So, I downloaded this monster of a demo for Too Human, which lasted for the first half a dozen character levels and showed me more non-interactive cut-scenes than I really care about.
Camera problems
When you are first thrown into the thick of things you'll instantly notice that the camera feels buggy and shows all sorts of weird angles. Simply having a look around is a pain, because the free look doesn't allow it. There a sort of 'round robin' view, but that has a horrible angle and didn't work for me. Instead you need to run around in circles just to get an idea of where you are and what's around you. The camera is just far enough from the hero that you don't get constantly blind-sided by enemies coming at you from all directions, but it's not really that great that you want to wade into hordes of enemies...which is exactly what the game asks you to do, if you play the character class suggested by the developers for a first-time experience.
Pretty good controls
Controls are pretty intuitive: you use one analogue stick to move around and the other one directs your attacks, and this is very simple especially in melee combat. Just nudge the analogue stick towards a nearby enemy and game does the rest for you, and if you keep holding the analogue stick the game does combos too. Easy. When it comes to guns the intuitive feel loses a little shine: the guns work with Left and Right Trigger and are designated as primary and secondary respectively. Why? When you take out your guns I saw absolutely no reason to use just one gun, since dual wielding was clearly more efficient. So, instead of pulling on one trigger you end up pulling on both triggers for no practical reason that I can fathom. Then there's the whole aiming: while you can fine tune your aim the "auto" aim feature is pretty jumpy and can flicker from one opponent to the next when a horde of enemies (and they always come in hordes) is charging at you. Just shoot one until it blinks red, and you are good, but this isn't exactly the way to conserve cool down. Luckily you never run out of ammo, but just need to wait for your guns to cool down a little, as the current trend in sci-fi games (like Mass Effect) seems to be. A (jump/interact with environment) and B(evade/skip cut-scenes) buttons are really the only ones you get to use extensively during the demo, so you'll get a hang of jumping around and rolling on the ground soon enough. The movement is just fast enough to feel 'okay', but doesn't make me want to try out any great aerials. Then there's the über power button, which is your right bumper: this is just a simple circular blast that increases as you level up and put skill points into the right places. I mainly had to use this when the camera screwed me over and left me looking away from all the enemies while they proceeded to kick the living snot out of me.
Lots'n'lots of gear...
Equipment is pretty much what you would expect: if it's big and bulky it swings slow, but hits heavy. If it's lean and sleek, it will swing quickly and do less damage. There are hordes of different little power ups that become available pretty much instantly and you can start building your combinations of different types of resistances, buffs and whatnots even in the demo. However, despite how pretty and unique the different weapons look they don't really feel that different. If you have seen one sword you have seen them all. Same with the hammers and axes. The only difference is with how much damage and what special buffs the weapons provides. Same deal with armor and the rest of the categories. Runes left me a little baffled: I think they are just instant power ups that you pick up as you roll through the enemy hordes, but at the same time the inventory screen suggests that there might be more to it than that. I don't know, the demo ended before I got around to figuring this out. There were also two panes that were obviously for customizing weapons and armor, but I didn't get a chance to try those out during the demo.
Cut-scenes. Lots of those too
I was actually confused half the time when I was thrown into various kinds of cut-scenes, because some of them expected me to move around without any particular directions. Some of them just held me by the hand while the NPCs talked about this and that. The hero does get a few grunts and snide remarks in every now and then, but he might as well not exist as far as the story is concerned. The thing that really bothered me was the static nature of the cut-scenes. I loved the way Mass Effect offered me loads of interactive cut-scenes that provided me with opportunities to make little choices and changes that created the illusion that what I choose now may actually make a difference later on. Not so with Too Human, and I didn't like it.
Lackluster game experience
Jump in. Swing your sword around like a madman, taking hits without blinking and killing enemies left and right. Evade the incoming guided missiles. Cut your way towards the artillery and start shooting at them as soon as you got a clear line of sight. Keep running & gunning, and then cut the artillery to smaller pieces with your melee attacks. Attack blindly towards the horde of enemies running after you and hope that the camera turns around at some point. Repeat. O', yeah, and there are some boss fights that consist of: run in, combo-hit, evade boss attack. Repeat.
Conclusion
The game feels very simple and straightforward, but lacks the same kind of spine gripping game play made Diablo 1 & 2 great game experiences. The shooting and melee look pretty, but don't feel like much: this is because you just direct the combat's direction instead of contributing something to the attacks. You can hoard stuff just like in ME, and the inventory works a little better, but the stuff I saw didn't seem to make anywhere near as much of a difference in-game. So, even if you got a great looking sword it probably just hits harder than your average sword and on a rare occasion rolls out a special buff / energy attack. Not really game breaking development, nor does it feel like you are getting something new and interesting with every new toy. The inventory starts filling with garbage very quickly, but luckily you can sell stuff while on "missions".
