Too Human Catch-All

LobsterMobster wrote:

My father lost his home after E.T. for the Atari came out. Them Atari towns... the work was good when it was there, but soon as the mine dried up they emptied overnight. Ain't nothin but a ghost town now! If you ever pass through them parts, don't you dare mention that game to none of the locals. Not unless you ain't plannin' on ever comin' back!

Consarnit.

Ahh...E.T. for the 2600.

I'm interested in the comments on the plot. In the small metacritic excerpt, the game informer refers to a "irreparable plot." :\ Jeeze. I wonder if it's just straight up bad, or if it's simply a poor implementation of Dyack's "true trilogy" philosophy. Taken as a whole, will be story be superior? Or, of course, the reviewer could just be out to lunch.

After the demo, the plot was the only thing that could have made me want to play it. After Legacy of Kain and Eternal Darkness, I sort of assumed that at least that portion of it would be decent. Maybe not?

Perhaps it's simply that the plot, no matter how well written, can't be taken seriously with such reportedly terrible cutscene animation? Who knows.

I was planning on grabbing this tomorrow but, after reading a couple reviews, I'm not so sure anymore. While I enjoyed the demo and its gameplay, it wasn't long enough for me to determine whether it would hold up after a couple (or 10, for that matter) hours. If it really is horde after horde of similar enemies and sorely lacking in combat variation as some reviews suggest, I don't know that I'd want to do more than 30 minutes.

Demos have generally been a reliable indicator of my enjoyment of a game, but I think I'll wait for some non-review reactions to the game in the next few days.

Gamespy's review makes it sound like their impression of the game was just "meh". They didn't hate it, but thought that the combination of samey enemies, samey environments and unexciting loot meant it wasn't compelling.

From the gamespy review.

The blow of repetitive gameplay and broken loot mechanics could possibly be softened if there were some kind of riveting narrative to be gleaned, but unfortunately, Too Human seems more interested in queuing up more ranks of robots for you to destroy than actually explaining anything to you. Who are the Aesir really and, most importantly, where did they come from? These questions are left totally unanswered even though they are of pivotal importance to the enjoyment of the story. Instead, you get a hokey plot that revolves around some dude killing your wife and amnesia. Amnesia? Really? When combined with the pointless banter between your throwaway compatriots, you can probably find better writing in any given episode of "The Golden Girls."

That last comment is innane and oddly childish. An attempt at humour? Speaking of poorly written... Heh, ironic.

But regardless, this seems to be in agreement with the other reviews. Bummer.

Man I'm jonesing so hard for a loot whore game, almost badly enough to buy this despite not liking the demo and how bad the reviews are...

Diablo 3... hurry the hell up.

Sinatar wrote:

Man I'm jonesing so hard for a loot whore game, almost badly enough to buy this despite not liking the demo and how bad the reviews are...

Diablo 3... hurry the hell up.

This is going to sound weird but...I bought Hellgate: London for 20$ at EBGames and it's scratching my loot whore itch.

I think I shall wait for some GWJ co-op impressions before pulling the trigger. I enjoyed the combat in the demo, and wish to see if it keeps getting cooler as you level up.

Sinatar wrote:

Diablo 3... hurry the hell up.

Starcraft announced May 1996, released Mar 1998.
Diablo II announced Sep 1997, released Jun 2000.
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, announced Sep 1999, released Jul, 2002.
World of Warcraft announced Sep 2001, released Nov 2004.
Diablo III announced Jun 2008, released in the unknowable, distant future.

GameSpot's review is up.

This review is fairly meaty and goes into fair depth with its criticisms. The flaws it details are things that couldn't have been fully discovered in the demo and if they're as bad as it says, that's very much a shame. Kind of ironically, it looks like I won't be picking up my pre-order tomorrow since my washing machine has busted itself nicely today and the money I'd budgeted for Too Human will probably have to go to fixing that. So it looks like I may end up renting this first anyway. That sucks because I'll be very low in the queue for copies of it from my rental service and probably won't get it for a while. I still intend to buy it tomorrow if the washer isn't too expensive to fix but if I can't, I guess I'll get a longer trial first. It does look more and more like this game should have stayed in the oven longer.

