Genre: Action/RPG
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Silicon Knights
Release Date: August 19, 2008

Too Human places you into the role of the Norse god, Baldur, son of Odin and widely considered among the best of the Norse pantheon. Too Human doesn't occur in a classic Norse setting, but is a bizarre, futuristic look at the world of Midgard. The Norse gods are still gods, but gain their power through biomechanical implants that render them as disturbing half-human, half-robot abominations. The fusion of mythology and technology doesn't stop there. The world tree Yggdrasil is a super-computer that is home to the Non Organic Rational Nanosystems (NORNS), and the dragon Nidhogg takes the form of a computer virus. What little city remains in the world is a bizarre future-Norse dystopia populated by futuristic reimaginings of legends.

Too Human takes place during the Twilight of the Gods, a time when even the Aesir themselves are at their limit. Many years ago, the Ymir, a race of super-advanced technological masterminds created an army of self-replicating machines based on mythological creatures like goblins, trolls and dark elves. While the Ymir were killed by the Aesir, their armies live on and are seemingly unstoppable. All that remains of the land of Midgard is ice and snow, with a single base known as Aesir protecting the remaining humans and gods from the inclement weather and the armies of the Ymir.

You begin the game by creating your own custom Baldur from one of five classes: Berserker, Bio-Engineer, Champion, Commando and Defender. Each class has its own unique set of attributes. Berserkers are close-range warriors who can use twin-bladed weapons, but they have terrible defense and ranged capabilities. Bio-Engineers are the healers, with self-regeneration, extremely high HP, and the ability to heal others. Commandos are the exact opposite of Berserkers, focusing on ranged combat and technological strength over all else. Defenders are the tanks of the game, with high defense and the ability to equip shields. Finally, the Champion is the balanced class — jack of all trades, master of none. Once you complete the first level of Too Human, Baldur also gets to choose between the Cybernetic and Human paths for a secondary skill set. Cybernetics are focused on strength and damage, allowing access to cannon ranged weapons, high-powered skills and extra health. The Human skill path is based more on combos, giving you access to human-only customizable weapons, additional combo levels, and faster recharge speeds.

Once Baldur is created, you begin the process of powering him up. Too Human uses a skill tree method of leveling up, with each of your first nine levels giving you three skill points to spend, and each additional level after 10 giving you two. Your primary class skill tree has three different paths you can wander down, while your secondary tree has two. Generally, you'll find yourself having enough skill points to fill perhaps one of each path if you happen to max out your Baldur, so choose carefully. The good news is that making bad choices doesn't completely screw you up. You can spend Baldur's bounty, the Too Human version of cash, to re-spec one of your trees. Each re-spec costs an increasingly larger amount of bounty, starting at a mere 1,000 and doubling with each re-spec, so don't do it too often. Be warned that there are also a few exclusive skills in your primary tree, taking up the fourth and fifth slots in each row. If you get one, you can't get the others from any of the other trees without a re-spec, so plan carefully.

Combat in Too Human is simple, perhaps overly so. To attack enemies, you simply move the right thumbstick in their direction, causing Baldur to launch into an automatic combo, depending on how close you are to the enemy. Press it close, and Baldur swings his weapon back and forth like a whirling dervish; press it from far away, and Baldur slides in toward his foe for a quick blow. There are, however, a few ways you can mix up the combat system. By pressing both the left and right analog sticks in the same direction, Baldur will unleash a Fierce attack, firing a blast of energy from his sword that knocks down foes, or a Finisher, a long uninterrupted combo that, if it successfully completes, does extra damage. Tapping the right thumbstick instead of holding it makes Baldur do a short attack that has a chance of knocking certain enemies into the air to allow Baldur to juggle them for extra combos. Finally, 2-in-1 attacks are activated by performing another of the above actions in the middle of a slide, which further increases the damage or effects of the attack.

Beyond his melee attacks, Baldur also has access to ranged weapons, which are less useful against crowds, but crucial to the boss fights, as most bosses are either immune to close-range attacks or will punish you heavily for getting close. Ranged weapons are pretty similar to melee weapons. You press the right trigger to fire your weapon and the right thumbstick to aim it. You have infinite ammo, but each weapon has an energy meter that drains as you fire, and once that meter reaches the bottom, you'll have to wait a few moments while Baldur reloads his gun.

There are a few twists to the weapons. Ranged weapons can target the limbs of certain bosses and trolls, thus allowing you to weaken these particularly strong enemies before killing them. Additionally, the different ranged weapons have various kinds of secondary fire, which are usable with the left trigger. Twin pistols allow you to fire the second gun for fast-but-weak multi-targeting, but far more useful was the rifle's grenade secondary. The grenade is capable of a powerful area effect explosion and setting enemies on fire, which did small amounts of damage to them over time. The only downside is that one use of the grenade generally requires you to reload your rifle right away, but the benefits more than outweigh the negatives.

