Too Human

Too Human is an action role-playing video game developed by Canadian developer Silicon Knights and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360 console. The game was released in North America on August 19, 2008 and later in Europe on August 29, 2008.

The game is noted for remaining in development hell for almost ten years, originally planned as a four-disc release for the Sony PlayStation in 1999. Development later went into the Nintendo GameCube in 2000 before eventually selling the rights to Microsoft in 2005. It was scheduled for release for the Xbox 360 where it eventually became a finished product.

As part of a planned game trilogy, the story is a science-fictional futuristic retelling of Norse mythology that portrays the Æsir, the Norse Gods, as cybernetics-enhanced humans, tasked with protecting mankind from the onslaught of Loki's army of machines. The player takes the role of the Norse God Baldur, who is less cybernetic than the other Gods, thus being "too human". The game incorporates elements of hack and slash and action-adventure with heavy emphasis on role-playing gameplay elements such as gathering items, upgrading equipment and choosing character classes and alignments.

Gameplay
Too Human is an action/adventure role playing game, incorporating various gameplay elements from both genres, along with aspects of dungeon crawler and third-person shooters. The player takes control of the lead character Baldur in a third-person perspective with the camera distance being adjustable, even controllable during some in-game cinematics to involve the player in the story further. Camera control is limited to player, with the choice to re-adjust the camera back to its default third-person view being the primary following the player and swinging when the player does the same, similar to an auto targeting system. This is because the right analog stick is used for melee combat, instead of traditional camera control, with certain attacks and combos being executed by pushing the stick in the direction of the target with follow-up stick movements applying further attacks with projectile attacks only using an auto lock-on system. Attacks can be combined to execute attacks such as performing combos on enemies in mid-air, attack slides, and juggling foes in the air with projectile weapon attacks. Another aspect of combat are "Ruiner" attacks, powerful abilities that can indirectly affect surrounding enemies and can be mixed with other attacks to perform finishing strikes.

The RPG elements of the game come in the form of advanced character customization. At the beginning of the game, the player is given the choice between five different classes; Berserker, Champion, Defender, Commando, and Bio Engineer, with each having an advantage over another. The Berserker is focused on melee combat while the Commando is oriented on ranged combat. The Bio Engineer has advanced healing abilities and the Defender has a strong armor defense. Finally the Champion is a balanced all rounder with multiple air strike attacks. During the game, players can collect various items that they can equip and use. There are fifteen variations of weapon classes such as pistols, heavy lasers, dual and two-handed combat weapons, armor for different body parts, and "charms" that allow players to use powerful Ruiner abilities. Many items can also be bought and customized by color and effectiveness—using collectable runes—in-between levels back at the Æsir’s base of Asgard.

As players progress through the game, they can level up by slaying foes and achieving high combos, allowing access to more efficient items and skills; these items and skills can be used in the game's Skill Tree mechanic, where points earned with every level up are applied to improve stats and unlock new abilities unique to each different character class. In the early stages of the game, the player can choose between two alignments; Cybernetic and Human. The Cybernetic alignment allows use of certain weapons like heavy lasers and further cybernetic upgrades, while the Human alignment emphasizes quick movement and improved combos.

Multiplayer
Along with the single player campaign, Too Human features a cooperative multiplayer component that can be played over Xbox Live. Hosts can support only a second player with a "drop-in, drop out" system. This allows players to join games hosted in levels they have yet to complete, as long as the host has, allowing high and low level players to join games suited for either. Players can use characters from their single player games and earn experience, levels, and items online that can later be used offline. Cooperative multiplayer features the option to trade items with other human players regardless of their level.

Prologue
Before the Dawn of the Æsir, the great machines called the "Children of Ymir" stalked Earth, bent on destroying humanity. As the war escalated, man and machine exchanged nuclear and anti-matter weapons, leaving a once-lush world frozen in a thousand-year winter. Humanity now teeters on the brink of extinction. Earth's population is now only a few million sheltered in the walled enclave of Midgard. The great sentient machines have prospered in the eternal winter. Humanity, however, is not alone. They pray to the Æsir and faithfully worship the great Organically Distributed Intelligence Network. As protectors, it is the Æsir's duty to ensure humanity survives. Their cybernetically-enhanced bodies and minds make them far more powerful than mortals, and are properly revered as gods.

