Buy, Borrow or Bury: Too Human

Well, this certainly is a very interesting game.  I already posted about all of the drama surrounding Silicon Knights and more importantly Denis Dyack, so I’ll leave that alone in this review.  I will however provide a little background as to the game’s development cycle.  To be blunt, this game has been in the works for a long time.  Though some claim that development started as many as 10 years ago, the truth is that at that point the game might have been conceptualized.  In fact, the game hadn’t started being truly developed until around 4 years ago.  Ten years may have been overkill, but 4 years is still a long time to make a game.

There was one facet of the trials and tribulations surrounding Too Human that I failed to mention in my drama post, and that’s their trouble with Epic and the Unreal 3 engine.  Basically, Silicon Knights sued Epic (creators of the Unreal 3 engine – an engine used all too often but some example games are Gears of War, Bioshock and, of course, Unreal Tournament 3) because they failed to deliver an Unreal 3 engine development kit on time.  I’m not going to take sides on this particular battle, I just wanted to point out that this is yet another snag that could have cost Silicon Knights some time.

So then, after all of that work does Too Human come out on top?  First off let me say this – Too Human can be compared to a game style that’s as many as 10 years old.  At the same time the game is an example of innovation.  Sound confusing?  It is.  Basically, Too Human is an action RPG akin to Hellgate: London or Diablo II but it takes the action aspect of the game to a whole new level.  Your character can pull off a bunch of Devil May Cry-ish maneuvers, and you can wield both melee and ranged weapons which complete that feel.  The combat feels much more fluid and intense than in any other action RPG you’ve probably ever played.  There are combos you can pull off, a somewhat limited list of special attacks for you to master (much like a fighting game), and the usual bit of skill and inventory management that you would expect from any decent RPG.

The game is broken up into 4 separate segments, each looking vastly different with huge, interesting environments that are a bit linear.  If you’ve ever played Phantasy Star Online you’ll understand what I’m talking about – you’re stuck to a single path and can’t stray much, but the level design is pretty despite all that.  Technically the game performs quite well.  Although I had heard a lot of questions about the animations in Too Human I never noticed any issues, and the framerate remains quite solid even with a large amount of enemies on the screen.  I did notice some hiccups in the cinematics, mostly an inexplicable “shaking” effect, but I still can’t decide if it was intentional or not.  The best way I can describe it is the cinematics (which are done in-engine) sort of make it look like the gameworld is having an earthquake, as models on-screen bounce up and down ever so slightly.  It’s not a big deal but once you notice it you might find yourself taken out of the moment.

One of the biggest compliments I paid to Too Human’s demo was that the combat was very fun, and that carries over to the retail version of the game.  It’s fast and furious and you feel like a true hero while you’re bounding back and forth between enemies pulling off finishing moves, juggling enemies in the air with your guns, and basically just running things all-around.  You don’t really get much help from your squad very often, they sort of serve as cannon-fodder, but that’s never an issue because you’re so powerful.  That’s not to say that everything is perfect, though.

I did have some issues with the gameplay.  In any game I’ve ever played of this genre I’ve always been able to hold and stack health potions.  That’s not the case in Too Human.  If the enemies you kill drop 3 health orbs and you only need 1, you’ll have to leave the others on the ground and move on without them.  That can be a bit of a pain sometimes when the enemies really pile on, and to be able to store potions would have saved me quite a few deaths.  I remember hearing one of the Silicon Knights developers mention that they made the choice to be unable to store potions because they didn’t want the gamers to have to worry about managing their potions, but I think the problem could be solved in other ways.  Hellgate: London in particular had an automatic potion system.  In that game if you had 5 potions and you started to get low on health it would automatically activate your potion for you (unless you had none).  The in-game death sequence is also an issue.  Everytime you die you have to wait 20+ seconds as an intricate “cinematic” of your death plays.  Too Human’s story is based on Norse mythology, so when you die a valkyrie comes down to usher you off to Valhalla.  It’s a cool effect the first time you see it, but you’ll probably see it 100+ times throughout the game and it can really become tiresome.

The story is basically a retelling of Norse mythology, as I mentioned.  It’s not of particular interest to me but I’ve talked to a few people who liked it a lot.  It was enough to keep me interested, and includes re-imaginings of mythic Norse gods, treachery, deceit, and epic battles.  Really that’s all anyone can ask for I think!  The game kind of ends on a sour note, but it’s important to keep in mind that Too Human is being planned as a trilogy.  With that in mind the story definitely sets up the second part of the three quite well, as it even ends on a cliff-hanger ending of sorts.

