I used to be a devout catholic. I went to a Jesuit Catholic School for all 12 years of school. I performed several catholic rites such as baptism, communion and confirmation and yet even though I still consider myself a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I can’t help but to destroy it in my head – as long with every other religion out there – from time to time.

Recently – and as silly as the source is – I was playing a video game called Too Human, which deals with the Norse Mythology (Thor, Odin, Baldur). While I was playing I couldn’t help think that: “Oh my God, people used to believe all this crap.” As soon as that thought hit me the flood gates were opened and more thoughts and memories started rushing through my head

I remember that once in school when we were studying the Discovery of the New World, they were explaining to us that the Caribbean’s Native Americans, known as Taínos, used to worship several Gods, like the Wind God for example. They used to call him Huracan ( this is algo the Mayan Wind God). Huracan is spanish for Hurricane. When a hurricane hit their homes, they used to believe that they had done something to anger the Wind God and they were being punished. Now, thanks to further knowledge of the weather and climate we know that this is not punishment, rather a combination of factors that cause this. In their ignorance, finding that they couldn’t explain why there was such a strong storm they attributed it to a God.

No one knows exactly how the world today was created, or how was the universe created. Yes, there’s the “Big Bang Theory,” but as the name suggests it’s just a theory. In school, one priest while he was teaching us how to answer why we believe in God, he provided the following reason: “Can you explain how the universe was created? Can you explain how the world and mankind were created?” The answer to this is obviously no, so he said: “That’s why you believe in God, because he created all this. There’s no other way to explain it.” And again, ignorance overpowers knowledge.

Stupidity Imposes "Values"

We like to make fun of cultures from the past and their believes. We wonder, how they believed all those things? And yet we fall on the same trap. When someone we love falls ill we wonder why God did this. When someone we love passes away we say it’s because God wanted it. When we go through a hard time we say God is testing us. The God we are led to believe in sounds like a total jerk. And when you think that wars have been fought for him, “because that’s what he wants,” when rights have been taken away from people, “because he’s against that;” only shows how stupid we really are.

For the record, I do believe in God. Just not the God that religions – any of them – try to sell.

Robo-vikings in the future? And people said that Too Human was groundbreaking! Lies!

I’m going to be completely honest here. I’ve never really played the original Lost Vikings. There’s something about a game that makes you essentially go through each level three times (and more if you fuck up) that I think is pretty shitty. I guess, on one hand, you sort of can’t beat the legacy of this game. If you consider that Trine is basically the Lost Vikings with a physics engine, and that people seem to think Trine is pretty great, you realize that Blizzard was on to something with these two games. On the other hand, you also don’t really do the same thing with all three characters so it’s not fair of me to say you’re just doing the same thing three times in a row. And, I mean, here I am taking it somewhat seriously instead of being all “hay, it’s old SNES you guys lolololoololololol it’s so gays”, and that’s got to be worth something.

There's so much I don't understand about this... like... ok, I get that teleporting people is difficult and probably moreso than crop dusting, but I think the implication here is that crop dusting is really easy and that the hard part is mixing ingredients but even that's easy, I guess? What? And like, how the fuck would a bunch of vikings know what crop dusting is?

As much as I think Blizzard could use a new Intellectual Property (also, I’m amazed they haven’t brought these guys back for anything more grand than a cameo in a WoW instance), they do know how to make entertaining games. The dialog in LVII is pretty good. Although I guess there’s a playstation/dreamcast version that’s all 3D-ish and has a pile of voice acting and what I saw on youtube seemed super creepy. You can also tell that blizzard haven’t really grown up that much since 1994, either, because all the women you meet are sexy magicians and all the jokes are about the fat one being hungry or fart noises.

Our heroes are rescued by the GLAAD tranny valkyrie or something... the fat one has plummer-ass. Bravo, Blizzard.

I guess what’s more important is that even having played only a small portion of this game, I can admit that I was wrong about Lost Vikings. It’s pretty fun to sort out these increasingly complicated problems where each character has their ups and downs. While I’ve largely grown out of the sort of humor in this game, I sort of have to remind myself that in 1994 not a lot of adults were playing games and they were still mostly considered elaborate toys. And this fact, coupled with Blizzard’s juvenile pre-epic-cutscene days, means I can cut them some slack for making a game where a green alien named “Tomator” (Tomatoes are red, man) has some nonsense vendetta against three vikings who apparently don’t really have any idea what they’re doing but they seem to be surprisingly relaxed about being teleported through time and also whenever they meet some sexy woman with stipulations for help they don’t just rape her and take her things because vikings.

