This article was originally published in the Wednesday September 10th edition of the York Excalibur and posted online on September 15th on the Excalibur website.



Have you ever been dragged to the Ice Capades? To me, plays performed on ice are boring and I regrettably, had to endure one many years ago. I was young and thought the idea of watching some people put on a show on ice seemed like an idiotic idea. And it was boring – at first. But when The Simpsons came onto the ice, it caught my attention. Silicon Knights’ Too Human, an action/RPG (think Mass Effect with medieval weapons), recently released for the Xbox 360, reminds me of the Ice Capades. Whenever the main character switches from one target to the next, he glides across the room as if on ice. More importantly, the game, like the Ice Capades, seems boring and dumb at first glance. Too Human is far from perfect, and if you’re not a fan of action games or RPGs, then this game isn’t going to change your mind. However, just like a night at the Ice Capades, it’s possible to have a lot of fun with it.

My first impression may sound harsh, but it’s true. The story relies heavily on Norse mythology in a high-tech future. If you want a synopsis, then all you need to know is that Loki (who else?) is making trouble again, and it’s up to Baldur to stop him. You’ll also learn about Baldur’s mysterious past, but that’s only if you don’t skip past the talking heads in the cut scenes.
Another troublesome aspect of the game is the combat controls; although they may grow on you, they’re never perfect. Unlike most action games where you press a button to attack, all you need to do in Too Human is point the right control stick towards your enemy, and Baldur will automatically attack.

Too Human’s main problem is that the good stuff is buried beneath all the crap.

There are some techniques involved, but the idea was to simplify the combat. It takes some getting used to, and if it worked properly 100 percent of the time it would be a lot of fun. As it is, I was often left swinging at air when I intended to figure skate over to the next target. Unfortunately, combat scenarios rely on adding more and more robots to amp up the difficulty rather than creating any sense of strategy. For the most part, your strategy is going to be the same for every single enemy you encounter. The game allows you to choose whether you would like to stay pure human or accept cybernetic implants, which I found was another unnecessary element. The game makes a big deal about this choice: however, you gain very little from this character shift except new loot drops. What is the significance of keeping your humanity intact? Too Human’s main problem is that the good stuff is buried beneath all the crap. The game is a mere 10-ish hours long, but multiple play-throughs with different classes and epic difficulty changes give it a little more life.

Once you get the ball rolling and start getting cool loot, the game feels a bit like World of Warcraft – you are constantly experimenting with the look of your hero. The game also boasts a two-person co-op feature, and when you play like this, classes take a definite role. You’ll die constantly as a lone berserker, but play co-op with a bioengineer (healing class) and you’ll be laughing all the way to the end boss. Too Human is far from perfect and is probably not worth buying without trying. However, Too Human is definitely worth trying. You never know: you might, like me, find out there might be more to the Ice Capades than you thought.