Too Human Blog - story lines in games

Okay: it's not mine: but it's pretty good:

Too Human: Some people just do not understand

Just before E3 started Xbox Live gamers finally got their hands on a playable demo of Too Human, the action RPG from one of the legendary Canadian game developers Silicon Knights. The history of Too Human has been long and controversial, with a bad demo a couple of years ago, shown only to some journalists, jumping engines, platforms and more. But with the demo most gamers were amazed at the pure brilliance of the game once they got down to it.

But honestly it took me 20-30 minutes to get the controls, at first I found them to be bad, clunky and something I would have expected from a bad developer and not Silicon Knights, but around ½ way through the demo the magic hit, I discovered this action title is not played like any other 3D title, but closer to a dual stick shooter like Geometry Wars and you only need to flick the stick at key times. From my friends who did not get the games controls, most of the time it was because they were flicking the controls and/or just not using their character class in the way it was intended.

 

The other issue I heard much about was the camera, many people said it was bad, but did not realize the game has plenty of different camera angles and types around 7 if I recall correctly. The default camera is not the best for me, I love ISO and so there should be a camera angle that works for those who found the camera to be not useful.

With only 10 more days until Too Human hits the streets, it is the perfect time to take another look at the game and pre-order it if you want to. As a co-op title it is a system seller because it truly is the first co-op RPG for Xbox 360 owners, something we have needed and I finally get to play some 360 games with my former PS3 only friends.

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I think that the demo looked fantastic, but I have some major concerns. First, I am worried about graphics and voice acting. Both were fairly craptacular in the demo. Secondly, the story has a potential to be very over the top. And the story lines in games tend to be one of two things. Either a) they are bsed off of a movie or a well established IP with it's own story and lore or b) they are space operas. Just for those of you not in the know: basically a space opera is a type of sci fi: replace a spaceship with a horse, a ray gun with asix shooter and evil aliens with Native Americans and you have one (politically incorrect) Western. Nothing wrong with that... but it's a bit oldish. I hope Too Human can really rise above and give more, but it still has the potential to be a bit hokey.  But what do you guys think? how do you find the story telling in gaming , and do you think gaming will truly compare to great works of literature