I love me some Soren Johnson. For those of you unfamiliar with the name, he’s the brilliant mind behind much of the gaming goodness that was Civilization III and Civilization IV. As such, whenever he speaks at a conference or updates his personal blog, he’s always worth listening to. What I wasn’t expecting was Johnson’s July 16th entry (called “So this is what Twitter is for…”) regarding a fascinating Twitter exchange he had with some of the leading lights in game design regarding the relative importance of narrative versus actual gameplay.

According to Johnson, the conversation began in response to a somewhat controversial talk given by Too Human designer Denis Dyack at the Design 2009 conference. Johnson Tweeted to Dyack after the talk and was This was responded to by Harvey Smith. Then Clint Hocking Rob Fermier. Brenda Brathwaite and a host of other leading game designers that included Ian Bogost, David Jaffe, Damion Schubert and even John Romero started a long, complex conversation about the boundaries and importance of gameplay vs. narrative. It went on for a while.

And while you’re here, why not check out the rest of the Angry Bear Columns under the tab at the top of the page?

(Update: Sigh. I should have known that a post with a picture of Catherine Bell would be incredibly highly trafficked. If you’re at all interested in videogames and game design, why not click on the essay HERE and take a look around. There might be some fun stuff!)

I just discovered this July 16th post on the personal blog of Soren Johnson, the designer of Civilization IV and one of my personal gaming gods. I know, shame on me for not checking his blog in a while because what Soren has is always worth reading. Still, if you haven’t seen it, check it out. It’s the transcript of an amazing Twitter conversation had by some of the leading lights in game design about a talk given by Denis Dyack at the Develop 2009 conference.

In the conference, Dyack said the following (Quoting from the Gamasutra story about the conference):

“Gameplay is not everything,” said Silicon Knights (Eternal Darkness) founder and president Denis Dyack. “If you look at the most popular games today, they are far more narrative-focused.”

“If games are to follow the trajectory of films, then the dominance of gameplay will diminish in place of an increased focus and importance on gaming’s stories and the ways in which they are told,” he added.

This apparently triggered a Tweet from Johnson to Dyack in which he asked:

SorenJohnson: Hey Denis, if you put the narrative in front of the gameplay, you are no longer making a game. You’re making a movie. http://bit.ly/193Qdz

This is what led to the conversation about the boundaries and importance of narrative and gameplay (the whole conversation is collected here) It’s a little confusing with a lot of crosstalk (This was a real time Twitter conversation after all) but it’s well worth reading through.

It’s also the subject of this week’s Angry Bear column. I may be a bit late to the conversation, but that doesn’t meant I can’t put my two cents in. This is the Internet after all. I’ll post and update when the new column is done.

(Yeah, I’m late. We spent the day at our friend’s house for a Labor Day BBQ. In penance, may I offer this awesome picture of the lovely Catherine Bell in a bikini.)

Too Human reminded me of Assassin’s Creed. While the latter’s extensive preview treatment proved more beneficial, Lead Designer Denis Dyack ensured through some fierce, arguably misjudged rebuttals that Too Human received at least the same level of coverage. Yet after all was said and done, both games proved to be distinctly average affairs that should’ve been so much better. Crucially, both games fell short of expectations because of a fault that often affects games with a grander vision, and that fault was that they were both really, really repetitive.

In its single-player campaign, Too Human did try to make sure the player doesn’t notice this. There were squad members accompanying the protagonist in his cybernordic* adventure, prattling on throughout proceedings. Sure, what they offered up was dialogue that could’ve been ripped from the script of an action or horror B-movie, but it did suffice to distract from the monotony of killing legions of the same enemy, with the same limited moveset, over and over again. Other distractions from the monotonous gameplay included the cut scenes, that were actually well produced, the occasional venture into cyberspace, and most significantly the game’s propensity to throw loot at me like nobody’s business. It was like the game was allergic to shiny armour and oversized weaponry, dropping the loot in my lap before running away, screaming like a madman. This forced me to frequently take up the extensive and overly elaborate hero micromanagement, and sort through my wealth of loot to produce the best set of gear for my dude to don. That only retained its fun through the game’s imaginatively christened equipment, such as the Tactical Battledress of the Deathless Shrike – awesome – and the knowledge that every upgrade did indeed make my badass hero a bit more badass.

Unfortunately, Too Human’s co-op mode, which is its main campaign but with extra online friend-based power a la Gears of War, exposed the singe-player campaign’s repetitiveness. Ironic, given how I played the co-op mode before the single-player mode with my BRP co-host Joe DeLia. The co-op did away with the cut scenes, assuming that I’d probably played the single player first. Wrongly assumed, Mr. Human. So, minus the context of the cut scenes, the gameplay came across as little more than meaningless hack-and-slashing, with set pieces so unidentifiable that the whole chapter just blended into one dull blob of killing and looting. This was worsened by how the game enforced that progress depended on whether we were prepared to micromanage our equipment every two minutes or so. In single-player I found that I was far more prepared to take the time out between fights to ensure that I had my best equipment on, but why did I have to waste all that time in co-op? I just wanted to enjoy some drop-in, drop-out hack-and-slash fun. Why should I have to halt proceedings for both myself and my co-op partner every couple of minutes? That hardly represents a fun, flowing co-op session, and it was something that could’ve been avoided by simply implementing some kind of automatism to putting on and removing equipment.

