of the pieces. When I picked up my first Dragon Stableshot Flexform Gloves of Swiftness, I think I cried. And peed a little. Then cried a bit more.
With multiple armor sections and multiple weapon types, there's enough spice of variety to feed an Arrakeen sandworm. Additionally, runes can be inserted into equipment to further enhance and customize your stuff. There is a lot to do on the inventory side and many a review has been critical of the UI layout in the game but I've found it a small matter myself and not much of a distraction. While you are ever-collecting loot, auto-salvage options provide a method for pre-sifting through the piles to isolate only the choicest bits. You can then ponder over just those prime cuts.
There are classes in Too Human. Essentially, they are all flavors of fighter. There are no magic-users here- though there are some magic aspects of all the classes. While there isn't as much variety to the choices as the classic fantasy classes of the console Baldur's Gate or Champions of Norrath games, the classes are different enough that don't all feel exactly the same. We've got berserker, champion, defender, bioengineer, and commando. The champion is the base, balanced guy. The berserker and defender are pure offense and defense, respectively. The bioengineer is the medic/healer type and the commando is the ranged specialist.
Each class has a skill tree attached with three different paths. A few skills on each path are mutually exclusive and so choosing one closes the door on the other. However, you can redistribute skill points by paying a cash penalty. There are also two racial paths to be chosen with respective skill trees: human and cybernetic. All told, there are many, many ways to build the perfect man-beast.
Too Human has been repeatedly and, it must be said, deservedly scolded for the wonky camera setup. The reason for this (well, one reason), is because the main combat actions have been mapped to the right analog stick on the controller. It is, at first, an exceedingly strange marriage but it has grown on me and now feels completely comfortable and responsive. There is so much combat and it so fast paced that the stick provides nice control without being tiring in the way constantly pushing buttons or mashing the triggers is. It took some getting used to but I like the scheme.
The creme de la creme of the experience lays in the co-op action. The entire story campaign is open for co-op and the levels, and challenges, really feel like they were crafted for a co-op experience. Unfortunately, while four-player co-op was promised, two-player is all we got. While I can't help but lament the loss of the extra two players, the trimmed down co-op is wicked fun. I played most of the campaign this way and it was mostly a smooth, glitch-free experience. Really, I think it's the way to play.
While there's plenty wrong with the game, I don't dwell on it here because none of those things has stopped me from pumping hours into the game and having a great time doing it. The combat is endlessly repetive and should bore me but it doesn't. Enemy variety is pretty lacking but I could care less. I got the camera figured out. The story doesn't appeal to everyone and the execution is a bit off but it works for me. What can I say other than I want to keep playing?
Too Human is a game that maybe can't outrun the shadow cast by the things around it. I don't know. At some point, if it's possible to see through the periphery, there's a damn fun, flawed but fun, game to be had. To quote Dune: Long live the fighters!
