Somewhere, A Three Armed Man Is Having The Time Of His Life

I have a morbid curiosity when it comes to poorly received games. You see, when everyone insists that a game is awful, that just makes me curious to see how it really is. Pimp My Ride for the 360, for instance, is not all that bad, and actually plays like a spiritual successor to the Crazy Taxi series. Bomber Man Act Zero, for all of the faults of the art direction, would have actually been a playable game if the explosion animations had been more properly timed with the period where the explosion will kill you.

So when the reviews scores started coming in for Too Human, my curiosity was once again piqued. For a game that had been so hyped for so long to turn out to be as bad as they were saying, there would have to be something massive there. In the end, I'm pretty sure I found that something.

It started when I first loaded up the game demo, and just jumped right in with whatever the default class was. I had heard, prior to that point, that the game controlled similarly to Geometry Wars, and I was very Curious how that could possibly transfer over to a 3D action title. The answer was not as well as the developers must have intended. From the get go I felt like I really needed a third thumbstick in order to properly play the game. I was running around with my left thumb, and melee attacking or aiming my guns with my right thumb, but all I could do to see what was around me (especially behind me) was to keep mashing the left bumper, and hope it would give me a glimpse of what I needed to see. Eventually I put the demo down, before completing it, and told myself that maybe the final product would be better. I did pick it up one more time after that, and got all the way through it, but it was an exercise in tedium that I completed more out of a sense of obligation than a sense of enjoyment. That last bit was the feeling I got about half way through each level in the final game, as well, but I'll get to that a little later.

So, even with the negative experience of the demo, I decided to give the final product a shot. After experimenting with a couple of classes I settled on the berserker, and made a go of it. Before giving up I reached about level 17 (give or take; I stopped paying attention at some point), put in almost 13 hours, and managed to complete the first two levels. I picked up 285 gamerscore points across 15 achievements. The entirety of my play-time was spent on single player, so it is possible that the co-op experience differs wildly from my own. There was a lot more that I could have done in the game, but as I had mentioned with the demo, I got to a point where I felt I was playing only out of obligation, and at that point I believe it just becomes a waste of time.

Beyond my initial "too few thumbs" issue with the game, I acquired a few others.

• There were invisible walls all of the place, in order to corral the player in the right direction. I understand that not every game can be free-roaming, but when a cybernetic Norse god is unable to step over a three inch curb, well, that just looks silly. One of the first things I tend to do in a game where I can jump is to try to jump on top of anything and everything (probably a throw-back to my Mario days.) In Too Human, there are countless items that are shorter than the height to which you can jump, but that some how you cannot jump on top of. I even found a couple of items which were decidedly not rectangular, but had a cube of space blocked out around them, meaning that if you jumped on top of it and walked forward, you are suddenly standing in mid-air.
• Item attributes were not self explanatory. I understand what the developers were going for in their attempt to set the mood through the language that they used, but if I have to go and look up the meaning of their terms every single time I get a new drop, it really defeats the purpose. Looking stuff up is not immersive. Games tend to have a common vernacular because it makes it easier for games it inherently understand what they are looking at.
• Melee attacks feel unpredictable. I am aware that there is indeed a system in place in the game, and I'm sure that if you take the time to really study it, and you are super precise in the way that you move your analog stick, then it is an incredible system. To be thrown right in to it, though, it feels like you are doing a lot of flailing your thumbstick around, and hoping that it connects. Not just on moving targets, even. Just trying to smash open containers can be frustrating as it may take three swings to even hit one, and then an extra swing to hit the other one right next to it.
• Half-a-dozen camera angles, and all of them stink. I spent fifteen seconds stuck in a spot, at one point, because the camera kept spinning arround me regardless of the direction I moved in. To make matters worse, no matter which angle I tried to use, my character was obstructed by a patch of trees, so I couldn't even see him. That's a full fifteen seconds spent in one particular spot.
• The puzzles, while interesting in conception, where incredibly simple, and randomly required a lot of extra running around. You come to a spot where you need to cross but there is no bridge. What do you do? If you're playing Too Human, you run all the way over to the nearest well. Jump in to cyberspace. Run across the cyberspace area to a tree. Push it over. Run all the way back to the well that is inside of cyberspace. Jump back in to the real world. Run back over to the spot you wanted to cross, and now there is a bridge there. The idea of affecting the world through making changes in cyberspace really appeals to me, so I hate t call this out as a negative, but the fact of the matter is that this "puzzle" requires absolutely zero problem solving, but a lot of extra running around. It is more akin to if the light switch for a room on one side of a building was located all the way on the other side of the floor. You have to do a lot of extra running around, just to easily flip a switch, and then run all the way back. for the recor, you CAN go to the wells before getting to the point where you need the bridge, or whatever, but you still have to run all the way to the switch and back once inside of the well. It just seems unnecessary.