So what happened? Well, Joe and I struggled through the second chapter because neither of us could be bothered to spend every other moment micromanaging our heroes. Seriously, if I wanted to do that, I’d just go play D&D, and at least then I could get drunk and still enjoy it. Too Human wasn’t as bad a game as many people would have you believe, but it certainly didn’t do itself any favours by somehow making its co-op mode less fun than its single-player. As Joe muttered towards the close of our awful co-op session, after considering the hows and whys of that occurring: Touché, Dyack. Touché.

*cybernordic should be a word.

—

En este tercer episodio de “Víctimas del hype, hablaremos de uno de los juegos que fue de los mas esperados para la actual generación de consolas. Se hablaba que sería EL juego para el 360, los xfans se reían, los psfans se retorcían y decían que al final sería una asquerosidad hypeada…y tuvieron razón. Too Human fue muy hypeado por el rumor de que llevaba 10 años en desarrollo, y lamentablemente fue uno de los peores juegos de la actual generación.

Diez años después de su anuncio, por fin salía Too Human, un título de acción que tenía de fondo la mitología nórdica. Aunque fue anunciado desde aquel tiempo, no significa que haya estado tanto tiempo en desarrollo, Dennis Dyack, quien está al frente de Silicon Knights y es la cabeza visible del proyecto, desmintió esto diciendo que es ridículo que haya estado tanto tiempo en desarrollo, que en realidad fue desde el 2004.

Se prometieron toda clase de características para el juego, lo que más se alardeaba era la cámara, que era totalmente automática y reaccionaba perfectamente a las situaciones. Sin embargo, todo esto estaba muy lejos de la realidad, porque la cámara era terrible y en cada combate, perdíamos la perspectiva de qué estábamos haciendo.

Es más, Too Human también tenía otros problemas. El argumento no tenía ningún sentido, el sistema de combate era muy defectuoso, ¿QUIÉN PENSÓ QUE ERA BUENA IDEA ATACAR CON EL STICK DERECHO?, es uno de los peores sistemas de combate con los que he tenido la mala suerte de jugar, además acababa siendo aburrido, porque nuestra única misión era acabar con todos los enemigos que apareciesen en pantalla.

"Hará que arranques el stick derecho de tu control y lo tires por la ventana."

En el apartado gráfico, pareciera que Too Human sí duró 10 años desarrollandose, ya que para cuando salió los motores gráficos eran más avanzados y el diseño inicial del juego ya estaba demasiado caduco.

A pesar de todo esto, Too Human recibió algunas buenas críticas, diciendo que después de un rato de jugarlo, la historia te engancha. Sin embargo, los sitios más importantes como Electronic Gaming Monthly y 1up simplemente odiaron el juego. Es que en realidad, ni la mejor historia podria hacer que valiera la pena ese sistema de juego tan malo.

Getting Stuck Sucks:

OXCGN’s Games That Frustrate

Games should be fun.

But sometimes they get to a point where the challenge simply becomes beyond frustrating and makes you feel like an incompetent, so you don’t finish.  Sometimes maybe it is your lack of skill, but other times it is just poor game design.

Or maybe the game becomes so boring that it becomes too frustrating to even bother finishing.  After all, every second is a second lost of your life you’ll never get back, and who wants to be stuck playing a game that’s no longer fun?

Here are some of the games that have got under the skin of our staff.

Please let us know what games have pissed you off in the past (or present) in the comment section below.

Axis of Reality:

THE ELDER SCROLLS III: MORROWIND (Xbox, PC)

I was excited about getting Morrowind – after all, the Lord of the Rings movies were fresh in my mind and I couldn’t wait to enter a full, completely open world to make my own path through. My journey lasted 2 hours. Unfortunately it was just too open, putting it on the player to provide their own motivation and in the end it just felt pointless playing like I wasn’t achieving anything or going anywhere with it. I was bored with freedom.

GRAND THEFT AUTO IV (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)

I was so excited for GTA IV, still having not finished San Andreas but loving every minute of it. While previous GTAs actively encouraged mayhem and going off the beaten track, GTA IV seemed determined to do everything in its power to stop me: irritating phone calls from contacts wanting to be taken everywhere and the punishment of removing bonuses for ignoring them, not to mention overly bouncy driving controls that destroyed any fun in police chases when every corner sent me sliding into a wall. I stopped playing when I realized that this GTA didn’t want me to have fun anymore.

