I don't really understand this game. It looks like the devs tried to make a game that was equal parts Gauntlet Legends, Mass Effect, and Phantasy Star Online. Yeah, I threw up in my mouth a little too. This unholy combo is somewhat like trying to make a supergroup out of Pantera, The Mars Volta, and Creed. On their own they're pretty good, excpet for Creed obviously, but together they're going to sound the way orange juice tastes after you've just brushed your teeth. Don't get me wrong, the game looks fun, but twenty hours of it seems excessive.



One thing that seems futile at this point is trying to one-up anyone in creating a futuristic aesthetic, because it's all been done before. The "unique" look of the game is actually very familiar, despite the obvious effort put into it. The obnoxious "The Sharper Image"-style HUD is emblematic of the design philosophy here, which is, "make everything shiny." We don't even have a future to look forward to at this point, because we already have a massively networked space-age doohickey that automatically generates porn of everything that ever existed. When you can find a picture of Hobbes boffing Calvin's mom in about two seconds, you can pretty much call science fiction obsolete.

But yeah, I think I was writing about a video game a while back, so I should probably get back to that. One thing I noticed immediately from the first bits of gameplay footage is that the characters animate like Max Payne, which hasn't been a compliment since 2001. Another thing is that while the attacks are fun to watch, a lot of them do exactly the same thing, which is slice through waves of identical enemies at long range. The smaller enemies are nearly devoid of AI, simply attempting to surround you and melee. Gamespot adds, "When we weren't pulverizing huge androids, we were whacking waves and waves of their smaller kin; this called for less strategy, and way more violence." While they claimed the boss took a bit of thinking to take down, I felt like I had already half-figured out its attack patterns by watching the new co-op trailer. This hammer-wielding foe appears to have been built by Doctor Robotnik, politely waiting for you to violate his weak point while he dicks around. In such an absence of strategy, our heores will end up with a ridiculously redundant arsenal of glowy neon attacks.

That said, Too Human looks like a romping-good shitfaced-with-your-friends couch-rocking rental bonanza. But oh wait, the co-op is online only. This game now officially sucks.