The game wasn't all bad, though. For all of its faults, you can tell that there is something enjoyable underneath. The hacking and slashing, and the items drops, reminded me of Diablo, and I love me some Diablo. I'm a sucker for any game that reflects armor and weapon changes on my character, as well. The story and environment also seem like a good deal of work went in to them, and while I didn't see enough of them to truly judge it, what I did see looked like it would have been quite promising, if I could have gotten through to it. A lot of people put a lot of time and effort in to this game, and it shows. Unfortunately, enough effort didn't seem to go in to the right places.



On our five point scale I am going to have to give Too Human a 2, for being a potentially good game, but with some serious flaws.

Back and Fourth

I am now in a state that I often revert to after just completing such a magnificent game such as Braid. It is what I refer to as Video Game ADD. I bounce back and forth between titles in my backlog, searching for something profound and amazing, something that just clicks. This often ends in tears, or I just start watching a lot of movies and I take a break from games for a little while. I am determined not to end up in such a slouch this time. I just completed Metroid Fusion, I title that I started over a year ago. Sometimes I take these portable systems too literally and only play them when I'm out, a few minutes here and there. This can make a 4 and a half hour title like the one I just mentioned turn into a year long conquest. I still feel fit to review it though, which I will do soon.

I also re-downloaded DOS-box, a program that emulates DOS and basically allows you to run abandonware PC games from the late 80's/early 90's DOS era, aka the "Golden Age" of PC gaming. I just re-played through Quest For Glory: So You Want To Be A Hero, which was the first RPG I ever played back in '93 on my parent's Mac. All these years later I noticed several things, none really fit for a review as these are not qualities that are objective or biased, but more things I discovered about myself playing through this old game again. The first is that despite it's dated graphics, I feel that these old graphic adventures have more personalities in their art than 95% of the games that are made today. I feel more of a sense of a realized world than I do running around Oblivion's massive landscapes. I also appriciate sublety more than I thought. I like that the game never really tells you what to do, it never holds your hand. You're never given a "quest". You just run around and figure out through talking to people, reading signs, looking at things. Speaking of looking at things; I love it. I just adore that I can click on my little eye icon and then move it to any spot on the screen and get a detailed description of what my character believes he's seeing. So awesome. Why aren't games like this made anymore? In a more modern fasion, of course. I miss adventure games. I know I said it was an RPG earlier, shut up; it's a hybrid. The other point of realization was that most of the length in this game is probably from figuring out just what you have to do since, as I indicated, they never tell you what to do or where to go. My memory being impeceble, I was able to complete what I had originaly thought to be a lengthy adventure, in a single evening. This dissapointed me somewhat. However, It is still an amazing game for it's time and holds up quite well today. But this nostalgia once again put me back in the shoes of "what to play next".



My ADD the next night had me bouncing from Bioshock(3rd playthrough), Rainbow Six: Vegas, Viewtiful Joe, Castles 2: Siege and Conquest, Indigo Prophecy, Halo 3, more Braid, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, and Boom Blox. Now that I have my PS3 back in possession, I started playing ICO. I beat Shadow of the Colossus last fall and absolutely loved it so I kind of delayed playing ICO as not to overdose on the supposed greatness that is Team ICO's work. So far I enjoy what I've seen, but I'm not sure if I can handle another super sparse indie type puzzle/platformer with Braid still so fresh in my mind. I've been told you often need to go the opposite direction after playing an amazing game, as not to directly compare what you just played with what you're currently playing too intensely.



I think I'm just going to write some reviews and post them up for you guys to see, to get some context of how I do things. These will be from games I've completed in the last 18 months or so, so it's not all super retro on yo ass. Maybe some games I haven't completed as well, but played well enough to review, after all, that is what we do, right?

Braid Review

I first heard of Braid over a year ago from some internet article discussing indie game development. My first reaction upon seeing the art style of the game was this would be one to watch, we'll see where this goes. Time went on and I had forgotten about Braid. Then, this week I was reminded by someone that indeed, Braid was releasing on XBLA. All that I knew about it up this point was that it was a 2D platformer with a time rewind mechanic, ala Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time. I was hoping though, that this game actually used this device as an actual gameplay mechanic and not a way to simply save frustration from the player because the developers could not find a balancing point in the difficulty of the platforming. Thankfully, I was right.



I purchased Braid right away even though it was priced higher than most. A few minutes reading the hype thread and I was good to go. Now, we all have certain themes and settings that we may be drawn to in games or movies, I for one am a huge fan of surrealism in any form. Braid at first glance seems to be a surrealistic satire on the Mario element and any story in general that would involve "saving a princess". The way the narrative is presented here is actually quite different than most games that would rather shove an hour long opening cinema scene down your throat or just give you a line of text before throwing you into an unknown world. Here the story is presented in the form of paragraphs from books that appear before each of the worlds. At first, the story appears to be pretty straightforward, the protagonist - Tim - is on some sort of quest to save the princess as usual. You're given more and more backstory as the game progresses and very little on the front end, perhaps implying that you may be beginning at the end. After all, time, space and how they function are the ideas at play here.



