OK, Too Human is the stupidest game I've ever played.
Please note, it's not THE WORST, it's just the most stupid. Like, I am baffled by it, I am baffled by the design choices and that someone thought this was a GOOD IDEA.
If you didn't know, Too Human is from Silicon Knights, a Canadian developer headed by the MAVERICK (this is the popular adjective the industry has applied to him) developer Dennis Dyack. It has also been in development for a billion years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_HumanSeriously, it started as a PLAYSTATION 1 GAME and debuted at E3 in 1999.
Too Human was originally in development for the PlayStation as a 4-disc action-adventure game. It was shown at E3 1999[6], and a teaser trailer was shown at SpaceWorld 2000 showing what appeared to be a re-building of the PlayStation game. Development halted when Nintendo announced an exclusive partnership with Silicon Knights, and the game was moved to the Nintendo GameCube in 2000. Prototyping for the game took place on the GameCube, but the staff at Silicon Knights soon devoted their efforts towards two other releases, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.[7]
In the May 2005 issue of EGM, Silicon Knights announced a partnership with publisher Microsoft to develop a trilogy revolving around the Too Human universe exclusively for the Xbox 360. The game was originally being developed using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3, but is now being developed using an internal engine. On July 19, 2007, it was announced that Silicon Knights was suing Epic Games due to "breach of contract", including "inadequacies" of Epic’s support, service, and cooperation with Silicon Knights concerning Unreal Engine 3.[8][9] On August 9, 2007, Epic Games countersued Silicon Knights, claiming that they were using their engine as they pleased without any cost. If Epic wins the case, Silicon Knights would be forced to pay in excess of $650,000.
I sort of wanted to like it. No, that's not true. I DEFINITELY wanted to like it. A) It's sci fi, or at least seemed to be. B) It's epic and I like epic videogames sometimes. C) It is a dungeon hack and slash with supposedly flashy abilities and shit and I love a good dungeon hack and slash game. So, it seemed set to be a sci fi epic hack and slash... with online coop. What could go wrong????
Well, I played the demo that was released at E3 in July. it was pretty... mediocre. The menus were laggy, the combat felt stilted, and the dialogue was cheesy. But I guess I lied to myself and figured they'd iron out a bit of this before the August release. At least the programming issues anyway.
TURNS OUT THEY DIDN'T.
Again, I am simply baffled with Too Human. How is it in 2008, on the XBOX360, that a GAME MENU can lag this bad? Everything about navigating the menu is clunky and sluggish. How do you develop a game for a decade and still botch the interface this badly? Also, the actual itemization is sort of dull, with tons of generic WHATEVER WHATEVER PAULDRONS OF THE WHATEVER, that are typical in dungeon hacks. But Too Human manages to make them feel even MORE generic, with dull bonuses that barely feel like an improvement. Sweet, +2% to my slash resist!!!
The gameplay in Too Human is flat fucking busted too and you've probably heard about it. I was dumbfounded by everything here too. Who thought it was a good idea to have you slashing through hordes of generic rushing monsters while also sticking a bunch of other monsters in the background shooting annoying shit that knocks you down everytime it hits? Oh yeah, and there are no portable healing items. if you get hit with a damage over time ability or just take a shit ton of damage, you better hope you stumble across an orb of health!!
You'll die, and you'll die a lot. The game will throw stupid, unbalanced and utterly frustrating hordes of enemies at you. And that opens you to the single most obnoxious thing I've ever seen in a videogame and you have to watch it, every single fucking time you die. You can't skip it, you can't turn it off.
Fuck you Dennis Dyack.
The game essentially fails at everything it attempts, in differing degrees of severity. The story is sort of stupid, riddled with awful, cheesy dialogue and mediocre voice acting. Any momentum is builds is crushed with a lame, overacted scene. The graphics are really nice in places, but marred with some bad textures and models and a godawful camera. The UI is sluggish and a pain to use. But worst of all, the gameplay is busted. I've played worse, to be sure, but I've never been this confused at the failure of a developer before. Why didn't anyone NOTICE these problems during the extensive development process?
The only hope is that IF the supposed trilogy does come to be, Dyack and his crew at Silicon Knights figures out how to make a halfway decent game in the process of bringing their lame ass cyber viking vision to fruition.
Discuss Too Human.