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ZP: Too Human

#1 User is offline   ftr Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 11:14 AM

Too Human

Hooray! Evisceration ahoy!

I especially liked the drawing of the lacerated face. Though I STILL haven't seen that movie yet...

(Also, why does google chrome's spellchecker not recognise "movie" "google" or "spellchecker"?)

Looks like wacky camera work is one of the games big flaws. I agree, why not just leave camera work to the right stick?

Also, excellent gate pun.
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#2 User is offline   Dannysaysnoo Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 12:26 PM

Agrivated baked bean. Heheh.
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#3 User is offline   Spann Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 12:38 PM

One of the best ZPs I've seen in a while. Made up for last week's slightly dissapointing one.
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#4 User is offline   Man Of Doom Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 12:44 PM

Yeah, Awesome ZP. I played the demo of it and got pretty much the same impression, although I also felt that all the classes looked just the same and the stat development looked extremely restrictive.
Also, does anybody but me really hate Eternal Darkness? I know everybody seem to wish Silicon knights had made a sequel to that instead but I couldn't stand the damn thing.
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#5 User is offline   Spann Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 12:47 PM

QUOTE (Man Of Doom @ Sep 10 2008, 06:44 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Yeah, Awesome ZP. I played the demo of it and got pretty much the same impression, although I also felt that all the classes looked just the same and the stat development looked extremely restrictive.
Also, does anybody but me really hate Eternal Darkness? I know everybody seem to wish Silicon knights had made a sequel to that instead but I couldn't stand the damn thing.


I've played it.

Couldn't really get into it.

"There comes a time in every person's life when they should learn to shut up. It is called 'birth'."

-The League Against Tedium
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#6 User is offline   Zin Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 01:18 PM

I actually disagree with Yahtzee on changing the use of the right analog stick. To extend his own metaphor, using the right analog stick for attacking may be like building a submarine out of bread, but with careful engineering and some clever bakery tricks, a bread submarine can be made just as functional as a metal one, but with the added benefit of being delicious.

Which is to say, mapping attacks to the right analog stick isn't inherently bad, it's just very difficult to pull off correctly and very easy to cock up.

A prime example (in fact, the only example I can think of and therefore the basis of my entire post) is Grabbed by the Ghoulies, a deliciously low-selling little gem which was the first game Rare bothered to make for Xbox. It's been ages since I bothered to play it, but I recall no issues with the camera at all despite the lack of control (most complaints have to do with a somewhat wobbly difficulty curve).

Incidentally, the game contains a number of other elements that Yahtzee's criticised before such as 'Simon Says' button mashing sequences and weapon degradation. Even though these things are supposedly bad ideas, they work out incredibly well just by virtue of excellent execution (ie. you're literally surrounded by small weapons that break apart after three or four hits and there's a fair bit of strategy in selecting weapons, as they all behave differently).

Actually, a niggling bit of my memory is telling me that the camera was controlled with the right and left triggers, which either destroys or reinforces part of my point.

Of course, the real selling point of the game is the loveable wackyness. The whole plot is an eloquent subversion of "save girl from haunted house", you are at one point forced to battle a crowd of monsters who are engaging in disco, and the bad guy wears pyjamas and a silly looking pilot helmet thing. It's fecking great! Check your local bargain bin and/or internet store.


That was one hell of a tangent.

Linking all this back to Too Human, I asked a friend of mine to explain the game to me when the demo came out and he said "It's like Ghoulies, but crap". The first bit was enough to get me to try the demo, and the last bit was what made me delete it after something along the lines of five minutes.

So yeah, Too Human is worthless, but the right-stick-combat system can work if done properly. Like it was done in GbtG. Which you should all buy.

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#7 User is offline   ftr Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 02:02 PM

Just to address your point about simon-says button matching sequences (or quick timing events as Shenmue called them), Yahtzee realises, or seems to in his personal address, that if used right and as a core part of gameplay, they work well. Now, I don't know how GbtG did them, but Shenmue used them a lot. When you were in a cutscene you knew to pay close attention because a QTE (and a well indicated one at that...no little green icon. These were big colourful icons) could just be round the corner, and they felt in place.