Shadow Wave:

GRAND THEFT AUTO IV (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)

I wasn’t very excited going into the GTA universe once again, but judging from all the hype and the very impressive reviews I thought maybe its improved a lot since San Andreas, a game I never beat. But sadly GTA4 was just as frustrating as its processor. Phone calls, realism and annoying side missions made this very frustrating for me. But I soldiered on through to about 30% of the game when main missions went from lasting around 5 minutes to being a full 30 minutes, with no checkpoint system. I eventually walked away from this game. There are only so many times I can sit are repeat what I just did over and over.

BLUE DRAGON (Xbox 360)

Blue Dragon was a great game until the last disc. It was easy, fun, and just a great game to play when you wanted to enjoy a story and not really worry about that dreaded game over screen. As it was a very ‘beginner’ RPG, long time RPG players such as myself found it pretty easy. But then suddenly at the climax of the story the game suddenly takes a huge turn for the worst and becomes quite difficult, forcing you to spend hours of grinding to strengthen your characters. But I guess as a long time RPG player I’m quite sick of grinding and when I realized I needed to grind, I turned the game off with the intention of coming back to it, but sadly it has been sitting on my shelf for about 2 years now untouched.

Betheo:

SPORE (PC)

I know, I’m probably going to be shot for this, but after evolving to a space faring civilization, I just got over it. It started to feel repetitive once I got into space and really, I just didn’t feel like going anywhere.  So, I guess it was with some regret over the loss of creature customization after spending so long in it, that I basically stopped playing Spore altogether.

That and I seemed to be the universes bitch due to my weakness…

GHOST RECON: ISLAND THUNDER (Xbox, PC)

I know it’s an older game, but it still sticks out in my mind as one of the few militaristic games that I just could not get into. I guess it was the AI that did it for me, both allied and enemy. That, and I really didn’t enjoy the missions all that much, give me urban, or… well, just give me urban. The jungle scene was a pain in the arse.

Lame360Gamer:

TOO HUMAN (Xbox 360)

It was a grind to get all the way to the end with the CONSTANT death sequence that you couldn’t avoid, but I stuck with it all the way up to the end. However, as I had pretty much ignored all the leveling up and building of items, by the time I got to the end the final encounter proved too difficult and almost had me in tears having to go through the sequence again and again and again as I hadn’t powered up enough.

There are other games I have probably given up on out of lack of interest but the above was pure frustration.

ChiefJimbolaya:

ZELDA: PHANTOM HOURGLASS (Nintendo DS)

I’m a huge Zelda fan, so naturally I was super excited when Phantom Hourglass came out. But by the third trip to that stealth palace I was ready to throw my DS through the window. I hate timed levels & missions in video games. And I don’t really like stealth levels. So this double-whammy had me seeing red.

NINJA GAIDEN 2 (NES)

I could never beat the second level. The one where you had to time your jumps with the wind. The few times I did make it to the boss, he killed me so fast I never had a chance to figure out his patterns.

BATTLETOADS (NES, Amiga, SEGA Megadrive, Gameboy)

The bike level has to be one of the most frustrating in history. I don’t think I ever passed that point, which is a shame since the first two levels were so awesome.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (NES)

The underwater level was a killer was the source of much frustration in my childhood.

dkpatriarch:

SONIC UNLEASHED (Xbox 360)

Though I loved the visuals and concept, having to repeat certain races with perfectly timed jumps or boosts just drove me and my poor low-attention-span kids nuts!  Just let us get to the next section already!!!

FROGGER (Arcade and handheld)

Being un-co is annoying at the best of times. It means I’m not co-ordinated enough to quickly process that I’ve seen an enemy player on Live and then aim and shoot quickly enough before he kills me.  It means that games that require perfect hand-eye reaction times inevitably frustrate me…when I was young it was Frogger.  I paid lots of coin at the arcade to have people watch me die in a few seconds. Q: Why did the frog cross the road?  A: Mine didn’t…he just got hit and ‘croaked’.  Groan.

FORZA 2 (Xbox 360)

Forza 2 and in fact most racing games frustrate me because I suck and lose all the time. That is, unless there is a “L” driver mode and stupid bots that let me win…(L is for loser, not learner…) and then you just feel like you are a loser anyway for choosing that easy mode.  Plus I think going round and round the same track is boring, unless there is pretty scenery.  Yes I’m a lost cause when it comes to driving sims…I keep trying but, sorry.

