Too Human Drops Cloak Of Mystery

That 'other' RPG hybrid, Too Human has been in silent running mode since their disastrous 2006 E3 showing. Thankfully, the game has progressed to the point where the team felt comfortable revealing the game. For the moving picture show, GameTrailers has you covered. For a more textual experience, 1up, Team Xbox, and Gamespot all chip in with their two cents. From Gamespot's post: "If you're familiar with the loot/drop systems in MMO games and action role-playing games, such as Diablo II, you'll have a reasonable idea of what you can expect from Too Human. Many of the enemies that you kill--most of which are robotic variations on classic fantasy goblins, dark elves, and the like--will drop weapons, armor pieces, or item blueprints for you to collect. Items are color-coded according to their rarity, and unsurprisingly, the most powerful items in the game are those that drop the least frequently. The rarest and most powerful items in Too Human can only be obtained by collecting a blueprint for their design from an enemy then spending a significant amount of money on having the item crafted."

Comments

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[Anonymous Coward]

A more interesting bet would be when the "Slow Down Cowboy!" goes away.

Wardrobe change

[Applekid]

Too Human Drops Cloak Of Mystery And dons the Clock of Mediocrity

Re:Wardrobe change

[Anonymous Coward]

Too Human Drops Cloak Of Mystery And dons the Clock of Mediocrity Flava Flav, is that you?

Re:Wardrobe change

[Applekid]

Looks like I'm wearing the Cloak of Bad Spelling.

Re:Wardrobe change

[jollyreaper]

Too Human Drops Cloak Of Mystery And dons the Clock of Mediocrity So they finally managed to wrest it away from Flavor Flav?

Re:Wardrobe change

[7-Vodka]

I'd say they're wearing both. Notice how the trailer has lots of animated sequences rather than in-game ones.

Less fun please!

[cthulu_mt]

Seems to be a big day for referencing Diablo II on /..

Great to see a new game copying everything thats been done before by successful developers but adding a banal twist. I look forward to not playing this.

Drops a Cloak of Mystery?

[MenTaLguY]

Awesome! Where does Too Human spawn and what level is it?

Re:Drops a Cloak of Mystery?

[steveo777]

Awesome! Where does Too Human spawn and what level is it? You don't want that. It's not what you think. First off, you always talk in the third person gumshoe voice. Second, every woman you meet is referred to by your inner monologue as a dame. Your vision changes and you can only see light and shadows. Basically hi-res 2-bit vision. Not even grayscale.

Also it basically blurs your understanding of your own gender, species, and sometimes, even phylum.

Re:Drops a Cloak of Mystery?

[cthulu_mt]

Mike Hammer, Phillip Marlower and the Contential Operative are all way cooler than me. I'd grind as long as needed to get that item.

Meh..

[Jaysyn]

So it's a take-off of Arcanum then?

Re:Meh..

[Wilson_6500]

Given how hard it's been for me to get a copy of Arcanum, maybe this will end up being a good thing.

(Before anyone says anything: I'm not looking any longer. I don't want snarky links to ebay auctions or torrents.)

Re:Meh..

[Jaysyn]

I just searched for it on Amazon & it's selling for more now (used, auctions? not sure) than it did when it was brand new. I think I got my copy from Best Buy for $19.99.

Clock of Mediocrity

[Sleet01]

So... Too Human is Flavor Flav?

Amused...

[spocksbrain]

I'm amused that they would go so far back to compare the loot system to Diablo just so they do not have to compare it to World of Warcraft, which is essentially, exactly the same thing.

Re:Amused...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing how Diablo uses the same loot system as WoW and is about 10+ years older, I'd say that Diablo is a better reference as prior art. Of course I'm sure someone could say the same thing about Nethack being the foundation for Diablo, etc.
If I was going to talk about the invention of flying machines, I would reference the Wright brothers, not Boeing.

TOO HUMAN?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Is that because they discovered that calling it "Ecce Homo" alienated the target demographic of "Beavis and Butthead"?

Re:TOO HUMAN?

[pete-classic]

I think you're confused. Ecce homo is usually translated as "behold the man". Ecce means something like "look".

-Peter

No they're not!

[Anonymous Coward]

The loot system in World of Warcraft is vastly superior because it lets you roll "need" or "greed!" This kind of revolutionary innovation is what keeps the game industry alive!

