Too Human

Since that ill-fateful, frankly disastrous E3 video there’s not been much revealed about Too Human - a game that, for a long time, has had bad news written all over it. Burdened by an ever-increasing development time and a stack of ‘issues’, it’s become an unkempt black hole; swallowing vast quantities of cash and giving almost nothing in return. The only news has been Silicon Knight’s court case with Epic, and it’s a tale that’s eclipsed any interest in the game’s languishing production. Until now, that is.

Much has been said about the Nordic adventure’s unique story. The sci-fi twist is a left-field approach considering the Norse mythology inspirations, and playable flashback sequences crop up with some regularity to deepen the tale. But although the story is a crucial part of any RPG, this game can’t be pigeonholed so easily. Too Human isn’t simply about stats and numbers.

Spread over four levels, you’ll take your character Baldur and turn him into the man you want to play as. Five classes - that’s Commando, Defender, Bio-Mechanic, Berserker and Champion - are on offer to cater for every taste, and after making that decision you can tweak every move, weapon and armour piece to your heart’s content. In fact, aside from Baldur’s physique, you can customise absolutely anything you want.

Four levels doesn’t sound like much, and it wouldn’t be by conventional thinking. But despite itsat-first-glance generic design, Too Human is far from conventional, and as it shares more in common with Phantasy Star Online (another game with four ‘levels’) than anything else, we’re confident that there’s plenty of gaming to be had. These are not four point-to-point sprints, where you can see and do it all in the first visit; they’re sprawling worlds to return to time and time again in the search for ever-better item drops. Extra locations make an appearance, and you’ll also be able to explore an area known as cyberspace - a different plane of existence that shares parallels with the ‘real world’ and focuses on puzzles rather than combat - all mixing things up a little bit.