Using triggers to control a camera is all well and good, the DC did it a lot because of it's lack of a 2nd stick. However, you find yourself with limited control because you still can't modify it along the y-axis.
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#8 User is offline   David-kyo Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 02:10 PM

QUOTE (Zin @ Sep 10 2008, 08:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I actually disagree with Yahtzee on changing the use of the right analog stick. To extend his own metaphor, using the right analog stick for attacking may be like building a submarine out of bread, but with careful engineering and some clever bakery tricks, a bread submarine can be made just as functional as a metal one, but with the added benefit of being delicious.

That analogy is retarded.

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#9 User is offline   Zin Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 03:09 PM

Yes. Yes it is.


As far as Ghoulies' QTEs, they were actually used in gameplay rather than cutscenes, as the cutscenes were done in a sort of moving comic-book style. Basically, at certain points, something "frightening" will jump out at you or fall from the ceiling or something and you'll be forced to press four or so buttons in the right order. If you take too long, the main character Cooper apparently suffers a small heart attack costing you all of five hitpoints (this usually isn't much, though in certain bits it constitutes instant death).

"Frightening" gets to be in quotation marks because nothing about the game is actually frightening in a conventional manner, as the whole thing is a silly mockery of the "Haunted House" motif. The button-press-event triggers usually amount to a slimy thing with googly-eyes leaping out of a washing machine and going "Booga booga booga!"
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#10 User is offline   ftr Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 03:14 PM

I swear to god if I had an xbox I would buy the hell out of that game, it sounds great
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#11 User is offline   FFreak3 Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 04:09 PM

Just a note, when weapons breaking comes down to three or four hits and you aren't expected to upgrade at every juncture, then it becomes a completely different element.

There's an arena game I'm thinking of for the PS1, can't remember the name of it, where you would start every fight bare-fisted and had to either con the crowd out of a weapon, (hitting people and stealing their dagger was always good, it seems), or get one by dis-arming, (I mean that both ways), your enemies. Instead of being annoying, when weapons are reduced to that element, they become a strategic and fun part of gameplay. Particularly if the weapons differ greatly in the areas of range, damage, and speed.

Now, when you can get at least ~20 hits off a weapon, it becomes a huge annoyance . . see fire emblem. Most pointless annoyance ever. . . and when you can get off 10k? (see some PS2 and Xbox 260 "RPG's"), Well, the weapon breaking is hardly an element of the game then. You get a new shiny long before the old one breaks.
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#12 User is offline   Zin Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 05:07 PM

QUOTE (ftr @ Sep 10 2008, 05:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I swear to god if I had an xbox I would buy the hell out of that game, it sounds great


A 360 is good enough, as the game works with backwards compatibility aside from a few minor graphical glitches.


The weapons are quite diverse. The house that the game takes place in is quite messy, and you can use practically everything as a weapon. There are short weapons like chessboards and chairs, long weapons like brooms and pool-cues, ranged weapons like piles of burgers which tend to be a bit weaker, one-use only things that tend to do massive damage like large jars or pool tables and probably a few things here and there that I've forgotten about. Also, occasionally a cutscene will grant you temporary use of infinite-ammo ranged weapons for a few specific levels. And of course, you can fight unarmed, engaging in punching, kicking, and the occasional backwards-flying-buttstomp.

Another interesting bit of the game is that nearly every level comes with a set of limitations such as a time limit, a particular type of enemy that you're not allowed to hit, a requirement to not be hit at all, and so on. The thing is, instead of punishing you with failure for breaking these, the game instead summons The Reaper, an invincible slow moving enemy with an instant death attack. This doesn't sound particularly forgiving, however The Reaper doesn't move particularly fast, he can be stunned momentarily by any attack or special items, and best of all, doesn't discriminate. With care, The Reaper can be steered into other monsters and will deliver delicious instant death unto them. In some cases this is actually required to progress, and other times it just makes things a whole lot easier.


I have hijacked this thread for the specific purpose of selling this game to you people. I think my original point was that even the most terrible sounding ideas can work out great if they're executed properly.
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#13 User is offline   Otal Nimrodi Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 05:14 PM

I have to say I liked the bit about "Tempting fate" with a picture of Dr. Fate.

I'm that much of a comic book geek.
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#14 User is offline   ftr Icon

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 05:45 PM

QUOTE (Zin @ Sep 10 2008, 11:07 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
A 360 is good enough, as the game works with backwards compatibility aside from a few minor graphical glitches.


I don't have one of those either.

*points to avatar*

Mind you, I plan to get a 360 sometime in the near future. As well as an HDTV.
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