Of course one of the best parts about RPGs is the “phat loot” you get while playing the game.  There’s absolutely no shortage of cool gear in Too Human.  From several different pieces of armor, to multiple weapon types, you’ll have more than enough to collect during the game.  You can also upgrade your gear with runes plus use those runes to upgrade charms for even further character customization.  As with most other RPG games the items are divided up into separate classes (colors) denoting different rarity.  However, unlike other RPGs, in order to use the more powerful items you’ll have to “craft” them from blueprints.  This is a weak way to shoe-horn a crafting system into the game in my opinion.  Really all it means is that, instead of getting the actual item, you get a blueprint for the item.  You spend money to craft the item (crafting is completely independent of skill, class, or anything so the only thing that matters is the money) and then you can equip the item.  It’s pretty frustrating, in effect, to have to purchase your items after you’ve already fought for them.  With all of that said, earning loot in Too Human is just as addicting as it is in any other game.  Just as in World of Warcraft you’ll be excited to show off your cool new armor or weapon to your friends.

That’s where we run into another problem.  The multiplayer, while fun, is lacking.  It consists of co-op play so you can make your way through the levels of the single player campaign with a friend…but that’s it.  Just one friend.  So then, despite there being 5 different character classes in the game you can only play 2 in co-op.  Kinda lame.  I guess the original plan was to have 4 player co-op but they never got around to it.  I’d love to see that sort of functionality patched in at a later date, but until then we have to live with it.  Playing with a friend is fun as you would expect.  You fight together, earn loot and have a laugh.  The only problem is that the co-op is completely devoid of the story.  There are no cinematics, and so you’re forced to play by yourself in order to get the story.

Despite all of that I still think Too Human is a solid game.  It most definitely isn’t for everyone and it seems like it could easily be one of those “love it or hate it” types of games.  With all of the drama surrounding the game I think that it’s been hyped a little bit more than it deserves, but like I said in the beginning of this review I’m going to set all of that aside.  I have to give Too Human a Borrow.  You might love it, you might hate it.  There’s plenty of replay value there if you do want to sink your teeth in.  I spent nearly 20 hours beating the single player with just one character, and I’m looking forward to going back and replaying as another.

Delicious Library

Here’s another video for your viewing pleasure!  This time I demo Delicious Library 2.0, a neat application for cataloging your media.  Check it out!

Now Playing:
Ronnie Drew – Donegal Danny
Resistance: Fall of Man

The netbook explosion

If you subscribe to any of the gadget site feeds as I do you might have noticed a trend as of late – everyone is working on a netbook.  If you’re not sure what I’m talking about let me give a little background.  Around the time that the XO laptop (OLPC) and Asus’ Eee PC were announced a lot of people weren’t sure whether these ultra-small, lightweight and inexpensive machines would be profitable.  Did they really have a specific use?  For the most part, to compensate for the lower price and smaller size, these machines didn’t have the processing power found in your average laptop or notebook computer.  They also were originally based on various distributions of Linux, taking advantage of the operating system’s lightweight system requirements.

As it turns out these first couple forays into the world of netbooks were very successful.  Since that time Asus has released and announced several different versions of its Eee PC, and other manufacturers like Acer, Lenovo, MSI and Sylvania of all places are jumping in with their own netbook offerings.  Obviously there’s a market for netbooks, but who is prone to use one?  When I first saw the Eee PC I though to myself “Wow, that’s really cool – having a tiny machine for casual use would be great!”  Then, at the same time, I remembered that I have a 2-year old Macbook that is plenty small and outperforms it.  On top of that I purchased an iPod Touch not too long ago and I find myself using that more than anything for when I just need to check a website or do basic computing functions.  Netbooks kind of fall in between these two product ranges so it’s hard for me to justify using one.

I suppose the people that will use one will be business travelers who are interested in having a very small, convenient computer that’s easy to take with them.  I have to say though, as more and more of these come out and the performance improves they become increasingly interesting.  They’d be amazing for a school situation – give every student in a middle school access to an unimposing netbook that’s relatively inexpensive and integrate that into their curriculum.  Or imagine having them available for rent on planes.  Instead of having to worry about carrying on your potentially bulky laptop you could rent a netbook for $5 and have access to your email, the internet and maybe do some word processing along the way.

