Long awaited action role player Too Human is out next week. I recently spoke to Denis Dyack from the developer Silicon Knights and asked him about controls, general reaction to the game and why he thinks Too Human is one of the most innovative games on the 360.
Too Human has had a tortuous development. What are your overriding feelings at this point as the game nears release?
It's kind of like a shock right now, it hasn't sunk in yet. There have been some positives, particularly in the number of downloads. The reception to the demo has been massively positive.
Why do you think there aren't many Diablo/dungeon crawler type games around at the moment?
Well it's kind of funny. When we first partnered with Microsoft we sat down with them and asked ourselves what kind of game could define itself on the console. Action RPG games are usually controlled by the mouse. By moving to dual stick analogue joypad controller and creating an automatic camera system we managed to jump that hurdle. We had eight years research into our camera system and have patented the technology. You're not seeing many of these kind of games on console because they wouldn't work without the dual stick controller and automatic camera. This is innovative and really hard to do, that's why these games are quite rare. I'll be shocked if there is any game in this genre that comes close to Too Human in the next couple of years.
A lot of the feedback from the demo concerned the controls. Do you think players will eventually get used to them?
I think so. You'll get some first time players who may not get it. The combat is incredibly deep and takes time to get used to. It's really funny, people say they want innovation. You know, this is probably too much hyperbole but Too Human is one of the most innovative games on the 360, period. This is because of the control and camera scheme. People don't know what they are seeing and their first reaction is I don't get that. But once they get it people love it.
How important are the RPG elements?
The RPG stuff matters just as much as the action. You can't get by on one alone. The RPG stuff is incredibly deep. The amount of loot customisation is out of control. We've had people playing through the entire game without really knowing what charms are. Once they get hold of that even more depth appears. But you need the action side too. We've had people say they they've got through the game and not had to use air combat. This means they're not having as much fun as they should as they won't be getting combos in combat. There is a lot of RPG and action bits, and loads to do.
How important is the story?
Well story has always been important to us here at Silicon Knights. The story of Too Human is three times the size of Eternal Darkness. This in terms of script and narrative. But Eternal Darkness was some gamplay with a lot of story while Too Human is more mixed. When you playthrough the game for the first time the story is very important. But when you want to replay and level your character to 50 the story is less important. So the story is important to us but it is not the be all and end all.
How important is co-op?
Co-op really adds to the game and works great through Live. Live is a great backbone as otherwise we would have had to build it ourselves. It is easy to invite a friend or play with someone else using Live. You can really customise your co-op game too and set things like loot sharing. It's all seamless too, you can play single player then go to co-op then back again very easily.
What about puzzle elements in the game to break up the action?
There are some light puzzle sections in the cyberspace. But we didn't want people getting stuck so we are generally very puzzle light.
Can you explain a bit more about cyberspace?
It's like an alternative realm. Cyberspace is host to what are essentially the librarians of the story. They are trying to preserve all the knowledge. It's the natural equivalent of the internet in our era. This lets us use some puzzles, so if you open a door in Cyberspace it opens in the real game world. It's essentially like hacking. You can find all these ancient technologies and find some great loot in Cyberspace. We'll be focussing more on it in the second and third games but we just wanted to give users a taste of it in here.
How varied are the classes?
There are five and this is a hybrid game so the classes are based on the archetypes. So Champion is your critical strike and air combat class, Beserker is your damage dealer, Defender is your tank, commando is your shooter an Bio engineer is your fighter/healer. We have 60 or so testers but that doesn't compare to the amount of users who will play when released so we will keep an eye out for balancing issues and patch if necessary. This game is built for downloadable content so we're not too worried.
Eternal Darkness 2? It's possible (laughs). We get asked that all the time.
Why do think people have such good memories of Eternal Darkness?
It's really strange. I think it was such a different game that people put a lot on it. It sure wasn't a box office hit! I don't know, it was very content driven. A horror game that wasn't a survival horror. When you make a game you make a game that you want to play yourself. We added lots of unique aspects to Eternal Darkness, such as the game playing tricks on you. Every game we make we try to do something new and different. With Too Human it seems we have been so innovative that we have put some people off. I hope the negative reaction gets turned around and people really appreciate this game. We think Too Human is our best game to date. Too Human will have legs. You finish most games and you don't want to play them again but I've finished this game 50-100 times now and I'm still finding new things like armour sets that I haven't seen before. We think it's coming out at a good time too.
Too Human is released on Aug 29th. I recently reviewed it.