OBLIVION (Xbox 360, PC, PS3)

I love this game and have played more hours on it than any other this gen, but when a glitch (maybe I killed someone I shouldn’t have?) caused a guy to fail to show for a meet for a Dark Brotherhood quest that prevented me from continuing until I restarted the game with a new character…I was beside myself with fury.

GAMES WITH IMPOSSIBLE BOSS FIGHTS (All consoles)

Any boss fight that take perfect knowledge of pattern make me throw my controller out the back deck door.  My memory is like my co-ordination: poor.  I’ve erased said games from my mind due to post traumatic stress and poor recall, but I know there are a lot of them.

darkmurder:

ARMA 2   (PC)

It’s great fun to play Arma 2 (Armed Assault 2) but sometimes building up a great ambush only to have it go horridly wrong can just become too frustrating. You spend ages getting into position only to have your cover foiled by an enemy who hits you with one hit. It’s annoying but so realistic which is also why I love it!

Please share us around

Too Human

Too Human è un videogioco ( primo di una trilogia ) d’azione , ma con qualche riferimento ai Gdr, esclusivo per Xbox 360, in cui tu impersoni Baldur, un dio cibernetico che vuole proteggete gli uomini dall’attacco dei cyborg, in una guerra contro il suo popolo che è deciso a starminare il genere umano, scagliandogli contro un esercito di macchine assassine. All’inizio di Too Human, devi scegliere la classe base del tuo personaggio ( tra 5 a disposizione ), e manmano che procedi con le missioni e acquisisci un certo punteggio, hai la possibilità di potenziarlo nei suoi vari poteri, che ti saranno molto utili quando affronti la marea di nemici pronti a darti contro. Per affrontarli hai anche a disposizione un bel arsenale di armi a corto raggio come, spade, martelli, mazze di varia grandezza e anche armi da fuoco come fucili e laser, che trovi in giro per gli scenari. Too Human come ho detto prima, si avvicina un pò ai Gdr di ultima generazione, soprattutto per la possibilità di personalizzare l’equipaggio nonchè seguire passo dopo passo l’evoluzione del tuo personaggio, modificando e potenziando i parametri del suo aspetto esteriore, dell’armatura e dell’arsenale, proprio come in un Gdr, e cioè con il proseguimento delle missioni. I programmatori di Too Human si sono impegnati soprattutto per quanto riguarda la veste grafica del gioco, ricreando scenari veramente originali e soffermandosi molto sul livello dei dettagli dei personaggi e dell’oggettistica, garantendo una fluidità di gioco ed effetti speciali davvero sbalorditivi per essere il primo di 3 capitoli.

Shop Online: Videogiochi, Console, Giochi Ds, Giochi Pc, Giochi Ps2, Giochi Ps3, Giochi Psp, Giochi Wii, Giochi Xbox 360

Pagina Originale di Too Human!

HomePage Videogiochi e Console!

Now that my first year of medical school is over (more on that later), I’m finding myself with absolutely no responsibility and plenty of free time. I decided to go back and catch up on a bunch of games I’d tried out a while ago and then never finished.

Starting with the game highest on my pile of shame this console generation, I restarted and finished Bioshock. What a great game. I only have two complaints. The audio diaries were an innovative way to tell Bioshock’s narrative, but the garbled sound effects and combat craziness made it really difficult to understand what they were saying sometimes. Also, the plasmids were a lot of fun to use, but there were almost too many to choose from. I never used the bee plasmid, and I actually played through the majority of the game (except the final chapters) by shocking enemies and then running up to them with the wrench. Other than that, I loved it. I can’t wait for the sequel.

Then I turned my attention to Too Human. I’d read all of the reviews and knew exactly what to expect going into the game, but I figured I should really see what a game that’s been in development for 10 years looked like. Prey didn’t turn out too bad. How much worse could Too Human be? That game is an exercise in tedium. The story is almost incomprehensible due to a complete lack of exposition, the combat is mindless, death is inevitable (so much so that they gave me 5 achievement points for my 100th dirt nap), and that infuriating death sequence is one of the most unfathomable design decisions I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’ll ever play Too Human again.

Finally, I picked up Assassin’s Creed again. I love that game. I can understand how its repetitive nature was a divisive point for a lot of people, but I really enjoyed it. I was very invested in the story and I think the presentation values were impressive (even the altered Ubisoft logo at the startup screen was a nice touch). Assassin’s Creed 2 will be a day-one purchase for me.

I’ve started playing Lost Planet again, and when I’m done with that I’ll probably give Mass Effect another shot. I want to get through the games that have sequels coming out so that I’m all caught up. In unrelated news, this may be the first year that I miss E3. The conference starts on my birthday when my dad and I will be heading out to a Porsche racetrack to get some free racing lessons. Then on June 3rd I’ll be heading to Niagara Falls for a few days with my fiancee. I love having nothing to do!