Great Ars Technica review
Conclusion:

The Good

* Source material is interesting and well-used
* Great depth in character customization
* Strong combat engine
* Sharp graphical presentation
* Drop-in, drop-out online co-op
* High replayability

The Bad

* Controls aren't for everyone
* No split-screen co-op
* Menu and camera need work
* Some distracting graphical bugs
* Cyberspace portion of game is too linear
* Difficulty balance is off as a result of A.I., death penalty

The Ugly

* Getting over the drama and just enjoying the game for what it is.

Dev's take notice. Give games to GWJ first. We'll thoughtfully tear it a new one, and then you won't have those design flaws.

Despite the review's, I'll still likely rent this game, unless I hear violent reactions from this board.

If they're planning a trilogy then plot would have to be important but even the first time I was watching those cutscenes I didn't enjoy it. They were pretty, but so boring. I'm assuming the story gets better but if it doesn't then there's not a lot of justification for two more games in the series. Just make the next one as polished as the third one would've been and get your ass back on Eternal Darkness 2, Mr. Dyack.

That's an order.

Since I'm not allowed to say anything about Denis Dyack, I'm just going to link to his response to criticism.

Reading these reviews, something did kind of strike me as strange. Why have a healing class in a game with only two players?

LobsterMobster wrote:

Since I'm not allowed to say anything about Denis Dyack, I'm just going to link to his response to criticism.

Reading these reviews, something did kind of strike me as strange. Why have a healing class in a game with only two players?

Because it was designed for 4?

Swat wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Since I'm not allowed to say anything about Denis Dyack, I'm just going to link to his response to criticism.

Reading these reviews, something did kind of strike me as strange. Why have a healing class in a game with only two players?

Because it was designed for 4? :D

Right, so when they took out two players maybe they should have rebalanced the class? I haven't played it yet (it's not unlocked in the demo) but people keep describing it as a "healer." Maybe they should've made it more of a "mage?"

LobsterMobster wrote:
Swat wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Since I'm not allowed to say anything about Denis Dyack, I'm just going to link to his response to criticism.

Reading these reviews, something did kind of strike me as strange. Why have a healing class in a game with only two players?

Because it was designed for 4? :D

Right, so when they took out two players maybe they should have rebalanced the class? I haven't played it yet (it's not unlocked in the demo) but people keep describing it as a "healer." Maybe they should've made it more of a "mage?"

Maybe he should be described as someone who "uses synthetic enzymes to create/recreate microoraganisms with an inherent applicable function." He cold use bacteria to produce fossil fuels. For like, um, a chain saw you use in combat!

LobsterMobster wrote:
Swat wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Since I'm not allowed to say anything about Denis Dyack, I'm just going to link to his response to criticism.

Reading these reviews, something did kind of strike me as strange. Why have a healing class in a game with only two players?

Because it was designed for 4? :D

Right, so when they took out two players maybe they should have rebalanced the class? I haven't played it yet (it's not unlocked in the demo) but people keep describing it as a "healer." Maybe they should've made it more of a "mage?"

Yeah that would make sense. I'm sure it also made sense to someone over there, but it was too late, so they were left in as a "feature". Everything about the game seems like it wanted to break out and be a full/quasi-MMO but it just didn't stick right. Well, that and pretty much putting an MMO monikor on anything now means you will shrivel up and die a horrible death as you're stomped repeatadly in the nuts by McBlizzard(tm).

I'm still interested in the game, just not day one, full retail price. I think this will be a great game to tool around with as a co-op rental or budget purchase.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind picking it up at budget price, especially if they patch it (to make it more palatable for us stupid plebians). I had fun playing the berserker.

LobsterMobster wrote:

If they're planning a trilogy then plot would have to be important but even the first time I was watching those cutscenes I didn't enjoy it. They were pretty, but so boring. I'm assuming the story gets better but if it doesn't then there's not a lot of justification for two more games in the series. Just make the next one as polished as the third one would've been and get your ass back on Eternal Darkness 2, Mr. Dyack.

That's an order.

I remember Dyack saying a while back that a sequel to Eternal Darkness for the Wii was a possibility if Nintendo was up for it. With Nintendo's new casual focus, I don't know but man that would be awesome. The sanity effects that could benefit from motion control...

