Too Human

Too Human might best be summed up as a beautiful disaster.

So far, it has been an extremely fun game with some major flaws. Flaws that for the most part have really aggravated me. It leaves me wondering how any developer who played through this game while testing could have found it to be fun or enjoyable.

Flaw #1: Death – Death in Too Human is inevitable. Sure, there are achievements available for completing a level without dying, but if you aren’t playing in co-op with a healer, I do not see how this would be possible. Thankfully, when you die the monsters do not regain health. They are, as they were at the moment of your death.

So then, what is the problem you ask? My problem with death in the game is the 25+ second “animation” that you are forced to watch each and every time you die. While it is a beautiful animation the first time around, after that it is simply annoying, and by the time you finish the game you’ll have spent a good hour or moreĀ  doing nothing more than waiting for this sequence to finish.

Flaw #2: Lack of Healing – Flaw #1 is greatly brought on by Flaw #2. There is only one class withe the ability to heal himself, so if you are any other class you have two ways of recovering health. Leveling up, which you should not rely on as your healing method, and picking up health orbs. The bad news about health orbs is they are few and far between. And when the monster’s swarm at you, you’ll need them a lot fast than you’ll get ‘em.

Flaw #3: Control – Too Human is one of the few games I’ve ever seen where the developers for some reason decided not to allow you to edit your controls. Personally, I think the game would have been much easier had the attack been based off of the left control stick rather than the right stick. Alas I cannot test my theory.

Flaw #4: Into The Great Wide Open – Too Human has some amazing areas. Most of which are grand, and empty. Take Cyberspace for example. You’ll spend a ton of time in here. Never once fighting an enemy, but rather running back and forth waiting for areas to become open to you. Sadly, the greatness of these areas don’t really make much since. It’d be like playing GTA with no people or vehicles around. Just a power up every 20 miles or so.

Thankfully, done of Too Human’s flaws are anything major and pretty much can be fixed with the release of a patch. And, as this game is first in a planned trilogy, I’d like to see some fixes before the next game is released.

In all, Too Human can be a fun game. Though my recommendation is to wait and see if a patch is released. Without a patch, I can see a number of people throwing their 360 controller through their TV.

Week 2: Failure

In case you missed my Friday plurk, I failed week two of the 100 push up challenge. I knew I was in trouble when I started, by arms were still aching from Wednesday’s workout. Unfortunately, it was my own fault.

You see, come Wednesday, I will feeling so good about my progress, I got a bit over confident. I hit the weights after my push ups, and did a number of arms exercises and basically did a “muscle burnout”. It probably wouldn’t have been that bad of a thing if I had done the weights on Friday, giving myself a few days until the next set.

So, now the question is, what do I do having failed a week? I certainly don’t want to give up, and I don’t feel like I should be following the “easier” routine. So, next week instead of progressing to the week three phase, I’ll redo week two. And this will be my standard practice. If I fail any part of the week’s routine, I’ll redo the week again until it has been successfully completed. Hopefully, that wont happen again.

Stargate

There was quite a bit of news concerning Stargate this week.

First, Stargate: Atlantis has been canceled. Personally, I think this is long overdue as I expected the show to die in the first season. But, it proved me wrong. However, while the show has been canceled, it is not finished with. The series/season will end with a cliffhanger, and next year a straight to SciFi Channel movie will be released (pdf).

While the Stargate: SG-1 movies have done well, I don’t think I’ve seen any fan reviews that actually thought they were spectacular. And those were straight-to-DVD. How will SGA do with a direct to TV movie?? Let’s just say that the SciFi Channel doesn’t have the best reviews when it comes to their original movies. Though, I’ll admit, every once in a while something good will come along (e.g. Battlestar’s Razer).

Additionally, the next Stargate series has been officially announced. Stargate: Universe – which we’ve all known for a while was coming – sounds like it will be something a bit more like Star Trek.

AOL To Acquire Socialthing

Just saw that Socialthing is in the process of being acquired by AOL.

While this is certainly good news for Socialthing developers, I hope it doesn’t come back to bite them in the ass. AOL after all is pretty much known for fraking up everything they buy. Look what happened to WinAmp, ICQ, and Netscape.

Now the question is, what will happen to AOL? Time Warner has been looking to shed itself of that turd ever since it (for some reason) decided to buy it up… Will we see AOL finally picked up by Yahoo? With SocialThing, Bebo, Sphere, Xdrive, and of course the AIM/ICQ messaging networks it could really turn Yahoo around.