I think that netbooks do have a future in the industry but I’m still not sure where they fit.  Asus can’t have only sold so many units to people falling for the wow-factor, right?  We’re on the cusp of the cellphone making the step up from telephone to computing device, and in the interim perhaps netbooks fill the gap.  I think for them to really take of it’ll require a bit more attention paid to the original premise of a netbook – cheap.  A lot of the most recent versions have started to creep up into the $500-$600 range where you can just as easily purchase a low-end PC.  I’d also like to see a lot better battery life.  If I could get a netbook with a battery that lasted all day (8 hour estimate) that would be a huge feature which traditional laptops don’t provide.  For now though, I think I’ll stick with my collection of devices to get the job done.

Now Playing:
Mudvayne – Nothing to Gein
Too Human

Denis Dyack and the Too Human drama

This is another post I probably should have gotten around to earlier.  After all, Too Human came out this past week.  With all that said there was news regarding Denis Dyack’s NeoGAF feud leading right up to the game’s release so this isn’t that stale.  This also isn’t going to be a review of Too Human.  I am currently playing through the game and am looking forward to commenting on it, but that’s for another post.  For now, let’s talk about strategic marketing.

You’ve heard the saying “all news is good news” and I think that’s what fueled the drama surrounding Too Human’s success or failure.  Basically what happened was Denis Dyack, president of Silicon Knights (the development studio who made Too Human) wasn’t pleased with some of the criticism his game was getting in its incomplete form.  Some reviewers were shown the game well before launch and, based off of the preview articles most of them wrote, a lot of the public was quick to turn their backs on Too Human.  Too Human was originally hyped as Microsoft’s answer to Capcom’s Devil May Cry and so it was expected to be a hugely successful game.  Based on the preview build it didn’t look quite that good.  In fact as it turns out Too Human and Devil May Cry are completely different forms of games, but that’s beside the point.

There was no bigger critic than NeoGAF.  NeoGAF is a forum of video game enthusiasts and, based on this early look at the game, they had some pretty harsh things to say.  So Dyack, in an effort to defend his studio’s work, issued a challenge.  If Too Human wasn’t well-received by the public he would be forever tagged on NeoGAF as “Owned by the GAF.”  If Too Human did well though, anyone who was vocal against the game would have to be tagged “Owned by Too Human.”  This unfolded into several long threads as well as some interviews related to the subject.  One such example would be the interview that the guys at 1UP held with Mr. Dyack himself on the 1UP Yours podcast.  My point is that this issue didn’t fade away into the night, it seemed like everyday there was some news on the Dyack/NeoGAF front to keep people interested in the drama.  Finally, just before Too Human’s release last week, Dyack was banned from NeoGAF because he had dubbed it as “the worst forum.”  My initial reaction to this backlash was one of surprise – after all that the NeoGAF members had said about Dyack and Too Human it turns out they couldn’t take the heat so they banned him?  Anyways.

My point in all of this is that the drama had a side-effect.  Generally, if games are quickly branded with the “disappointment” tag they often are overlooked by the bulk of gamers.  Based on the preview articles for Too Human it seemed that disappointment was the game’s fate.  After that, had none of this drama gone down, I think that average joe gamer/internet user probably would have skipped over it.  However, because this drama kept unfolding and Too Human stayed in the news people became interested.  They were all wrapped up in the drama, and I’m sure the game sold better as a result.

So really in the end this post has nothing to do with whether Too Human is a good game or not – it’s merely a recognition of Denis Dyack’s ability to successfully market the game via his drama, whether that was his intent or not.  After all, I bought the game didn’t I?  The only question is how will it affect Silicon Knights moving forward?  If this whole thing was just a stunt to publicize Too Human and the game turns out to be a flop then they’ll have lost a lot of credibility.  However if the game is a success they could garner a lot of fans who favor Dyack’s public outcry against unnecessary criticism.  Only time will tell but one thing’s for sure – I’m really looking forward to posting my review of Too Human once I’ve completed it!  =)

Now Playing:
Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye
Too Human, Battlefield: Bad Company

Buy, Borrow or Bury: Haze

Alright so this is a game which, whether merited or not, received a lot of hype from the media.  After all, Haze is from the acclaimed Ubisoft, makers of the Prince of Persia series as well as the Tom Clancy branded shooters – all of which have been well-received.  Secondarily it is a title that’s exclusive to the Playstation 3, and so it was heralded as a potential system-seller that PS3 fanboys could hang upon their mantle (Mantel??) and point to as a justification of their console purchase.

Unfortunately when Haze failed to deliver on the godly expectations that had been manufactured for it the media went a little overboard with the scathing reviews.  This obviously turned a lot of gamers off and subsequently made Haze a failure in a lot of peoples’ eyes.  In my opinion though, despite lacking the qualities needed to be considered a AAA title, Haze delivers in many aspects.