I really don't understand why Blizzard didn't patent the "need or greed" looting system. Their one-item-per-slot innovation is also a clear improvement over the old item-shuffle-to-make-it-fit minigame you had to play in Diablo...they probably coulda patented that one too.

Re:No they're not!

[bryansj]

Blizzard added Need or Greed to WoW in a later patch. In the old days you would send a text of "n" or "g" prior to rolling for loot. The "n"s would get first shot at the item and roll amongst themselves if there was more than one person typing "n". Otherwise everyone rolls for greed. If anything Blizzard just incorporated customer feedback and didn't come up with this looting system.

Re:No they're not!

[desenz]

I'm not so sure about that system being better. I like that the diablo 'backpack' forced you to prioritize more.

First read it as "2 Humans drop Cloak of Mystery"

[KefabiMe]

And the first thought my mind had was, "I wonder what their loot tables look like."

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[internet hate machin]

Silly WAHa, it is a feature not a bug

"Bring me money" is the new "breaking crates"

[Sockatume]

Anyone recall Zelda: The Wind Waker's sublime game-lengthening (two dungeons were cut for time, fact fans!) twist, where you not only had to track down eight maps, but had to get them translated for $tedious by the loathesome Tingle? How fun was that, really? Developers, if your action RPG's combat isn't fun, forcing players to fight in order to get past some checkpoint isn't going to make it better. Even if the combat is fun, forcing players to grind is going to make them get bored of it prematurely. Cut it out.

Re:"Bring me money" is the new "breaking crates"

[edwdig]

The money for Tingle wasn't a big deal unless you waited to do that stuff until you absolutely had to. Money is plentiful in every non-NES Zelda game, so as long as you go see Tingle when you wallet starts getting full, you shouldn't have to worry about it much.

The complaint with Wind Waker is all the sailing needed to track down the stuff the maps point to... which was even worse in the Japanese version, as while the US had maps to triforce pieces, Japan had maps to maps to maps to Triforce pieces.

Re:"Bring me money" is the new "breaking crates"

[gauauu]

Money is plentiful in every non-NES Zelda game,

I always felt that money was plentiful in Zelda 1.
And Zelda 2 didn't have money.

And those were the only Zelda games on the nes....

Re:"Bring me money" is the new "breaking crates"

[edwdig]

Yeah, Zelda 2 didn't have money, hence it wasn't plentiful.

Enemies drop much less money in Zelda 1 than in other Zeldas. In most of the newer games, your wallet is about full by the time you actually have to spend money, but in the first, you have to actively hunt down money early on to equip yourself. After that point, there's enough free money lying around that you don't have to hunt too hard for money, but it's still no where near as easy as the newer games where you can chop grass randomly and find large amounts of rupees.

Re:"Bring me money" is the new "breaking crates"

[Anonymous Coward]

> And Zelda 2 didn't have money.

Sure it did. They were the little P bags and money == XP in that game.

But yeah, Zelda 1 was where getting money was a pain in the ass for me. I still hate grinding for the 250 rupees and the blue ring even though I know where to get the +100s to make that less painful. The early game, where you have to buy all kinds of crap (shield, candle, bait, blue ring, etc.) is always the hard part.

Re:"Bring me money" is the new "breaking crates"

[Sockatume]

Alas, by the time I met Tingle, I had already lost about 20000 Rupees as overspill due to not having found the wallet upgrades until relatively late in the game. If I used a strategy guide, it would've gone smoothly as you like as I could've seen it coming, but I don't use strategy guides.

Re:"Bring me money" is the new "breaking crates"

[antifoidulus]

Yeah, but the original Zelda had betting guys with fixed patterns. Once you figured those out it was REAL easy to max out on rupees.

Re:"Bring me money" is the new "breaking crates"

[gauauu]

Do tell then...I can't find ANYTHING out there on the intarwebs that tells a pattern. Until I see a working description, I call BS

I don't understand the hate

[Piata]

Silicon Knights made Eternal Darkness, quite possibly one of the most unique and interesting games to grace last generation's consoles. The idea of Norse mythology playing out in a futuristic setting is an interesting one and leaves a lot of room for creative and unique story telling. I can't fathom why everyone has this inbound hatred for a game that seems like an excellent concept and will most likely go down in history as one of those oddball gems, much akin to Eternal Darkness.