Development
Too Human was first announced in 1999 to be released on the original PlayStation with a first teaser showings during E3 that same year. Unlike its eventual format on the Xbox 360 as a single disc, the game was to be released across four CD-ROMs bundled together (a similar format to that of Final Fantasy VIII released in 1999). Also, unlike the finished product, the plot, while involving the theme of human cybernetic enhancements, was to be set in the distant future of 2450 AD instead of the alternate science fiction take on Norse mythology.

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, with further news of Too Human becoming mute, without any indication of future development being announced until five years later in 2005.

Xbox 360 Development
Development once again shifted to the Xbox 360 when Silicon Knights announced a partnership with Microsoft in May 2005, which included plans to develop Too Human into a trilogy. Despite initial development on the console, the game did not meet its original planned release date for "a 2006 holiday", with development continuing for an additional two years.

As well as releasing many other promotional videos Silicon Knights was also involved in the making of a fictional documentary titled, The Goblin Man of Norway. The film was reported to be produced by the "Norwegian Film Committee", and is in three parts, with each part being released sequentially. The first part—Excavation—relates the discovery of a high technology mechanical man possibly tens of thousands of years old found encased in a glacier. The second part, titled Examination, contains pictures of the discovery as well as a stone found nearby with a message of doom or curse runically inscribed. The third part, Exhibition, shows the release of the find to the public and includes reactions from various people as to the impact the technology could have on society.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-14">

The demo was released on Xbox Live on July 14, 2008 as part of the Microsoft "Bringing it Home" E3 Marketplace content. The demo includes the Champion class, and gameplay is restricted to part of a single level with cutscenes included, which is only playable in single player. The demo also featured an easter egg where the Commando and Berserker classes become playable by setting the console date to 2009. Later, as of July 25, 2008 the Berserker became available for the demo without any clock modification, as did the Commando class later on August 11, 2008. On July 31, 2008 Microsoft announced that the Too Human demo exceeded 900,000 downloads. It said the demo has "been downloaded more than any other action demo on Xbox Live Marketplace in its first week of availability and [had] been one of the top played titles on Xbox Live overall".

Unreal Engine Dispute
In May 2005, Silicon Knights and Epic Games announced that Silicon Knights would be exclusively using Epic's Unreal Engine 3 for all of their next-gen projects.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-16">[17] Early development of the Xbox 360 incarnation of Too Human began on various incomplete versions of the engine, and their contract stated that Silicon Knights would receive a functional version of the engine no later than six months after the Xbox 360's development kits were finalized. In May 2006, two months after that deadline had passed, Too Human was presented by Silicon Knights' CEO Denis Dyack at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, and was widely mocked by game journalists. In that same month, undoubtedly influenced by the show's response, which Dyack blamed on technical issues, Silicon Knights concluded that many aspects of the game engine were inadequate and/or unexplained, and therefore the engine was not functional. Pressed to continue the game's development or lose funding from Microsoft, and no longer willing to use Unreal Engine 3, but contractually prohibited from using anything else, Dyack made the decision to start rewriting portions of the engine's code so it would behave and deliver results in ways that Silicon Knights was more familiar with and expected. Eventually, Dyack came to the idea that if they were to alter the last remaining portions of unmodified code, it would become an entirely new game engine, which he called the Silicon Knights Engine. Since the contract with Epic stated that Silicon Knights would keep and own the rights to any changes or "improvements" they made to the engine, Dyack felt that he would not be prohibited from using an engine that was composed entirely of improvements, and he also felt that he wasn't obligated to pay for an engine he considered non-functional. On July 19, 2007, Silicon Knights sued Epic Games due to "breach of contract", including "inadequacies" of Epic's support, service, and cooperation with Silicon Knights concerning Unreal Engine 3.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-17"> <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-18"> On August 9, 2007, Epic Games counter-sued Silicon Knights, claiming that it was using its engine as it pleased without any cost. On May 31, 2012, Epic Games prevailed in the lawsuit and was awarded $4.5M in damages.