Now that I've gotten all that out of the way I will simply say that Braid is the Portal of 2008. It has awesome puzzles, intriguing narrative, takes game design to whole new level all while being able to be completed in a single sitting. That is, if you're a genius of some sorts. While there were only a few parts in Portal that had me stumped, Braid had me staring at the screen on many different occasions, jaw gaped, just wondering how in the hell I was supposed to solve this puzzle. Though the feeling that one gets from actually completing each of these challenges is far more rewarding than just about anything else that I've experienced in gaming lately, high challenge; high reward.



It is the combination here of the inspired watercolor art style, taking pieces of our favorite games and reimagining them in an even more surreal fantasy world, mixed with the classical score that sets the backdrop for some of the best game design I've ever seen, hands down. I believe that all developers could learn a thing or three from Jonathan Blow, the writer and designer of Braid. And when you take all that and throw in a narrative that concludes the tale with the kind of emotion you seldom see in this medium, you my friend, have a winning game right here. For only $15, Braid is a steal. My favorite game of the year so far, a rare experience that everyone owes themselves to check out.

5

Kr1spy, reporting for duty

I believe I've been trying to do this in one form or another for about 4 and a half years now. Why I didn't just sit down and do it proper before this moment is beyond me. I am in firm belief now that this is the best form our idea could take. From now on, with some recurring frequency I can hope, Evan and I will be updating this blog with whatever we feel like talking about that is video game related. Be it news, what we're playing, what we will play, what we need we play, what we'll never get around to playing, but trust me when I say that we will cover the vast majority of subjects that you have come to love and expect from such a source. Oh reviews, we'll do those too. Yes we will.

So where am I now? It's August 5th, 2008 and yesterday I beat Mass Effect for the 2nd time, consecutively of course, with one playthrough requiring another one following it immediately, ala Bioshock. The variety of choices you have to begin with are enough that a second playthrough is no such burden for the sake of those oh so tempting achivement points. Even just the premise that I could sleep with a different girl shows that Bioware demanded that all their hard work be seen from a different angle. And god damnit, that is how you end a game, with a fucking epic bang, a lot of closure yet still a little peep hole into the future of what the series could hold, not a fucking 30 second FMV that looks like it was rendered on mid 90's Pentium II's. Not that I'm trying to bash Bioshock, in fact I'll probably replay it again in the coming weeks, just with 2 games being released in such proximity both with re-playability based on factors of "choice" within the narrative, of course being good and evil, I just felt the need to compare the two for this example. That being said, I loved Mass Effect and felt that if a few aspects were just a little more polished it would've easily been top 10 material for me as so much of it was engaging in a way that I feel few games ever will be. I'll have a review up for this soon. Perhaps Mass Effect 2 can take care of these issues. Although I'm not sure how they're going to deal with the continuity aspect that arises from the multiple endings scenario you're presented with; the choices you make are just too wide in range to have one kind of "cannon" ending that the 2nd could follow.

Backlog. Some people who have the time and dedication to play a game from start to finish every time a new one is released don't even know of this word and the meaning it carries. I, on the other hand have a very long, tired history with this whole backlog thing. While no longer being a physically present employee at Gamestop has certainly cut back on feeding this monsterous beast, I still have knocked out only a few of the many titles I told myself I would conquer this year. 2008: The year of the backlog.



This does not even include handhelds, PC games or anything older than last gen, for which there is quite a surprising amount of stuff I still haven't finished. Lay off the FFVII spoilers please, my virgin ears would like to remain that way. I know there's supposed to be a statute of limitations on these things, but come on, I swear I'm going to play it this time, and then proceed to cringe because I have more fingers on my hand than Cloud has polys in his body.

After completing Mass Effect, such an epic, vast game, and an RPG at that, which is no small feat for me (I've probably completed maybe 10 in whole life, yes I grew up without a PS1, we just covered that) I decided that hopping into the gigantic sandbox that is GTA IV might seem like finishing off a 4-course meal with a whole cake, or several cakes for that matter, provided that they are not made of lies. So I with my decision slightly tipped in the favor of the Gamerscore whore inside me who I suppose had been in hibernation all those months with my hands tightly wrapped around my Wiimote and Dualshock controllers, I started with those light-green cased games. Browsing through the 360 games that I own and still currently have, I'm thinking that I will play what I can and catch up on those points I thought I'd left behind long ago. Beautiful Katamari is what's currently spinning in the box, I beat it last night but there's still more content there. Assuming you believe that playing the same 3 stages over and over again but this time trying to roll up different random shit, hoping that they happen to be present filled boxes or even better yet - your cousins - is some kind of extension of the game once it has been beaten. Yet I am in love with what Katamari is at it's core, so they can keep selling me the same game and I will keep playing it because nothing is quite as strange and Japanese as this game is, and how I love what is strange. When I get my PS3 back I will most likely dive right into ICO before taking another trip down MGS lane. I only have about a month left of summer and I plan to beat the crap out of a lot of things before it's over. Wish me luck!

-Kr1spy(Ryan)