First of all there’s the story: you’re a soldier fighting for a cause you’re not sure about, and you procure a ton of super-human abilities via an enhancement drug that is injected into your bloodstream via your hi-tech combat suit.  The drug is called Nectar and it makes you stronger, faster, and more accurate.  Surely nothing could go wrong here, right?

Well, as it turns out Nectar has some interesting side-effects.  First of all it turns soldiers into the ambivalent slabs of meat that we’ve seen in far too many generic action movies.  They don’t question what they’re doing, and as long as they’ve been told that they’re fighting for good they’ll commit all sorts of atrocities in order to fulfill their quest for false heroism.  The drug also affects the soldiers’ view of the world – corpses are turned into non-descript piles of who knows what.  Basically, the drug shields the soldiers from realizing that they’re actually being used as mercenaries for a much more greed-driven goal.  This storyline is very interesting if you’ve played the entire game because it sets up some impressive twists and turns, but the demo for the game shows only the very beginning of the story.  For that reason when you’re spending most of your time with these meat-head soldiers that you’ll eventually grow to hate, many objective gamers were quick to bury the game based on what they had witnessed in the demo.  Basically the soldiers come off dumb and that can be interpreted in a negative way.  Many people complained that the dialogue for the game was stupid, that the voice acting was over-the-top and that they hated the soldiers they were fighting amongst.  Little did they know that, as I said, your contempt for your fellow soldiers is an integral plot point.

The gameplay is fairly standard-fare first person shooter stuff.  You have a arsenal of guns at your disposal as well as some special abilities depending on which stage of the game you’re at.  I thought the controls were pretty well done but I’ve heard complaints that they’re hard to manage.  There are also some driving portions of the game which I did have difficulty with, but after a while I adjusted.  Just don’t expect the vehicles to control like they do in Project Gotham Racing.

As far as level progression goes I have to admit, I was surprised by the amount of variety there was in the various environments throughout the game.  From lush jungles to dark swamps and beyond, chances are good that you probably won’t get tired of the look of the levels.  The level progression is also very interesting to me.  Generally in these types of games (story-driven first person shooters such as Gears of War) the levels are very linear.  You have a cutscene, you play a level, you have another cutscene which takes you to another part of the game world, and so on.  In Haze you move from level-to-level seamlessly.  Very seldom will you find yourself transported to an entirely different part of the world without having made the progress to that spot personally.  Basically, there aren’t many cop-outs where your character will be picked up in a chopper and taken to another continent to continue the fight.

The combat (which is 80% of all FPS games) is fast and fun.  You can use your special abilities as well as your weapons to out-think and beat your opponents on the battlefield.  Especially later in the game, there are many different ways to attack a particular fight.  You could set traps, you could use your enemies’ weapons against them, or you can just do the standard bull-rush with guns blazing.  This is especially good because Haze is one of the few PS3 games that includes full campaign co-op, so you can take a buddy through the story portion of the game.  Not only that but there’s a full  adversarial multiplayer portion of the game as well, providing plenty of replay value.

So then, how would I recommend Haze?  This might come as a surprise but I’d have to give Haze a Buy.  The game has a story that’s worth seeing through and despite being somewhat short, there’s plenty of reasons to play it again.  Add to that the fact that you can find the game for as little as $20 and I’d suggest any PS3 owner purchases the game.  Of course there’s a demo on PSN if you want to give it a try, but keep in mind what I mentioned about the demo not doing the full game justice.

New theme!

Hey everyone.  I’m just testing out the blog’s new theme…leave a comment and let me know if you like it or not. =)

Earlier today I said I’d have my review of Haze up tomorrow, and that’s still the plan.  I’ve finished that post and it’s all set to go so check back tomorrow if you want to know what I thought about the game!

How to beautify your blog on the iPhone and iPod Touch

This is my first video in a while, so I figured I’d put it up now instead of waiting until Saturday.  On Saturday (tomorrow) I should have my review of Haze up, so stay tuned for that! =)

Now Playing:
Flogging Molly – What’s Left of the Flag (Live)
Bad Company, Too Human 

And we’re back.

Alright so if you’ve followed my blog at all you’ll have noticed that I haven’t posted for a week or two.  A total shame that is.  I promise that I wasn’t neglecting the blog out of laziness or lack of interest – quite the opposite.  I have plenty of topics I want to write posts about but I haven’t been able to.  Originally I suspected that GoDaddy was at fault because I was unable to FTP into my blog or even check it from any of my computers.  Obviously that poses a bit of a problem.