Reception
Upon the game's release, Too Human received a mediocre to fair reception from critics with an average review score of 68.45% at GameRankings,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-34"> and 65 out of 100 at Metacritic.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-35">

The game's concept of mixing science fiction with Norse mythology was praised by critics with X-Play saying while it "sounds like a stretch", "on the whole, it works" where "the art direction manages to seamlessly blend the grandeur we think of with this mythology and make it come alive again with a healthy dose of futurism."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-xplay_33-1"> GamerNode called it "a highly captivating beginning to an epic and meaningful tale about the ills of transhumanism."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-gamernode_36-0"> IGN found it to do "a great job of keeping you engrossed in the game". It found the game's audio to be its stronger part, calling the music and voice acting "top-notch".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ign_31-1"> Graphically, GameSpot was most impressed with the environments that "feature excellent detail and lighting, with towering statues lording over the proceedings and shafts of light spilling onto mounds of snow." However it did note "each setting seems much like the last", with "stiff combat and facial animations [that] become more and more noticeable",<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-gamespot_28-1"> a point Game Revolution echoed by stating "the game begins strongly with some stunning art design throughout the first level" before becoming too familiar.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-gamerevolution_37-0"> GamerNode noted, "Too Human's graphical presentation is not jaw-dropping in a technical sense, but the cinematography, artistic direction, and environment design work together to present players with awe-inspiring scenes, conveying a sense of magnitude that ties directly into the game's plot."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-gamernode_36-1">

Response to the game's unconventional use of the right analog stick for combat was mixed. Some critics like GamePro finding it to make the game more "slick",<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-gamepro_27-1"> while GameTrailers called it "broken", linking it to button mashing.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-gametrailers_38-0"> While Game Informer liked the idea, the change, it felt, made other aspects of the game worse, notably the camera control and lock-on system for projectile weaponry.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-gameinformer_26-1"> In general, most critics dislike the analog stick configuration, arguing that it removes manual camera control.

A common criticism was directed at the death sequence where a Valkyrie collects the player's body as being too long. Official Xbox Magazine called it a “sheer annoyance”,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-oxm_32-1"> with other critics like TeamXbox jokingly wondering the game's total play time if the sequence was skippable.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-teamxbox_39-0"> Official Xbox Magazine UK however, while finding it "frustrating" felt that it prevented players from abusing the respawn system as result.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-oxmuk_40-0"> Eurogamer however felt the game's biggest problem was its relatively short length for its genre.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-eurogamer_25-1"> As with other critics,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-oxm_32-2"> <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-oxmuk_40-1"> <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-gamerevolution_37-1"> 1UP found the addition of cooperative multiplayer made the game more entertaining.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1up_22-1"> While agreeing, Edge concluded "The irony is that many of Too Human ' s problems wouldn't exist if another pair of human players were allowed to enter the fold (as was originally intended)", referencing the previous feature of four player multiplayer being absent in the finished product. GameDaily called Too Human the "Underperformer of the Year" saying, "we expected the years of development time to turn out something better than this."

Sales
NPD Group reports that the game sold approximately 168,200 copies during the month of August 2008 in North America; it was the 8th best-selling game in the region during that time.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-42"> Too Human "sold around 700,000 units" quoted from Denis Dyack in a Joystiq interview.

Links

 * 1) "Game Trailers Too Human Review (Xbox 360)". Game Trailers.
 * 2) "X-Play Too Human Review (Xbox 360)". G4.
 * 3) "IGN Too Human Review (Xbox 360): Amidst impossible expectations, a decent experience.". IGN.
 * 4) "Too Human Review (Xbox 360): This action/role-playing hybrid is too unbalanced and too frustrating to recommend.". Gamespot.
 * 5) Official website