Front case of Too Human

Genre: Action-Rpg (loot hunter)

Age rating: 16+
Developer: Silicon Knights
Console: Xbox 360

Hi this is my first ever review. I recently purchased the game Too Human, (a game that has taken around 9 or 10 years in development and was originally going to be released for the Playstation 2 and Gamecube) and I was blown away by how good it was, and is currently my favourite game.

Too Human is the first part of a trilogy of games developed by silicon knights, a games company I am not to familiar with. In the game you play as a cybernetic god called Baldur
You have 5 different classes to choose from Berserker, Champion, Bio engineer, commando,
Defender  with talk of there being more via downloadable content.

video by me (Youtube name: mrjakeholmes)

The game is set in the future but has elements of an RPG that is set in the past. (such as there being enemies called trolls that are robotic yet have the features of your regular troll in a RPG game set in the past, e.g. Fable 2.) In the game you can level up your character by progressing through the campaign and redoing missions you have already done. (all enemies will be around your level when redoing missions so you can get good gear and exp.) You will also get gear whilst playing the game such as armour and weapons (which makes your character a one of a kind.) were there is a colour code system for the items like World Of Warcraft.

You will get charms, and runes both boosting your attributes, runes are implanted in to your armour if you have a free rune slot, and charms are equipped, you will need to do a quest such as kill 300 enemies then you will get the charms attributes boost. The games graphics are very good for both environment and characters. The game has a strange use of controls such as using the right analogue stick to use melee weapon, which was a good idea but I would of preferred to use the buttons on the controller, although I think it would have been a good function if the game was for the Nintendo Wii. There is a co-op option that lets you and your friend play the game together I have not tried this function yet but am looking forward to playing it with someone else. There are also rumours of the experience cap being changed from 50 to something else like 60 most probably. Altogether I would suggest buying this game if you enjoy games were you level up and get new gear.

Remember look out for the next instalment in the Too Human trilogy and I can’t wait to review that one as well were you will be able to transfer your character from the first Too Human.

Overall a 8/10, The reason I didn’t give the game 10/10 was because I think you should have been able to have more control over the camera angle, also the game controls were strange for battling (Using right analogue stick to use melee weapon, and instead using the A,B,X,Y buttons and rearranging the controls.)

By Jake Holmes.

Ten 360 Games You Haven’t Played – Part 2

by AXIS of Reality

©2009 Alex Baldwin

Time for Part 2, finding ten 360 games you haven’t played but really should. It would be nice if there was no need to write articles like this and all great games got the attention they deserve, but a lot of the financial success of a game is reliant on their marketing budget.

This means if the game isn’t a sequel to an established franchise or isn’t being pimped at trade conventions (like the upcoming E3 for example) it will often be overlooked, so it shouldn’t be surprising that these last five games in the list are all original IPs.

To remind you, the 5 games in Part 1 were: • Infinite Undiscovery, • Overlord, • Eternal Sonata, • Banjo Kazooie: Nuts ‘n’ Bolts and • Condemned: Criminal Origins.

And without any further blabbing about, here’s the final 5 games you should be picking up in the mid-year sales dirt cheap, or trade any games you already own and get them delivered for free (for a timed period) from our affiliate Game Share.

Viking: Battle for Asgard

Now this one is confusing. Viking: Battle For Asgard has all the right ingredients for a commercial smash hit – a huge open world, some beautiful graphics, epic battles and a great setting. So where did it go wrong?

I have absolutely no idea. Recently I managed to get a copy for cheap, and have been loving it ever since.

The environments are often quite stunning, with stormy skies and fantastic lighting as they’re overrun with enemies before opening up to perfect skies once you’ve slaughtered every inhabitant in the most brutal ways possible.

Want to slice off both arms before tearing the torso off into a meaty chunk? Go for it – you’ll be rewarded with more mana.

Along with some Tomb Raider-esque platforming, Viking: Battle For Asgard will keep you entertained for a good long time with solid gameplay and a great world. For fans of God of War or Fable, it should be on your list to buy as you can find it between $25 and $50 now.

A word of warning for PS3 owners though – the PS3 version is unfortunately plagued by technical and framerate issues that get worse as the game goes on, so you might like to avoid this one unless you have a 360.

TimeShift

You may have heard of Sierra Studios Timeshift several years ago, maybe even played the quite underwhelming PC demo that immediately put most people off this title.

Well time to take another look, as after that disastrous showing the team at Saber Interactive went back to the drawing board and gave the game a good overhaul. The result? An enjoyable blaster with some very amusing time powers.

Using the usual time controls of pause, rewind and slow motion you’ll be able to run into one of the large-scale gunfights, pause and shotgun a few soldiers before unpausing and watching them all fly backwards simultaneously.

