I've always been excited for Too Human, even when it was originally slated for the Xbox. I didn't lose that much faith when it was later pushed back to a 360 launch title. I still kept my spirits high when they yet again delayed it to mid-08. Like most delusional gamers I kept saying to myself.."Hey, as long as it turns out good I'm ok with the delays." Finally, after years of waiting I finally got my mitten on the E3-08 Too Human demo.

Now, prior to actually playing the demo I took a gander around the net to gather a general consensus. The same phrase littered most Too Human forums: "You have to play it multiple times to get use to the gameplay!!" Now personally, when somebody says that to me it usually translates in my head as the following: "The gameplay is below average and you'll need a couple of rounds to justify your own doubts. First, begin with some slow breathing and repeat the following. The gameplay isn't bad it's just different and that's ok!!"

I've played Too Human now twice, both sessions lasting over an hour. Sure enough the internet was right again, gameplay does take a while to get use to. At first, I hated the melee weapon mapped to the right analog stick. I hated the whole gliding moving that Baldur does. I also hated the awkward camera that didn't obscure my view but definitely annoyed me. By the end of my first trial run I began to understand how to effectively
link combos together using both melee and range. Starting up the second play through my experience was already twenty times better than the initial. It still hadn't blown me away like I was hoping it would; instead it finally hit me after finishing the second run, this game did indeed get better over time. Here's my problem, Too Human is basically a Diablo Type Dungeon crawler which is totally awesome. The problem is that Silicon Knights tried to make the gameplay something more than it had to be. I understand that they're trying to combat the repetitive nature of all dungeon crawlers but they
failed to realize the simple truth. The core audiences of nerds, like myself that love dungeon crawlers already know that the gameplay is repetitive. To me this is Silicon Knights pulling a Bioware by trying to make a hardcore genre appeal to casual gamers.

Graphically, the game looks like a poor mans mass effect, the environments are massive but filled with nothing. The character models are detailed but animations are clucky and lack the level of polish a game in development for 10 years should have!!

The one aspect that it does having going for it is the presentation. The voice acting is solid, which compliments the story, which in turns compliments the epic feel it presents. In general, the presentation gives off those warm fuzzes we all crave.

I'm obviously going to have to wait until the final version is released to make my final judgment but this demo was suppose to answer the epic question: Do I rent or buy?? Unfortunately, I'm still stuck in the middle though I'm leaning towards rental at the moment since Too Human didn't really do it for me overall!!

Dear dcksckr and pedafelfun:

I'd like to start out by saying thanks to both of you. I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, appreciate your constructive criticism. I also appreciate the time and effort placed in reading my god offal blog. Let along finding the time to actually write a paragraph describing how much hatred it has brought both your lives. I regret to inform you both that I wasn't given the cease and desist memo that restricted my inadequate grammar/spelling level to participate in GameStop's blogging community but what can you do.

Unfortunately dcksckr, I'm not 300 lbs or 12 years old; let me run the specs: I'm 12 and a half, 5'2, 226 kilograms... I'm sure your superior mind can make the conversion to pounds if your residence is within the states; my assumption being the Deep South. I live with my roommates (Mother and Father) and I do spend my time between playing Pokémon Diamond and watching imported Naruto DVDs writing reviews. Obviously, I don't poses the time and brain capacity to meticulously proofread Gamespot blogs. Nor do I pose the malicious nature to critique the infinite amount of blogs registered within the Gamespot community but whatever floats your boat. My lurid attempt to write humorous matter was shady at best but your inspiration words have given me new life.

Please, let me quote your flawless comment:

"Not because of the ability of Arthas24200 to write clever and funny material, but rather because the grammar and spelling is so terrible that it made me laugh until I actually dropped some small nuggets of poop in my whitey tighties. Yeah, that's right..I still wear those nice little underwear so that my package is all bunched up for the ladies to see."

Hilarious by the way; you see the point of my blog was to make you laugh period. The words whether written incorrectly or not are meant to cause some droppings within your soon to be stained tighty whities. Hence the blog being categorized under humor but nonetheless I'm not going to try and cover up my grammar by saying that I purposely made it horrible I just didn't proofread it plain and simple. Just as I didn't proofread this blog because it's a blog; a useless outlet for anonymous 12 year olds to talk about how awesome their power ranger collection is. The pacing and structure of my writing isn't something I think is cool I leave grander thoughts of illusions to people that go around judging blogs on gamespot. I digress, as stated in my latter paragraph; I didn't feel as confident as I do now, thanks again for the exemplary criticism.

Now this next comment has touched my very soul. I feel I owe pedafelfu a hug maybe even a quick strap on session since his criticism has lifted the very fabric of my being. Up until this glorious day, I was convinced that nobody read my reviews. I was beginning to lose hope; in fact I did indeed consider deleting my existence from this world. Fortunately, a miracle happened today, let me recap since my mom said I needed to take a break; she needs the television to do her yoga exercises. I promptly woke at 7:30 to the smell of my mother's famous chocolate chip buttermilk pancakes; after inhaling those buttery morsels, I ran up to my room (that is after cleaning my dishes and taking out the garbage) and quickly logged into my gamespot account as I've done everyday since its creation! Like most days I expected no messages and no comments but boy was I wrong. I was greeted with two individuals that laughed at my previous writings. One of those delightful Homo sapiens actually read my reviews. I like to live by the motto: any recognition is good recognition, so I deeply appreciate you reading my reviews but I would like to clear up one little portion of your comment that has gotten my panties in a knot.

