Too Human Progress Report

February 19, 2008 - Microsoft kicked its GDC 2008
presence into high gear by showing one of its premier titles launching this year, Too Human.
The development team, Silicon Knights, was on hand for the biggest
public showing in quite some time to show off the latest build of the
game and give attendees some brief hands-on time with the game. In
somewhat anti-climactic fashion, the demo was primarily a repeat of
what we saw in St. Catharine's last fall with a couple of new areas
added in. You can read our impressions of that showing here.
This latest demonstration may have been a bit of a tease by revealing
little new info, but it was clearly a more polished version of the game
and we did learn a few choice details.

Too Human begins with a cutscene, but reveals little. The opening
sequence sets up the battle between the Aesir and the machines before
introducing the hero, Baldur. We first meet him in a dive bar with
voluptuous women dancing on stage. It's a human establishment and the
whispers say they aren't too pleased with the job the Aesir have done
protecting them. That's not why Baldur is there -- he has bigger fish
to fry. Namely a "grendel" machine that bursts through the wall and
ravages the place. The first leg of the story is an attempt to track
this guy down and bring him in.





Don't get too attached to that quest. It's just the tip of the iceberg.
"The whole story arc is so large and so complex that that is really a
nothing event compared to the main story arc," according to Denis
Dyack. "It's a complex story but one I think people are going to
enjoy."

We didn't learn any new details on what that story would entail, though
we did see some later level combat and a couple of new areas. The first
new locale we were shown was the Aesir hub. The area was nothing out of
the ordinary in the extraordinary world of Too Human, but its
significance was felt nonetheless. This is the place where you can buy
new weapons and enhancements and other related commercial activities.


The art style in Too Human is top notch.

The
hub is also where Dyack talked about the inventory system Too Human
offers. Like other games where loot is important, epic sets can be
found that add powerful enhancements if completed and equipped. We saw
one such and it looked mighty impressive (not too surprising as the
game runs in true 720p with 4x anti-aliasing and can still handle 50-70
enemies on screen at once). Collecting the set won't be as cumbersome
as you might think. Too Human will automatically analyze new pickups
and determine whether it is better than what you currently possess -- a
handy tool when your inventory maxes out and it decides for you what to
keep and what to toss or sell. Don't worry; you can set your own
parameters for what should be auto-dumped.

The next new area we saw was called the Ice Forest. This frozen
landscape featured a level 14 character up against some tougher enemies
and variants. The game scales with you, encouraging replayability. Part
of that is done through the introduction of more challenging variations
of earlier enemies. We saw one that could free Baldur, a condition that
didn't look too fun. Though it was claimed that this section of the
game would be tough, the person demoing it was clearly skilled as they
dispatched the enemies with ease.

The game is now nearly complete, moving towards release quickly.
"Essentially what we're doing now is the final polishing and tweaking
and making sure all of the classes are balanced and making sure the
co-op is awesome," says Dyack. "The game is in the final stages and
really coming together. When you have a game this complex it takes a
really long time. You can't just put it out there and then fix all of
the bugs." This is perhaps of greater importance than most might
imagine. The character you start in the first Too Human can be
carried over into the second and third games.

In our short time with the game, we noticed a substantial improvement
in the polish on the game. The combat feels tighter and the framerate
is a bit more stable. We still had a few instances where the camera
wasn't ideal and the game is yet a work in progress, but what we played
felt on track. With such an epic game, however, it's tough to get a
good idea on how the final product will turn out when you only get to
play for 15 minutes.


This is going to hurt.

The
level cap for that first game is 50, though reaching it is no easy
task. There's one case of a Silicon Knights employee with a character
in the mid-40s. The time it took to reach there was more than 40 hours.
Balancing isn't done, but 40 to 60 hours to reach that point sounded
about right to Dyack. "I would say conceptually or content-wise it's
bigger than most games I've seen in a very long time."

Big games take a long time to make, but Dyack is confident all three
games in the Too Human trilogy will release on Xbox 360 before the
console cycle is up, a more positive outlook than he had at the German
Games Convention last year.
"The other ones will be coming out a lot more quickly than the first
one. We've always talked about simultaneous production. All of that
stuff is still true…we're aiming to get it on 360, all of it."


Baldur's dash is lightning fast.

On
the always hot topic of an upcoming Too Human demo, Dyack wants to
assure gamers that it is still on the way. "My promise! It'll be there
before the game releases on Xbox Live." We had no luck on learning when
that release date might be. Perhaps we'll learn more next time the game
is shown, which, according to Dyack, is when we'll finally learn about
the co-op features Too Human has to offer.