Then, you might need to quickly rewind to detach that grenade that got stuck to your helmet and watch it return to its sender.

While unashamedly ‘borrowing’ many ideas from Half-Life 2, Halo and any other successful FPS franchise you can name, the end result is a highly competent shooter well worth the $15-$30 you’ll find it for in sales now.

Dark Sector

Digital Illusions’ current-gen debut Dark Sector was at one time, the most anticipated game on the planet. Why? Because it was the first game ever to be announced and shown off for the current generation of consoles.

You can still find the trailer on YouTube, looking like a cross between Unreal and Chronicles of Riddick. After the team realised that the space marine setting was pretty much full to the brim the game was reworked and in the end we got the new Dark Sector.

Well, the rest of the world got Dark Sector. It was banned in Australia due to the use of its signature weapon – the ‘glaive’, a three bladed shuriken-esque boomerang that had the capacity to sever people completely in half.

Through a mixture of this and cover mechanics that pay a lot of homage to Gears of War, Dark Sector received positive reviews with the only real issue being the complete lack of innovation.

• Dark Sector D3 Publishing Video

But hey, not every game needs to reinvent the wheel. Some like Dark Sector play it safe but still provide a great experience.

After some censorship Dark Sector did get an Australian release with absolutely zero fanfare, so now’s a great time to pick it up for $25-50.

(ED: The “original Dark Sector concept was much deeper and tense than what we gotyy in the end. I would have preferred D3Publishing to contniue with the original style. Set in deep space which secondary characters and a great deal more depth. Idealy it may surface in another form, at some stage. One can only pray – check the vid out for an early squiz.)

• Original Dark Sector footage

Too Human

Now here’s a game that had a high public profile (thanks to the much-publicised lawsuit between developers Silicon Knights and Unreal Engine 3 creators Epic) but was largely ignored on release.

Well, maybe not ignored – more all-out hated. After a massive development schedule covering 3 generations of consoles, when the final result didn’t turn out to be the second coming, it was ripped to shreds by gamers everywhere, whether they’d played it or not.

Critics were nicer – OXCGN’s own review gave it a respectable 7.9/10, indicating it’s a good game but it doesn’t push any boundaries. OXCGN even had a favourable comment from the man himself, Dennis Dyack. Which was a nice surprise.

If you’re looking for a good dungeon crawler with some epic scenery and an interesting twist of sci-fi and norse mythology, Too Human is well worth getting for the $25-50 it can be found at.

While there are some flaws (such as the well-known valkyrie cutscene problem when dying), it’s a lot of fun with a huge amount of armour and weapon customisation and even better in co-op with a friend.

Enchanted Arms

Yes, one more JRPG to finish off the list. Bizarrely, Ubisoft chose to publish Enchanted Arms instead of a Japanese publisher for the launch of the 360.

While everyone was ooh-ing and aah-ing over Oblivion’s world and Dead of Alive 4’s graphics, [eM] -eNCHANT arM- as it was originally known, snuck by under the radar but provided those who found it with a long and satisfying romp through several worlds with a great battle system.

It suffered from the usual launch-game problems of fairly empty environments and making every surface shiny (aaaah…back when shiny = next-gen), but made up for it with combat that played out like a cross between regular turn-based and chess.

You would slowly collect more monsters to fight for you on a grid board that required a fair bit of tactical thought.

The story was interesting and the characters, while overly stereotypical and with the worst fashion sense ever to befall the world of games, were memorable. Enchanted Arms is a great way to bide the time until Final Fantasy XIII and Blue Dragon 2 make their debut. Pick it up for $12-25 easily.

Once again got to warn that the later-ported PS3 version suffers from technical problems so try before you buy for PS3 owners.

Well, that completes the list.

Of course there are going to be more overlooked games than these, and I’m sure there are still some I’m yet to discover. These were the ones I felt most in need of some recognition however, and I hope you’ll give them a go when you next see them under a layer of dust in the pre-owned bins of game stores around Australia (and the world) or on Game Share .

You could pay $100 for a good new game OR you could get several of these for the same price and help the developers get what they deserved from the beginning.

After all, it’s pretty hard to regret an entire new game for nearly the price of a DLC pack on Live or PSN

. ©2009 Alex Baldwin

Please share us around

Title: Too Human
Region: NTSC/USA
Ixtreme: Yes
Stealth: Yes
Game Size: 7.29gb
Server: Megaupload
Links: 1×999mb y 1×755mb
01 http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z2KNSKHG
02 http://www.megaupload.com/?d=K3YGV9P4
03 http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZNCCACC4
04 http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WH8RUBPZ
05 http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QUTN28DP
06 http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BDU7DI6P
07 http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YX0N5K2H

Now this game starts with a great looking cinematic, and starts the ball rolling for a good story line, yet then you are thrown into the game. The main problem you face right from the start is the controls, there aren’t any clear instructions on how to use them. So while you are fiddling around with them or checking the menu, the story tries to give you a running start.