Again another flawless comment:

"Instance number one: your heading in the review of "MLB Power Pros" (swinging for the fences never felt to right) IT DOSN'T MAKE F***ing SENSE how could it feel "to" right?"

Apparently your prowess is so enormous that you seem to miss the obvious typo since this statement is one of your main points let me quickly and swiftly swop it down by rewriting the doomed headline:

"Swinging for the fences never felt so right"

I understand how this typo of one obvious two letter word would be the fundamental reason for retardation but I'm sure that you like myself is indeed a honorary member of the Grammar/Spelling Police. With these striking and bold claims I must serious consider leaving the Grammar/Spelling police as I have destroyed my once impeccable reputation. I will however continue to write reviews that continue to bring meaning to your life. I mean what else will you do besides read my reviews; get an actual life...Ha-ha no my friend you're a true gamespot neighborhood watch dog and I wouldn't expect anything less. I mean come on; I wouldn't want to disappoint my two greatest fans!!

Let me quickly rap up this little love letter to dcksckr and pedafelfun since I'm sure you both are way too busy being super cool reading different blogs and leaving just as meaningless comments as the blogs themselves. I hope this letter will provide ample material for you to continue your extremely humorous comments; I appreciate the time and effort, thanks guys!!

Sincerely yours,

Arthas24200

I've come to a certain point in my gaming career that I believe most have hit at some point or another; sort of like an epiphany or mid-life crisis. It's a point when you realize that just about everyone around you is completely full of poopy. It seems that with each coming generation of console gaming, this fad of being a gamer is becoming more accepted. This obviously scares me since acceptance of an industry that was built on fighting up hill battles leads to complacency. It leads to sequel after sequel of the same core gameplay with minor tweaks. It drives out creativity and grants super powers like Microsoft and EA the ability to pick and choose what is doved fun and exciting. Yet, I don't blame the industry behemoths like EA and Activision; I don't blame the lack of creativity within an industry based around the principle of immersion; I blame gamers and the gaming press!! Yea, that's right I blame the community itself; why? one word: HYPE!!

To put it simply, Hype is crippling this industry!! "But mister anti-gamer, doesn't hype help create buzz around a particular game, creating revenue for publishers which in turn continues the growth of the industry? Yes and no, yes it does provide free publicity; most gamers that I know still use the old school technique of word of mouth when they stumble upon a quality game that deserves some prop. It also leads to misguided reviews and the inevitable crippling of creativity. Case in point: GTA as a whole didn't create the sand-box, open world genre it simply made it popular. Since then can you think of another that game that actually benefited from this design?? Either the game copies the GTA formula too closely and is labeled a "GTA clone" or it significantly limits the game since the developers have trouble designing a game around a concept they don't understand. The only game since the release of the GTA 3 that I can think of that actually benefited from this new design scheme is Hulk Ultimate Destruction. I just can't stand inbreds that assume 10 versions of MGS are needed to advance the industry!! Of course most outsiders laugh when journalist say that video games are art! What other industry besides video games have a problem killing off a main character just for the simple fact that they want to continue the trilogy or 10 million other versions of the game that can't possibly be made without said character. Don't get me wrong it's great to have franchises but sometimes you have to retire characters for a while. At least wait a couple of years so each iteration has some impact. I mean do we really need another Mega man games? I absolutely love the first 3 or 4 MegaMan games but come on Capcom; we get it, you love squeezing as much money as possible from your franchises. Let's try something a bit more creative; I mean MegaMan was an original title at one point so why not try your hand in something new and innovative. Ha-ha, I remember the first time I heard they were actually making another Street Fighter game that wasn't a rehash of Street Fighter 2; my heart nearly exploded!! I digress; Hype should be used sparingly by both the media but more importantly the gaming community. As a community we need to stand up and say: "hey Capcom, make something original!! I don't want another twenty MegaMan games!!" The easiest way to accomplish this goal is by not throwing your money Capcom's way any time you see a game with the name MegaMan. I say buy a game because it has great gameplay, awesome character development and maybe even a decent story. Why not hype up games like: Odin Sphere ps2, Little Big Planet ps3, Bioshock 360, No More Heroes Wii!! I'm not saying that all hype is bad; I'm just trying to say that to much hype leads to blindly buying games based on a name. I personally love the Final Fantasy mentality; were each MAIN (the ones with numbers) have a completely new storyline, character set and sometimes battle system. It's a different game from the previous iteration; except for the name; I wish more franchises followed suit.

Unfortunately, our industry is content with slightly improving franchises so they last 20 odd years. There is one more group that affects this industry in a horrible way...FANBOYS!!!! Why in the world would you want one company to monopolize the entire industry?? Did all these tardy mic tard faces forget what happened when Nintendo originally owned the entire industry? They brought standards and quality but in the process completely alienated 3rd party developers and basically spit in the face of indie developers!! There is a reason why every Nintendo system after the SNES didn't have the 3rd party support that the NES & SNES had; because developers finally had another outlet to expand their IPs. Well, I could continue this meaningless rant about fanboys for days but I'm sick of writing about things that piss me off. I think I'm going to review Virtua Fighter 5 or GTA IV!!