Not that I want to encroach on Mike’s territory, but today Too Human for Xbox 360 arrived via Gamefly. As a rule, bad video games are like bad pizza: even if it sucks, you’re still eating pizza. Or playing a video game. I mean…this is to say that at least the worst pizza or video game is better than doing something that isn’t one of those things, like say, having your wisdom teeth out. (F@#k. I still need to get that done, actually.) Interestingly, though, I think I would rather have my wisdom teeth taken out than play this game.
It seemed like a solid premise: It’s a science-fictiony game wherein Norse mythology meets cybernetics. As far as the gameplay, it’s the bastard child of a hack-and-slash Diablo-type game, an RPG and a fighter. (Seriously, there are combos and such.) It’s also terrible. Did I mention that?
Where to begin? How about the opening cutscene:
Skip to about 2:19 where you will find a woman-thing who, despite being mostly wires and robot parts still feels the need to wear an outfit that has about as much fabric as child’s sock. While I’m sure they were trying to appeal to teenage boys with scantily clad women, even that fails terribly. The whole scene is about as hot as a cross between an 80 year-old grandmother and RoboCop. (But hey, if that turns you on, maybe this game is for you.)
We’re not even to the game yet! The controls are awful. Since, I don’t know, Playstation 1? The left stick is for moving, the right stick is for looking. No exceptions. Except for Too Human, where the right analog stick is for attacking. Yes, that’s right. There’s like eight other perfectly good buttons on that controller (many of which aren’t even used by default) and they put attack on the stick. As if that wasn’t enough, it would seem that you have a gun, grenades, a big knife on a stick, a mechanical spider and maybe a robot gerbil that are all governed by some combination of sticks and buttons. It’s a mess.
Then there’s the camera, (Did I mention the right stick doesn’t control the camera?) which you seem to only be able to center or set the distance of. It’s always in the wrong place.
Add to all this the fact that every time you die, there’s a thirty-second animation of you getting taken up to Viking heaven by a robot Valkyrie. A thirty-second, unskippable animation. You then respawn with full health ten feet away. (Note: I am not making this up.) Where I’m from, Vikings that die get put on a boat and then that boat is set on fire.
What baffles me the most is that this isn’t some movie tie-in game that was crapped out in two months for as little money as possible. They spent 80 million dollars and ten years on this game. (It was originally supposed to be a PS1 title.) Amazing.
It will be going back to Gamefly in tomorrow’s mail. I’m glad I didn’t actually buy it. I feel sorry for those that did. In closing, don’t buy this game. It is really bad.
On February 4th, 2009 at 7:56 am Mike said:
Yeah, the tortured development history of this game turned out to be a lot more interesting than the final product. It was also supposed to be a trilogy, which is kind of adorably naive.
It’s a shame, these guys made Eternal Darkness, which was pretty cool.
On February 4th, 2009 at 8:06 am Jaybill McCarthy said:
@Mike The real shame of it is that it’s obvious that a tremendous amount of work went into creating this. The problem is that it would seem it was all around cramming shit in and not around making a really tight game.
On February 8th, 2009 at 12:10 am TheParthenon said:
Going to agree with you (mostly) on this one. Really huge disappointment tempered by trying it through Gamefly and not spending any Real Dollars on it.
However, Too Human DID give us some absolutely INCREDIBLE interview material in which we can witness Dennis Dyack literally going insane, so, y’know… There’s that.
Does he get his own VH1 Reality Show now?