PXA wrote:

I remember Dyack saying a while back that a sequel to Eternal Darkness for the Wii was a possibility if Nintendo was up for it. With Nintendo's new casual focus, I don't know but man that would be awesome. The sanity effects that could benefit from motion control...

That would be so awesome. The focus might be on "family-friendly" but keep in mind the Wii's also getting Fatal Frame and Mad World. We can always hope.

LobsterMobster wrote:
PXA wrote:

I remember Dyack saying a while back that a sequel to Eternal Darkness for the Wii was a possibility if Nintendo was up for it. With Nintendo's new casual focus, I don't know but man that would be awesome. The sanity effects that could benefit from motion control...

That would be so awesome. The focus might be on "family-friendly" but keep in mind the Wii's also getting Fatal Frame and Mad World. We can always hope.

You could shake NPC's out of their madness! Awesome.

Thanks for the Ars Technica review link. I'm definitely looking forward to this, solo and co-op. I still hold out hope that they could patch 4 player co-op in at some point, that would be pretty sweet.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Since I'm not allowed to say anything about Denis Dyack, I'm just going to link to his response to criticism.

I called this in the prediction thread!

And I'm going to gloat about it because every other prediction I made turned out to be so horribly off the mark it's not even funny.

Wow, this game has been getting worked over so far. Discouraging reviews and lots of ire over the demo controls/camera.

Vector wrote:

This is going to sound weird but...I bought Hellgate: London for 20$ at EBGames and it's scratching my loot whore itch.

You can get a round of penicillin for around $5.00, it'll clear up that loot whore itch too.

I so wanted to like Too Human, partially out of respect for their previous Eternal Darkness. Reading the reviews for this game makes me anxious for Diablo 3.

Well, reviews or no - the demo certainly kept me entertained on multiple play-through's. I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

but keep in mind the Wii's also getting Fatal Frame

Unfortunately I heard somewhere recently (I forget where) that the control scheme for the Fatal Frame game is hopelessly crippled in the japanese version (something along the lines of having to 'bank' the nunchuck left / right to turn left/right in the game was given as an example). Hopefully this will get sorted out for western releases but I'm not holding my breath.

I remember Dyack saying a while back that a sequel to Eternal Darkness for the Wii was a possibility if Nintendo was up for it. With Nintendo's new casual focus, I don't know but man that would be awesome. The sanity effects that could benefit from motion control...

Funnily enough I only just picked that up fairly recently, since I can now play it on the Wii (never had a gamecube). Quite a fun little game which I really must get around to finishing.

One thing that really bugs me though - Nintendo have a patent on the "sanity system with on-screen display" which is worded vaguely enough that no other game can get away with using even a slightly similar system without paying out to Nintendo. (Only one I can think of that gets around this is Call of Cthulhu : Dark Corners of the Earth which gets away with it by not having an on-screen indicator). A niggling point perhaps but one that annoys me regardless.

stevenmack wrote:

One thing that really bugs me though - Nintendo have a patent on the "sanity system with on-screen display" which is worded vaguely enough that no other game can get away with using even a slightly similar system without paying out to Nintendo. (Only one I can think of that gets around this is Call of Cthulhu : Dark Corners of the Earth which gets away with it by not having an on-screen indicator). A niggling point perhaps but one that annoys me regardless.

That's just fine by me. I think the biggest flaw with that game was that sanity was metered the same way as health. The game was the most fun when your sanity was low but the mechanics encouraged you to recover it and made it very easy to do so. The "regenerative health" trend would work well for insanity effects. You see something horrifying and you start going nuts until you take a breather somewhere normal and relaxing to recover your senses a bit.

Or maybe they could use a "blink eyes" button.

For those who are still interested, Developer Diary #5 and Part 3 of Goblin Man in now on xLive Marketplace. It's 1.05 GB.

Man, that's going to be a long one. Anxious to see how they end it though, especially I got suckered into thinking it was real at one point.

Nei wrote:

For those who are still interested, Developer Diary #5 and Part 3 of Goblin Man in now on xLive Marketplace. It's 1.05 GB.

:)

Sweet, I loved the first two, I'll be downloading that puppy when I get home.