We all love smashing things and this game gives you plenty of opportunity. You start with a hammer and a gun, the gun you cant aim and is weak, making you switch to, at least in my case, a giant hammer. Sounds fun right? Well look out because there are more guys behind you, yet the camera is constantly where you don’t want it to be, giving the enemies that edge to take you out.
I did enjoy what little I saw of the story while trying to fight my way through the game, now I mean fight the controls, camera, and horrible one liners, not the enemies themselves.
To wrap up this brief review, I would stay away unless you have a fondness for RPGs and don’t mind getting frustrated.

coïtus interracialus

Playstation 3, Cell, HD, Final Fantasy, Square Enix : tout cela évoque la puissance financière, technologique et commerciale.
Pour ce treizième épisode de la Fantaisie Finale, Square a promis monts et merveilles : une refonte totale du gameplay, du système de combat, un univers riche, bref, de la grosse production, du system seller.

Les adorateurs peuvent déjà s’essayer à la démo japonaise du jeu, disponible dans la version collector du film d’animation Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. Oui, faut vraiment être un fan de la première heure…

Admirateur des RPG japonais que je suis (pointe d’ironie), je me suis intéressé aux vidéos de gameplay de la dite démo. 

Mes impressions à froid : 

- graphiquement rien d’extraordinaire, ça manque cruellement d’effets, c’est terne, les modélisations ne sont pas fantastiques, on voit des épaules légèrement carrées, les animations sont stéréotypées et répétitives.

- le level design présenté dans la démo est un long couloir genre… J-RPG. C’est exactement le même début que Final Fantasy X : la même démo avec une skin et un système de combat différents. 

- déjà-vu désagréable : Rogue Galaxy. Faux Action-RPG, univers futuriste à la Star Wars insipide, tout droit sorti d’un clip de J-Pop, personnages aux looks ridicules qui ressemblent plus à des chanteurs de variété qu’à des princesses et des guerriers d’élite. L’héroïne porte une arme qui lui tombe en bas des fesses et qui ne semble pas la gêner le moins du monde. 

- le système de combat bâtard : “ouais, enfin quelque chose de dynamique, de l’action qui clash !”, ben en fait non. La femelle se rapproche des ennemis qui commencent à la frapper dans le vide (leurs armes traversent son corps, vive les collisions next-gen), et là c’est le drame : transition floue vers une aire de combat genre… J-RPG. C’est beau la next-gen. C’était pas possible de combattre directement dans le couloir ? Faut croire que les Japonais sont conservateurs également sur le plan des jeux vidéos, tandis que les développeurs occidentaux rivalisent de paris technologiques pour supprimer ces lourdeurs antiques. Ca la fout mal, en plus le système de combat est faussement dynamique, le joueur doit encore attendre que sa barre d’action se recharge, il doit aussi chercher des sorts ou des actions dans un hyper-menu, et le pire de tout : c’est du tour par tour 16 bits déguisé. Les ennemis canins se jettent sur le joueur pour le griffer, puis font un bond arrière pour s’éloigner… PITIE !

- pour revenir aux ennemis canins, ça vous rappelle rien ? Regardez-les bien. Ah, vous avez pas joué à Too Human ? C’est les mêmes. Square qui copie Silicon Knights et un jeu que tous les sites de jeux ont vomi (bah vous comprenez, y’a pas de tour par tour, pas de menus d’action ni de transition floue vers une arène de combat 16 bits) ? Dans le copiage, on pourra aussi citer les soldats tout droit sortis de Killzone et blanchis pour que le plagiat soit moins évident. Le reste des personnages et des ennemis présentés : degré zéro de la création artistique et de la “classe”, du cliché de cliché de cliché de cliché.

- la musique est répétitive au possible. Le même arrangement de violon casse-bonbon a dû se rejouer une bonne dizaine de fois en autant de minutes de gameplay. 

Equipé de ma DeLorean, je suis allé voir en 2011 (date de sortie française du jeu) les notes attribuées par la presse française : 

- jeuxvideo.com 19/20

- gamekult.com 8/10

- levelfive.fr 2/10

Pour les vidéos : 

http://www.gamersyde.com/news_7707_29933_3_fr.html

“Even though you die every 5 min, you might love all the cool weapons and that you progress really fast in ranks. Don’t buy it if it’s not for sale!”

- Microsoft Game Studio (Xbox 360 version tested)

Shortest review: 4.5

Metacritics.com: 65