Personally: I'll skip this work of mediocre sci-fi hack'n'shoot.
Camera problems
When you are first thrown into the thick of things you'll instantly notice that the camera feels buggy and shows all sorts of weird angles. Simply having a look around is a pain, because the free look doesn't allow it. There a sort of 'round robin' view, but that has a horrible angle and didn't work for me. Instead you need to run around in circles just to get an idea of where you are and what's around you. The camera is just far enough from the hero that you don't get constantly blind-sided by enemies coming at you from all directions, but it's not really that great that you want to wade into hordes of enemies...which is exactly what the game asks you to do, if you play the character class suggested by the developers for a first-time experience.
Pretty good controls
Controls are pretty intuitive: you use one analogue stick to move around and the other one directs your attacks, and this is very simple especially in melee combat. Just nudge the analogue stick towards a nearby enemy and game does the rest for you, and if you keep holding the analogue stick the game does combos too. Easy. When it comes to guns the intuitive feel loses a little shine: the guns work with Left and Right Trigger and are designated as primary and secondary respectively. Why? When you take out your guns I saw absolutely no reason to use just one gun, since dual wielding was clearly more efficient. So, instead of pulling on one trigger you end up pulling on both triggers for no practical reason that I can fathom. Then there's the whole aiming: while you can fine tune your aim the "auto" aim feature is pretty jumpy and can flicker from one opponent to the next when a horde of enemies (and they always come in hordes) is charging at you. Just shoot one until it blinks red, and you are good, but this isn't exactly the way to conserve cool down. Luckily you never run out of ammo, but just need to wait for your guns to cool down a little, as the current trend in sci-fi games (like Mass Effect) seems to be. A (jump/interact with environment) and B(evade/skip cut-scenes) buttons are really the only ones you get to use extensively during the demo, so you'll get a hang of jumping around and rolling on the ground soon enough. The movement is just fast enough to feel 'okay', but doesn't make me want to try out any great aerials. Then there's the über power button, which is your right bumper: this is just a simple circular blast that increases as you level up and put skill points into the right places. I mainly had to use this when the camera screwed me over and left me looking away from all the enemies while they proceeded to kick the living snot out of me.
Lots'n'lots of gear...
Equipment is pretty much what you would expect: if it's big and bulky it swings slow, but hits heavy. If it's lean and sleek, it will swing quickly and do less damage. There are hordes of different little power ups that become available pretty much instantly and you can start building your combinations of different types of resistances, buffs and whatnots even in the demo. However, despite how pretty and unique the different weapons look they don't really feel that different. If you have seen one sword you have seen them all. Same with the hammers and axes. The only difference is with how much damage and what special buffs the weapons provides. Same deal with armor and the rest of the categories. Runes left me a little baffled: I think they are just instant power ups that you pick up as you roll through the enemy hordes, but at the same time the inventory screen suggests that there might be more to it than that. I don't know, the demo ended before I got around to figuring this out. There were also two panes that were obviously for customizing weapons and armor, but I didn't get a chance to try those out during the demo.
Cut-scenes. Lots of those too
I was actually confused half the time when I was thrown into various kinds of cut-scenes, because some of them expected me to move around without any particular directions. Some of them just held me by the hand while the NPCs talked about this and that. The hero does get a few grunts and snide remarks in every now and then, but he might as well not exist as far as the story is concerned. The thing that really bothered me was the static nature of the cut-scenes. I loved the way Mass Effect offered me loads of interactive cut-scenes that provided me with opportunities to make little choices and changes that created the illusion that what I choose now may actually make a difference later on. Not so with Too Human, and I didn't like it.
Lackluster game experience
Jump in. Swing your sword around like a madman, taking hits without blinking and killing enemies left and right. Evade the incoming guided missiles. Cut your way towards the artillery and start shooting at them as soon as you got a clear line of sight. Keep running & gunning, and then cut the artillery to smaller pieces with your melee attacks. Attack blindly towards the horde of enemies running after you and hope that the camera turns around at some point. Repeat. O', yeah, and there are some boss fights that consist of: run in, combo-hit, evade boss attack. Repeat.
Conclusion
The game feels very simple and straightforward, but lacks the same kind of spine gripping game play made Diablo 1 & 2 great game experiences. The shooting and melee look pretty, but don't feel like much: this is because you just direct the combat's direction instead of contributing something to the attacks. You can hoard stuff just like in ME, and the inventory works a little better, but the stuff I saw didn't seem to make anywhere near as much of a difference in-game. So, even if you got a great looking sword it probably just hits harder than your average sword and on a rare occasion rolls out a special buff / energy attack. Not really game breaking development, nor does it feel like you are getting something new and interesting with every new toy. The inventory starts filling with garbage very quickly, but luckily you can sell stuff while on "missions".
Personally: I'll skip this work of mediocre sci-fi hack'n'shoot.
