Too Human

[McPhee]

Some new Too Human info, looking good imho!

 

Overview

 

Step into the world of "Too Human," the next-generation third-person epic action-game from famed developer Silicon Knights®. As the Cybernetic God Baldur, players are thrust into the midst of an ongoing battle that threatens the existence of mankind. An ancient machine presence has forced the God’s hand. In the first of a three part trilogy, Baldur is charged with defending mankind from an onslaught of monstrous war machines bent on eradication of human life.

 

In "Too Human," players are treated to a non-stop barrage of action powered by the seamless integration of melee and ranged firearms combat and fueled by breathtaking visuals previously not possible thanks to a powerful combination of the Xbox 360 and the Unreal Engine 3. Battles unfold in awesome scale as players engage in spectacular battles with vast numbers of enemies.

 

"Too Human" is produced by renowned Canadian developer Silicon Knights®. The masterminds behind critically-acclaimed hits such as "Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes" and "Eternal Darkness," Silicon Knights® brings a wealth of knowledge, story-based design and gameplay expertise to usher in the next-generation of video gaming.

 

Features:

- Synergy of Melee and Firearms Combat: It'll take more than brawn and raw strength to supplant the machine hordes. Utilize a sophisticated blend of seamless melee and firearms combat to vanquish foes close and far. Feel each punishing blow through advanced visual effects made possible through the unmatched horsepower of Xbox 360 and the Unreal Engine 3.

 

- Advanced Cinematic Presentation: Characters and environments come to life with unparalleled visual fidelity. Experience the full excitement of combat through a dynamically-driven presentation system that portrays the combat with cinematic quality. A sweeping orchestral score sets the mood for heartbreak, anger and bloodlust as each tune encapsulates the gamer within the immersive gaming environment.

 

- Intuitive Combat Provides New Level of Accessibility: Perform Baldur's elaborate and complex combat maneuvers through the press of a button and chain together rapid-fire combos with ease. Through the use of an intuitive combat system, "Too Human" provides gameplay that is easy to learn and rewarding to master. "Too Human" will introduce combinations of weapons combat on a level that exceeds some fighting games leaving players in awe.

 

- Modern Take on a Classic Story: "Too Human" chronicles the ongoing struggle between Cybernetic gods, machine giants and mortal men on a massive scale never before seen. Play the role of a cybernetic god charged with protecting the human race against a relentless onslaught of machines.

 

• Based on norse mythology..
  
• FULL RPG Levelup system with 50 levels per class, at least 5 classes confirmed
  
• 4 player coop online :clap:
  
• Huge environments the last pic is of a boss that is 20 times your size
  
• Planned to be a trilogy of games
  
• Published by Microsoft so is XBOX360 Exclusive
  
• 4X AA ie very few jaggies
  
• Fully dynamic camera whihc works in context of what you are doing fightling, exploring etc
  
• Depth of field (really gives it a cinematic feel)
  

 

Download the preview here: http://uk.media.games.ign.com/articles/693/693580/vids_1.html

 

Low res captures from video download

 

 

Im really looking forward to this one, should be awesome!

 

No news on when its to be released yet though. Im thinking probably Christmas. If that is the case then holy crap the 360 is going to have one awesome holiday season!

[Daft]

This game looks the bomb! I've been waiting for its release since I the video demo from before the Gamecube was released...THAT LONG!!! I just hope the combat is deeper than the usual hack'n'slash...which I'm sure it will be!

[Retro_Link]

Trailer - E3 2006

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=10581&type=wmv&pl=game

 

Show Floor Footage - E3 2006

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=10931&type=wmv&pl=game

 

Gameplay - E3 2006

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=10565&type=wmv&pl=game

 

I'm not sure about this one yet.

The idea is great and it looks good in screens but videos seem to show the gameplay as being quite dull are lacking!

 

It has been almost a year since E3 2006 however and I look forward to seeing how the game has progressed!

 

4 player co-op sounds great!

[Goron_3]

At e3 2006 everyone laughed at how bad this game was (mainly the framerate issues).

 

However, Matt Cas. on IGN got to play the newer version of it a month or so back with some other IGN members and he thought it was bloody fantastic (it was on his blog a while back). I'm expecting this to be a massive hit when it comes out, and i can't wait to get more infomation on it.

[mario_jr]

I saw this on IGN weekly and I must say that this game is looking sweet.:awesome:

[Mundi]

I say this game is gonna get released at about the same time as Duke Nukem Forever gets released...

[Hero-of-Time]

Big bumpage due to more info coming from GDC. Heres the hands on from Kotaku.

