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Too Human is headed our way from developers Silicon Knights (you know, they did that much-praised-but-actually-not-all-that-fun-to-play Eternal Darkness and the awesomely awesome Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes). It releases on August 19, and here is what we thought of the demo.

Mark:
I know this is just a demo, but I really hope there is much more to the retail version when it comes out. After spending so much time in development, this game seems much too shallow to live up to the self-given hype, or to even come close to competing with other recent sci-fi games (Mass Effect, GoW, even Halo). The demo only allows you to play as one of five playable characters, none of which are especially appealing. This is just another game demo where you play as a tough guy that rips through weak enemies with large weapons while spewing out lines like “It’s a good day to die.” Marcus Fenix is rolling in his grave.

I do actually like the combat, though. Just right-sticking in an enemy’s direction makes the fighting flow pretty smoothly, much more than jamming a button over and over again. Using the guns is stupid and pointless, though, because the gun was so weak that by the time I killed and oncoming enemy with it, he or she was close enough for an easy swording.

Recommendation: Play the demo for free, and play the game when you can get it used, which I estimate will be about a week after its release.

Russ:
Ten year development cycle. A butt-ton of mythology. Awesome-looking levels. Shitty controls. Tiny characters. Boring, repetitive gameplay. Yeap, that’s about it.

Seriously. I came into this demo with an open mind. Sure, I had read all the bad press, but I wanted to make my own decisions. And I’ve decided it’s crap. The gun/sword thing was ten times better in the first Devil May Cry, SEVEN years ago on the PS2. You can’t swing your sword and move at the same time; your character just stops dead in his tracks the moment you start swinging. The character sprites are so undersized I feel like I’m playing a PS1 game, and the fixed camera is just about the worst idea on the planet. And there were seriously moments when I thought to myself, my god, I just played a section that was exactly the same as this. Maybe I’m wrong, and the game will get great reviews, but I can’t see it getting anything higher than a 7/10. I may eventually buy it for $20.

Tyler:
Halo, Aliens Vs Predator,  Mass Effect and Devil May Cry. Have you ever played these games? Dennis Dyak and the rest of his team did, you can be sure of that about 10 minutes into Too Human. The Norse Mythology and Techno-worship back story to this game seems thin and ill-suited to carry this supposed trilogy for more than one game. Because the 1999 graphics sure don’t do it, and neither does the combat. Unless I hear that this game gets incredibly epic at minute 11, I’ll be taking a pass on this one, regardless of Achievements.

Also, should these guys really get credit for Twin snakes? It’s basically a port. Kojima these guys ain’t.