Beyond the regular attacks, Baldur also has access to four special moves, depending on his class and skill tree: Battle Cry, Ruiner, Sentient Weapon and Spider Move. Baldur learns one of each and can activate them at the press of a button. The Spider Moves are his technological attributes, powered by the biomechanical spider attached to his back; depending on which Spider Move you choose, it can function as everything from a bomb to a turret to a personal shield. However, these attributes only last as long as the Spider's power source does, and then you have to let it recharge. Battle Cry and Ruiners are powered by the combo meter; Baldur doesn't have a magic bar, but he powers his attacks by performing combos. The more enemies you kill and a longer a combo string you perform, the more the combo meter builds up. It begins at zero and fills up to at least three and as many as five bars. Each time you activate a Ruiner or Battle Cry ability, it takes one of these bars. The twist is that the more bars you have, the more powerful that move is. A Ruiner, which is an area effect attack that blows away anything nearby, begins as a simple explosion. However, at level two, it will summon your character's animal spirit for special effects, and by level four, it will obliterate everything nearby. Battle Cries are self-buffs, with the duration and effectiveness determined by your combo meter. They can make your melee attack stronger, increase your defense, or remove status effects. Finally, the Sentient Weapon Fenrir is the ultimate attack you can unlock for Baldur. Activating it unleashes a super-powerful living sword that shreds everything nearby and instantly fills your combo meter to the maximum, although it comes at the cost of an incredibly long recharge time.

There are no items or healing spells available to most of the classes in Too Human. Healing can only be done by finding heath orbs, which are randomly dropped by enemies and sometimes discovered when you destroy objects in the environment. Beyond those rare healing items, you're completely on your own, unless you're a Bio-Engineer class, which is capable of self-regeneration and has healing Battle Cries. As a result, reckless players will find themselves dying fairly often.

Bizarrely, death in Too Human is both an inconvenience and completely defanged at the same time. When Baldur dies, you receive a minute-long cut scene of a Valkyrie descending from the heavens and carrying him away to Valhalla, followed by Baldur promptly respawning nearby. Once he respawns, Baldur's weapons all suffer from a small amount of damage to their state, and if the state reaches zero, they break. In the preview build, the damage to state for death was absolutely minimal, roughly 100 or so points to items that had 2,500. Even if your weapons started taking serious damage, it is possible to hop back to Aesir and repair them without losing too much progress. The inconvenience comes from the aforementioned Valkyrie cut scene, which is unskippable and must be watched every single time you die, which can grow quickly tiresome, especially with the lack of healing. Adjustments could easily be made to this before the game hits shelves, and death could be far more of a risk in the final retail version.

Outside of battle, there are a few things you can do to improve Baldur's survivability rate. Most enemies will drop loot when defeated, ranging from weapons and armor to precious health orbs and bounty. For the most part, weapons and armor are fairly simple; as long as Baldur meets the level, class and path requirements, he can equip it. Some pieces of equipment have rune slots, which let you customize and improve upon it. Runes can be found among other loot, and by slotting one into a weapon or armor, you improve its stats. Using a rune is permanent, so be careful not to waste an Armor +9% rune on a level-one piece of equipment.

Set equipment should be very familiar to any Diablo or World of Warcraft players out there. Some pieces of equipment are part of a set, and by finding and equipping all of the pieces of the set, Baldur will receive a stat bonus. It's up to the player to determine whether the bonus is better than a custom-created piece of equipment. The twist to equipment comes from the fact that it is quite impossible to find the best gear in the game. No matter what, you won't find weapons and armor over a certain rarity, even if you search for hours. Instead, equipment over a certain rarity drops in the form of blueprints, but you must spend a substantial amount of bounty to create them. Think of it like unlocking items in a shop, rather than finding the items yourself. You can also sell blueprints for massive amounts of cash, which is always a nice benefit.

The other important thing to do outside of battle is to explore Cyberspace, which is another world, home to the NORNS, and accessible via wells scattered throughout the stages. Baldur loses all of his weapons and combat ability here, which is fine since it's a completely harmless area that has been built for Baldur to explore. In exchange, he receives a number of puzzle-solving abilities, such as telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and the ability to walk on water. Using these abilities allows Baldur to explore and locate special blueprints and equipment that can't be found elsewhere. For the most part, Cyberspace didn't seem overly complex, with a fairly linear set of areas available, with more becoming unlocked every time you finish one of Too Human's levels or find a new Cyberspace ability.

Charms, the third kind of equipment beyond weapons and armor, are available in Cyberspace but cannot be found anywhere in reality. Charms provide special abilities, such as giving Baldur the chance to cause a bad status on every attack or increasing the power of his ranged weapons. Baldur can equip up to two Charms at a time, although they refuse to give up their attributes until you first complete a Charm Quest. These quests generally require the completion of small achievements, such as killing 1,000 goblins, finding two wells inside levels, or defeating 150 enemies while your combo level is over a certain point. Once you complete these tasks, the Charm is unlocked, and you can even equip certain runes to them.

Beyond its single-player campaign, Too Human is also going to offer a number of Xbox Live features. Players with Xbox Live Accounts will be able to download special armors and weapons that can be purchased from the Asier's workshops. Far more interesting is the fact that new levels will also be downloadable, allowing Too Human players a chance to continue adventuring after they've finished the story. Finally, players will also be able to take on the main quest with a friend in co-op mode, allowing them to take on enemies together. There are even special achievements for doing this, such as one Baldur destroying a troll's armor while the other Baldur finishes it off with a special move. Online play can be adjusted in a number of ways, including who gets the loot and where the fighting takes place, so don't worry about your friend stealing all of your stuff.

Populated with interesting gameplay and plot concepts, Too Human has been 10 years in the making, and it's finally about a month away from arriving on store shelves. It's an attempt to bring a Diablo-style game to a home console without the frustration that usually comes from trying to adapt a keyboard- and mouse-driven game to a console controller. Too Human has the potential to satisfy gamers who are seeking a console Diablo experience, especially in the wake of the recent Diablo III announcement.