Re:I don't understand the hate

[gknoy]

Good point. I admit that I *loved* Eternal Darkness (and am on my second playthrough). The control scheme seemed strange and simplistic, but at the same time ... once you mastered it, you could really dish out some whupass. (-: I think I shall be more forgiving of Too Human's control quirks, and trust that it will be Better Than I Feared.

I'm curious about the loot system. Will this lead to grinding in areas until I get the one random Shoulders of Awesomesauce, which everyone on the internet knows are better than the Spaulders of L33tness (OK, I don't believe that ;))? On one hand, I dislike that I may feel "forced" to replay the same crap until I get better drops ... but it's not like I don't enjoy that some of the time in WoW, either. Going back to older content and demolishing it DOES have an element of fun, as long as it's optional.

I'm most intrigued that this may reduce the perceived "necessity" to find a walkthrough and play by that. So many games (Tron 2, Deus Ex, etc etc) have little experience or powerup bonuses hidden across the levels. While it's fun to find them, it always seems like if I don't go for them, my character will be insufficiently prepared for the challenges to come. On some Deus Ex levels, if I didn't play the "clear everything out and explore every nook, and read the walkthrough to make sure I pick the dialog options that don't screw me" game, there was a substantial difference in the amount of skill points (or whatever the resources were) and nanites available. At least when it's random, the answer sounds like it will be, "Play more, and you'll get better. Go have fun, be a badass."

I realize that this "necessity" of getting a walkthrough is self-imposed. It even feels like cheating, sometimes. But, the difference between using one and not often seems very dramatic, especially when there's no "going back" to explore later (whether it's exploring zones, respeccing, or trying different gear out).

Re:I don't understand the hate

[Mex]

It's not because of the crap showing at E3. As I understand it, it has more to do with the owner/president throwing a very public tantrum in interviews and printed magazines about how the press should only "look at the good parts of games" and how "they didn't even want to be in E32 and so on and so forth. He was very outspoken about it.

And really, they made *one* arguably good game. A game that ran a little long (play through 3 times to get the good ending? Right...), and was marred by a few design flaws - such as, after about halfway through the game, you get spells that practically make you invulnerable, restoring your "Sanity" stat and magic and so on. Which meant that you didn't get to experience the much talked about "insanity" effects unless you purposely went for it, which obviously destroys de surprise.

There were some pretty funny insanity effects, however.

Awesome design!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

So:

- Slap some robotic skins on dark elves and orcs

- Grind to get to high levels so you can...

- Grind until the plans for that super-rare thing drops, and then...

- Grind to get all the super-rare components that make the super-rainbow-colored thing, then...

- Grind to get eighteen octillion gold pieces (re-skinned as circuit boards, and called "credits", no doubt) to pay for this thing to be constructed.

Yeah, I can't imagine why their previous showing "bombed". :boggle:

When did they change the name from Hellgate

[bigdady92]

and port it to XBOX360?

No preview?

[Infe]

Dennis Dyack said over and over how bad previews are for the industry after their disastrous showing which was anyone but their own fault...source: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3158015

I listened to the podcast argument about this, which was very entertaining, but bottom line, end of the day, what happens? Previews come out for Too Human. Seems awful hypocritical to me...

Only the Lazy were broke

[Alzheimers]

Only the lazy went broke in the original Zelda games. Everyone else burned every tree and pushed every rock and found all the hidden rupees whenever they needed cash. There were secret treasure rooms in just about every screen on the overworld.

And if you were *really* strapped, just go to the cemetary, touch some tombstones and kill the ghosts. Those suckers droped lots of cash.

(damn, now I've got it going through my head: duuuuuun, dun-dun da dah-duh-duh.....Duuuuuuuun, dun-dun dah duh-duh-duh.......dun duh-da-duh duh-da-duh..."

Sounds too silly to me.

[IIIKrazyKiDDIII]

I'm not an mmorpg player but the blueprint idea sounds a little to silly for me. If a thief is knocks you out to steal your watch, do you expect them to find a blueprint of your watch?

Too bad it's not out on PC I'd buy it

[RaigetheFury]

Very cool looking game. If they'd only get their head out of their butt and release it on PC. Pity, back to other games.