 

Following an hour long walkthrough of a near final build of Too Human with Dyack, in which he got us up to speed on the game's varied characters and gameplay mechanics, we're fairly certain of one thing—Too Human can be a gorgeous game. As you may have seen from some of the recently released screen shots, the team is capable of some impressive technical feats.

 

Graphically, Too Human shows that it has the potential to output some fantastic visuals. The game runs in native 720p with four passes of anti-aliasing helping to create a very polished image. It's got all the candies—lovely textures, normal maps, brilliant lighting and expansive environments.

 

Unfortunately, that level of detail often comes with a price, as whatever in-house engine is now powering the game sometimes chugged under the pressure. These moments of frame rate sluggishness were most prevalent in one of the game's cut scenes, something in which Too Human is not lacking.

 

That may be because the story, not necessarily the gameplay—though we'll get to that—seems to be Silicon Knights' focus. The team has built a near seamless storytelling experience with Too Human, with Dyack proudly proclaiming at the start of his presentation "Pay attention to the loading screen, because it's the last one you'll see in the demo." It's true (mostly). Too Human bounces from location to location, timeframe to timeframe without a progress bar in sight, as the team has hidden all that ugly disc reading behind in-game cinematics.

 

If you really want to see some loading, though, you can. Simply skip the cut scenes—as long as they aren't the interactive ones—and you'll see that Too Human is, well, human after all. It's a good trick, though, and they deserve credit for it.

 

Some of those cut scenes, however, actually seemed to do a disservice to the impact of the game's massive scope. It's clear that Silicon Knights is taken with some of the work it has done and wants the player to make sure he or she notices every last detail. Some of the cut scenes we saw featured awkward zooms to things like holographic glasses(!) and individually rendered eyebrow hairs(!). Others were dripping with cliched, melodramatic action sequences, like when protagonist Baldur dragged his sword along the pavement for spark-filled effect before back-flipping off a wall and slicing off a robot arm in slow motion. This, just after a John Woo-style super duper slo-mo shoot out with a flying buzzsaw menace, was too much cheese to swallow.

 

We may just be extremely hard to please. Thirty minutes with the title is hardly a good measure of what's planned to be an epic drama, so let's talk about gameplay.

 

After picking one of five starting classes—Champion, Commando, BioEngineer, Berserker and Defender—each of which has its own strengths and weaknesses, then setting out, it became clear that Too Human has its roots in a handful of classics. It adopts parts of Devil May Cry's shoot and slash gameplay and Diablo's loot-gathering addiction in an attempt to create an RPG that's friendly to action game types.

 

Like Diablo, combat is fairly simple. It may not be "point, click, kill, drink potion, repeat" but Too Human doesn't necessarily require the finger dexterity of Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden to play. You'll use the left analog stick to move around, with the right stick used for melee attacks, right trigger for your firearm. Right analog stick slashes and bashes can be chained together, simply by pointing the stick in the direction of the enemy you want to attack, then toward the next, then toward the next, ad infinitum. Double tap the stick and you'll knock them up in the air, setting up enemies for combo juggles and breaking up the monotony.

 

String enough of these together and you'll build up your super move, known as a Ruiner, an insta-kill explosion that can pull you out of a tight jam. These can be pulled off with a quick tap of the right bumper, but Silicon Knights has also included a few dual-stick moves that add variety.

 

Truth be told, there was a certain stiffness to the combat, something that action game die hards may sniff at. Baldur's constant gliding from bad guy to bad guy looked, well, goofy and the Troll "surfing" combat tactic felt out of place, just different enough from button pressing God of War-style mini-games to not be totally damnable, but close enough to be annoying.

 

One of the most challenging foes we must mention is the one you'll never kill, is Too Human's occasionally wonky camera. Despite Dyack's assertion that the camera tech is "intelligent" and one that the player need not control, it definitely got in our way more than once. Shooting off screen enemies while getting smacked from behind by Goblins is something we hope that doesn't make it into the final game. Fortunately, the camera can be panned in and out using the D-pad or re-centered using the left bumper.

 

Silicon Knights biggest challenge, outside of the technical ones that could still be ironed out before the game ships (no, we don't know when that is) is bringing all these disparate elements from multiple gameplay types together into a cohesive package. Add to that a storyline that attempts to blend Norse mythology, sci-fi cinema, and existentialist and postmodernist philosophy, and Too Human may wind up being a beautiful mess.