So, as I said, I got a hold of GoDaddy to see if they knew what the trouble was.  They had me do a traceroute to see where the problem was occuring and they found out that it was actually an issue with my ISP.  That doesn’t really surprise me in hindsight because, had this problem been GoDaddy’s fault, it would have been the first time in 2 years that I’ve ever had any issues with their hosting.  That being said they were very helpful with troubleshooting the problem even though they weren’t the cause.

I emailed my ISP to see what the deal was hoping against hope that I wouldn’t have to call and talk to someone just to complain because my little blog was inaccessible.  I knew for a fact that it was an issue specific to them because my brother could get to it through an external ISP but was unable to get to it from his machines that were using the same ISP as mine.  For confidentiality’s sake I’m not going to name them but if you know me or where I reside you can probably guess.

Anyways, as I said I emailed them but didn’t seem to ever get the problem solved.  Then, tonight, literally just now, I tested it and I could get to my blog again.  Ta-da!!  I’m not sure if it was because I was hounding them to fix it or if an issue just worked itself out but I’m back.  Expect the usual schedule to pick back up on Thursday and, as I’ve said, I have a lot of different plans for posts, videos, and live streaming in the future.

Stay tuned!

Now Playing:
The Tossers – Pub and Culture
Crysis

How are you watching the 2008 Olympics?

It’s that time again, every four years in late summer the entire world looks to the Summer Olympics as athletes around the world take the field in the culmination of years of preparation. Medals are won, hard work is fulfilled, and national pride is abound. So then, how do you watch the Olympics?

This year, more than any other Olympics before, the games have made their huge presence felt in the online world. We’ve known for a while that Microsoft made a deal with NBC to have Silverlight exclusivity in streaming video, and you can find that at NBColympics.com/video. Obviously you’ll need the Silverlight plugin to see anything, but some of the features make it a worthwhile download if you haven’t grabbed it yet. Just being able to see events live as they happen, even if though they’re without commentary, is awesome.

Still, Silverlight provides more functionality then streaming video playback. When you enter the enlarged version of the video player there are several buttons along the left that expand the viewer’s experience considerably. If you’re a bigtime Olympics fan and there are multiple events you want to watch at the same time they offer a Live Video Control Room button. Using this button you can stream 4 separate live events at once, kind of like picture-in-picture on your TV. You get one big video and then three smaller thumbnails of video to the right. From here you can switch back and forth between the separate streams in case something interesting starts happening in one of the thumbnails that you want a better look at.

There’s also some other simple functionality like a button to browse events by sport in case you’re looking for something in particular, a button for the most-watched events if you’re trying to find what’s hot, and even an option for “As Seen On TV” video which includes commentary and footage from the event as it was seen on NBC’s cable channel.

Microsoft is delivering NBC Olympic content beyond NBC’s website though. If you happen to be using Microsoft Vista with Media Center (Home Premium or Ultimate versions of Vista only) you can subscribe to NBC Olympics On The Go. It’s sort of like iTunes for Olympic content where media is downloaded to Media Center when it becomes available. In that way it’s just like iTunes’ podcast subscriptions. A new podcast comes out and iTunes downloads it automatically. The same thing is true for Olympics On The Go but instead of choosing between podcasts to download you choose between sports that interest you. For example, I want to catch as many of the boxing events as I can, so I chose to have all of the fights downloaded automatically. Then, when a new event is available for me to watch, the application lets me know and I can start watching it.

The best part of NBC’s Olympics On The Go is that it’s true full-screen. Sure, you get pretty good video sizes on NBColympics.com, but because you’re downloading these events instead of streaming them you can take them into fullscreen without losing much quality in Media Center. I have to say it looks pretty nice on the iMac’s 24″ screen. My only qualm is that, as far as I know, you can’t get any live content through Olympics On The Go. If I was able to open up Media Center and stream the Olympics just like I was watching TV I might be able to avoid cable altogether for 2008’s Summer Games.

In a completely unrelated note, I removed the “See Or Send” page and replaced it with a page for my Ustream channel. I just started it a day ago so if you want to stop by and see what I’m doing please feel free! I’ll try to remember to stream during the day while I’m working. I’ve devoted one of the iMac’s Spaces to the chat so if you want to pop in and say hi I’ll probably see it. =)

Now playing:
Canibus – Allied Meta-Forces
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

Mac OS X Leopard features I’m using

The title’s pretty self-explanatory.  This is my first screencast in which I talk about the Leopard features I’ve been using.  It’s broken up into two parts and the second actually shows an application that isn’t standard with Leopard which can also be used in Tiger.  You’ll just have to watch to figure out what app it is! =P

Part 1

Part 2

Now Playing:
Deftones (feat. Maynard James Keenan) – Passenger