Too Human – First Impression 4 Years Late

I’ve got a massive back log of games I need to finish and or even open.  I’ve decided to use this as an opportunity to start reviewing games officially and hone the craft.

I picked up Too Human recently for a couple bucks.  E3 has kept me busy following all the news and excitement, so when I finally had a chance to sit down and play some games, I decided I’d give some love to Too Human.  Silly me.

The game opens with a VERY long opening cinematic, several minutes long in fact.  Hero ominously walks into a bar, everyone stares, guy thinks he’s tough, challenges the “new” guy, gets his hillbilly ass kicked and points a gun in the face of another hillbilly who probably thought the gun was candy as he stared at it like it was delicious candy.

In comes a giant man eating robot.  Pew pew pew, mayhem insues.  A man gets his blood sucked out by the robot… Ok?  Our Hero and the robot battle for a bit before the “stare down”.  Our Hero casually takes out his massive sword, drags it on the ground to make sparks because that’s just the cool thing to do and slices off the arm of the robot.

PRESS START.  FINALLY.

There’s a brief introduction of the character classes, what they can do.  I try not to research classes and find out which classes are the easiest to twink to stroll through the game.  I picked Champion because it’s stat layout appeared to offer the best general stat distribution.

Game loads, we’re on a ship and it looks like we’re getting ready to land and maybe pew pew some people.  There’s another soldier acting like a bitch, he’ll obviously die first.  (Spoiler alert, he did)  We land on the ice planet head into some temple praying to Odin.  Finally all the cutscenes end and I get to control Baldur…..

JESUS CHRIST THESE CONTROLS ARE SHIT.  Left analog moves you around normally, the camera does a terrible job following you around, so naturally I default to the right analog stick to adjust the camera…. And I swing my sword.  The fuck?  A tip menu comes up explaining how controls work.  You need to press LB to centralize the camera in the direction you’re facing.  For the love of Allah…  So I’ve already got a massive hatred for the controls and camera system, let’s progress a little and see how combat works.

We run into some robotic shit fiends (I don’t know what they’re called, who cares they’re fodder) and I get to use RT and LT to fire my guns.  I’m not sure if the targetting is naturally bad or if there’s a learning curve and my proficiency will improve with time and practice.  So I begin melting faces, I use the right analog to sword smuck things.  The controls were forgiving and not very accurate.  It seemed like I could just jam the analog in any direction and it’d find something to kill.  I started to jump and roll around and I started to see where all the negative feedback started.

Eventually I get a level and get to explore the menus.  They load up slowly and navigating around the circular menu listing felt sluggish.  The skill tree system was straight forward.  You get 3 skill points per level, you put them in a skill, after so many points it opens a new branch below it, rinse repeat.  The weapon and armor seemed easy enough to understand so I don’t think that’ll be a huge issue for me.  I got some runes and applied them but I didn’t pay attention to what they did.  I haven’t ran into blueprints yet, so that’s something that’s redeeming.

So we’ve got that out of the way, I need to figure out where to go.  I’ve checked all the menus and can’t seem to find any type of navigation system.  Anything that points me in the right direction.  A little disheartening, but I’m a big boy, I can handle mental mapping.  So I figure out where I need to go, I keep on trucking and after getting my ass kicked by the shit fiends a bit, I finally find my way to the first boss of the game, the blood sucking robot Grendel.

Grendel was easy.  Too easy.  Essentially the fight ended up with me spam shooting him with my pistols, rolling out of the way of every single one of his attacks, and shooting the flying bomb humpers (They’re like missiles that hump you if they get close).  I continued this strategy for about 4-5 minutes and Grendel fell.  Disappointing to say the least.  I had more difficulties with the shit fiends who actually nearly killed me a few times.

Overall I’ve invested an hour into Too Human and so far it’s not looking very promising.  Terrible controls, a bad camera system, sluggish menus and boss fights that are easier than regular fights.  There haven’t been any redeeming features yet but this is only a first impression.  Maybe the game will grow on me and there will be a mechanic that really stands out that will be its saving grace.  Let’s see where Too Human takes us.

-GamingRendo