 

However, with a quintet of character classes, a deep skill tree and a World of Warcraft-style loot system—you'll pick up equipment with names like Sacred Tactical Visor of Opportunity and Harrowing Lance of Wrath, some socketable with runes a la Diablo II—there should be plenty of replay value in Too Human, at least for those who don't quibble as much as we do. Add to that a four-player co-op option (that we sadly didn't get to try out) and a crafting system, and we suspect that the game will resonate for a long time with gamers.

 

Others, however, may find that other games have done what Too Human is attempting to do before (and better) and may just want to wait for the novelization. Or at least until the trilogy is finally complete to enjoy the ride in one epic slog.

 

Heres some new gameplay footage from GT.

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/30752.html

 

and

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/30753.html

[LazyBoy]

I'm really disappointed with how this looks, and despite, what 10 years(?) of waiting I'm not really looking forward to it.

 

And why is it that no loading times is supposed to be a good thing. 3 generations ago they gave us loading times and we accepted it and now when they aren't there we should be impressed. Not me.

[Wesley]

I think the loading times is all dependent on the type of game.

 

For instance, you would accept an arcade-style racing game's loading times. A fighting game's loading times.

 

A role-playing game or adventure game... maybe less. Imagine Zelda: OoT with massive loading times, for instance.

[Fandango]

Game looks quite beautiful, unfortunately I can't see this being anything other than a giant mess, would loved to be proved wrong though.

[Hellfire]

TBH I really dislike what I'm seeing, but if it has great atmosphere and storytelling like ED, I'm happy.

[Shino]

Graphically amazing, but looks soulless and repetitive.

[spirited away]

Graphically amazing, but looks soulless and repetitive.

 

Exactly what I thought. Soulless - for some reason? I'm not 'getting it' just yet.

[Retro_Link]

Just looks really dull!

[FalcoLombardi]

I'm not too sure how to feel about this game any more...

[Hero-of-Time]

At last a demo is coming!

 

As part of its "Bringing It Home" E3 campaign, Microsoft will finally let loose the public demo of Too Human via Xbox Live, reports IGN. Anticipation for the demo is likely at an all-time high, as Silicon Knights' bossman Denis Dyack has been teasing a demo since August of '07. We expect a flurry of varying opinions upon its release.

 

The polarizing Xbox 360 hack and shoot adventure will join the festival of downloadable delights at some point next week, as Microsoft attempts to distract you from coverage of its competitors by offering up free trailers, demos, news from the E3 show floor and other shiny objects. Look forward to it, won't you?

[That Guy]

I'll try the demo but I'm not expecting to like it. Doesn't look like my kind of thing.

[Guest Jordan]

Time to see if Dyack isn't talking out of his ass.

 

My pre order is riding on this demo actually being good.

[Dan_Dare]

issue:

 

This demo will almost certianly be based on the whizz bang action segments.

 

I don't actually give much of a shit about that. I'm more concerned about how the people behind the best told story in gaming plan to top characters who go mad

 

so far, 'cyberpunk norse myth' is a tantalising hook, almost worthy of suspicion that SK have designed such a premise with the sole purpose of triggering my over active imagination under strict laboratory conditions.

 

If the writing and art holds up, I'm more than willing to accept the combat as 'a bit like Diablo' and play it through.

[McPhee]

They've removed 4-player co-op which is a bitch

 

But yeah, what Dan said

[Retro_Link]

If the writing and art holds up, I'm more than willing to accept the combat as 'a bit like Diablo' and play it through.

Here's one of the latest videos/interviews and to the fare, the art looks INCREDIBLE to me!

 

The making of Aesir

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/35994.html

 

It's the gameplay I worry about!

And the fact it doesn't seem to hold any sort of constant framerate, making it feel awkward, this will constantly remind you it's a game instead of drawing you in!

[Noodleman]

I was looking forward to this until Dennis Dyack's most recent meltdown now I couldn't give a shit about it.

[LazyBoy]

I was looking forward to this until Dennis Dyack's most recent meltdown now I couldn't give a shit about it.

 

Please fill me in on this, I seem to have missed it.

[Noodleman]

Listen to either last weeks or the one before 1up podcast, they have an interview with him at the end. He basically goes off on one about forums particularly NeoGAF and how it should be shut down because they have been bad mouthing his games without playing them. It's very amusing but he comes across as a bit mental.

[McPhee]

Listen to either last weeks or the one before 1up podcast, they have an interview with him at the end. He basically goes off on one about forums particularly NeoGAF and how it should be shut down because they have been bad mouthing his games without playing them. It's very amusing but he comes across as a bit mental.

 

Sounds like the sort of rant you'd expect from a 'gaf user :p