Right up front, I’m an unapologetic Too Human lover. Sure the game has flaws, but what game doesn’t? The only game I spent more time with in the last six months was Fallout 3, yet, if you read message boards or listen to podcasts, read blogs or generally dip your finger into the lake of video game enthusiast press, you’d think Too Human was the second coming of Superman 64.
How did this happen and who’s to blame? I lay it all out, after the jump.
First off, I blame Dennis Dyack. His bold predicitons and flame baiting on several well known video game forums and video game podcasts certainly set expectations high for a game that had been vaporware on the order of a Duke Nukem Forever for years leading up to it’s release. The story of Too Human’s development is a long and storied one, with the game first seeing light almost 10 years ago as a Nintendo 64 game and later as an Xbox game. Sure, the press went overboard with stupid statements and dumb pronouncements, but the stage was set by Dyack for such things and his PR people should have reigned him in.
Second, I blame Dennis Dyack. His whole handling of the lawsuit against Epic is just shameful. Whomever his attorney is, should have muzzled Dyack for attempting to try this matter in the enthusiast press, when the matter is certainly far more complicated than a he said, she said battle between Epic and Silicon Knights. All this did was focus the naysayers squarely on Too Human, and put everyone else in the position of “OK Dennis, talk the talk, now walk the walk.” Anything less than the second coming of Christ in video game form would not be enough, even for the most casual spectator in these events.
Finally, I blame Dennis Dyack. Look, the game had some glaring issues for people to point fingers at and yell “This game sucks!” The slow death animation, the lack of variety of gameplay throughout the levels, the ridiculous amount of meaningless loot that would drop and all of the other glitches simply gave ammo to the NeoGaf morons who have nothing better to do than to post “Too Human < Haze” posts all day. Simply fixing or even patching these glaring issues would have gone a long way toward silencing the stupid.
In the end, Too Human, at least in my opinion is a pretty kick ass game that got a ton of bad press because of the big mouth of an executive that has no idea how to handle media relations. So, for the crazy controversy surrounding Too Human in the months leading up to it’s 8/12/08 launch, this landed at number 21 on our Top 100 Gaming Moments of 2008.
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I picked up Too Human from playswitch. I’ve been happy with it. Sure it has issues. However, it’s been an okay game so far and I’ve had fun with it which is all that counts anyhow.
Speaking of the “Second Coming” of video games. I actually traded Halo Jesus for this game. I played a grand total of like four hours of Halo 3 and got bored with it. This means that I’ve now played more and got more enjoyment out of Too Human than Halo 3.
Thanks for giving me this game as a prize Lono (at PAX). I really tried to give it a chance but 3 things ruined it for me:
The death animation: (which is probably a way or disguising the reloading of the level) after about 20 deaths, I realized that I could not handle watching it any longer for another 20-40 hours.
The other things was the combat, it just felt….constipated. I admit that launching an enemy into the air and flying up to it and wailing on it is fun, but it just didn’t feel smooth enough.
The final thing was the load time for the subscreen. With all of the loot you are picking up and adding to your character and tweaking etc. I couldn’t stand the load time. Maybe for the PSP this would have been acceptable but for the 360??
This game left me hungry from more from an action RPG, so I went back to Phantasy Star Universe.
Anyhow, great article and thanks for writing it.
8bitbass, thats exactly how i felt, it didnt seem like a this gen game it was pretty unsmooth and had terrible graphics and well, i bought the game and i was very disappointed
I think I can offer my opinion after putting about 4 hours into the game…
I found Too Human to be an insufferable bore. The graphics were decidedly unpleasant and the gameplay was very cookie cutter.
All in all, i’d say “Meh” to Too Human. Lono is more than welcome to disagree (and I’m sure he will) but I think I gave the game pretty good try and it didn’t live up to the hype.
It´s still Denis, NOT Dennis
The article is great, Too Human´s image was completely ruined by Dyack alone, but I love this game so much
You think 4 hours is enough time to get into Too Human, hahahaha…..the doesn’t even start getting fun until you level up to around level 30 and you are not getting to 30 in 4 hours.
Let me just say this….I level 50 character with a full EPIC armor or a tricked out Aesir set loaded with red ruins makes a huge difference in this game. Too Human has RPG elements in the leveling up of your character and it takes patience and a time investment by many gamers to get Too Human, but when it finally sinks in and your skill sets are starting to max…..your character can be pretty badass.
The game is just fun. If you set lofty expectations on it, you’ll be disappointed. I loved it. I’ll put it up there with any of the games this year. Granted that the game has issues, but what game doesn’t?
Haters hate, players play…