@@PXAbstraction Nothing wrong with it. Their keys work, they are incredibly cheap, so why wouldn't you shop there? Never had a problem and i bought about 60 games there already.
Gotta chime in here to add: Kinguin is a grey market key reseller with a poor history of stealing developers keys and reselling them, while not protecting consumers. I would encourage you to drop them as a sponsor going forward!
I was a tester for this game just before its release, and I even have a sealed copy floating around somewhere. I can say that Dyak was likely one of the primary causes of this game's downfall. Trying to get bugs acknowledged or worked on was one of the most frustrating experiences. Dyak himself had a bug filed in the system that said "the game is too good and perfect," and every day we thought about closing it with "Cannot duplicate." He was so full of himself that it was impossible for him to admit that the game had flaws. It's tragic to see a game fail like this because it had so much potential. The futuristic Norse mythology theme was unique and visually appealing, although the best visuals were hidden in places that could only be reached by breaking the camera. Now that most copies have been sold, it's interesting to think about the things that me and the other testers experienced that will likely only be known by a few, if anyone. For example, did you know that there is epic armor in this game? The red-tier armor is character-specific and provides unique benefits with a full set. It was also purposely programmed to have a lower chance of dropping for your current class, encouraging players to play with others and trade armor. However, it wasn't even the best armor, despite being the rarest and meant to be the most powerful. In fact, there is a set of lower-tier armor with many slots for runes that allow for even more powerful armor builds. Note that neither type of armor was meant to be seen until the second or third playthrough, after about 50 hours of play, far more than most players would invest in the game. It is interesting to see people put out videos about the game though. This one is well put together and goes over a good deal of the dev cycle information.
Thanks for the behind-the-scenes perspective. I remember the hype for this game as if it was yesterday. I loved Eternal Darkness as it was such a unique experience. When I heard about Too Human, I was super bummed it was only coming out on 360 cause I had a PS3. Then the reviews came and ohhh boy. Everyone hated this game. Didn't it also had a weird control scheme where the right stick was the sword?
My only knowledge of this game comes from the scathing Zero Punctuation review. It's interesting to hear that his estimate that the game "has the stench of the auteur, made for the designer's sake rather than the player" and "the auteur would rather jab scissors to his eyes than change one iota of their magnum opus" were on the money.
My dad used to love this game, so I honestly felt bad when we both found out how awful the development went, and how Silicon Knights revealed their true colors.
It also showed the true colors of Epic Games. In the lawsuit, there's tons of statements about how Epic was selling basically a non-existent product - Unreal Engine 3 wasn't done until Gears of War shipped, basically, but was sold to studios as a complete way, WAY before that. It left many studios stumbling, having to create their own engine tech on top of Unreal despite just having paid for a full solution. And Epic hasn't changed a bit.
@@PenguinDT Same sort of thing happened with troika games when they made vampire the masquerade with the source engine. while Valve was still developing the engine and half life 2.
I played Too Human before as a kid and I have to say, even then, I could tell the game had something going for it, and if only Dennis Dyack could have gotten out of his way, we would be singing a totally different tune about Too Human. In the same vein as the saga with Duke Nukem.
Too Human lives rent free in my mind. I love watching videos about it. It is so fascinating for some reason. I gotta play it someday, it's been installed on my console for almost a year now
@@EggEnjoyer I remember it being a huge letdown upon release. Probably one of the first cases of overpromise and underdeliver. I followed the production and watched some trailers back in the day, but even then, I thought it looked mediocre.
10:09 Man, remember when Adam Sessler wasn't a joyless shell of a person? Remember when he was passionate about and actually liked video games? God, I hate this timeline.
I mean I follow gaming as a casual hobby and I'm pretty jaded on its cycles of hype and disappointment... Sessler was already a sassy snarky Gen-Xer and covering the industry for decades on the very corporate side of things is honestly soul-sucking.
Must have stung to work on this project for over a decade only for it to fail so spectacularly in the end. If they hadn't gone and tried to sue Epic they might have had a chance to redeem themselves.
It is aviable again? Cause my understanding was that there was a problem with license of the Unreal engine and thus all games had to be destroyed as Sk didn't have the rights to use the engine anymore or used the license wrong.
I feel like that’s the reason I enjoyed the game. I had never heard of it. Just picked it up at GameTrader in their bargain bin back in 09ish I think. I also didn’t really follow any of the cyberpunk hype so when it came out I picked it up (had a powerhouse of a PC so I didn’t have any major issues) and absolutely loved the game. Hype is the enemy of enjoyment.
This game had so many issues, but honestly it had one of the coolest concepts in a game for its time. A futuristic post-apocalyptic Norse mythology action game spoke to my soul and I enjoyed this game immensely. It is a shame it fell so short as it not had the issue of rough development and that lawsuit this game would have been a smash hit easily.
Sadly the publisher Majesco was in massive financial problems just before Advent Rising came out because of the failure of Psychonauts, amazing game but it didnt sell back in the day. Majesco had other failures and the funding was cute. Devs of Advent Risign rushed and sold the game.
Still got my Xbox 360 copy. Played all 5 character types to max level... was so mad how reviewers just shit all over it because they didn't like the floating camera and didn't understand the right stick button combo stuff. And that EPIC lawsuit stuff was just stupid.
Yeah, had the same thoughts when I saw the ad. I vaguely remember TB's video about the likes of these facilitating draining stolen CCs. Anybody has any details about this particular site?
I have a copy of this game and an Xbox 360 Faceplate signed by some of the developers of Too Human. I lived in a small town outside of St Catherine's where Silicon Knights was situated, so they showed up on launch day at the EB Games I had ordered my copy at. Not exactly worth much now but it's a fun thing to own.
It’s always the same story with people who get famous for developing a great game/movie. At least from what I got from the video, it was a bit of the typical (between other factors of course) they get complete freedom and get full of themselves when they should just stick to: - be open minded regarding the opinions of other people from the team and specially the constructive critiques - don’t stray too much from the vision - keep the team small, agile and making sure everyone works well between themselves - make sure the baseline is there - failing fast and early saves costs, time and people’s motivation (the more time and investment one puts in, the more attached one becomes to what is being developed)
Too Human had issues but I actually really enjoyed it. The game was fun and there were quite a few builds/gear that felt powerful and cool to play. If it was less buggy at release and had more environmental variety I think it would have been received better.
I played it then and think it's great when the controls "clicks". I remember the moment when I get the controls clicked in my head. From this point I had a lot of fun and wished there was a sequel...
@@Nomad524 i think you can look up on google, it was originally to give IP to nintendo switch but changed their minds to revive the cancelled game nioh 1 did the same it was originally dynasty warriors back in 2004 and then revived back it will same thing happen to scalebound but the main character will change cuz hes too much similar with nero from dmc 5
I enjoyed Too Human. I played through multiple times with each character class but mained the cyber commando. Never did complete a five piece red set though. My favorite part about the game was the dialogue of the NPC soldiers who were your backup. They call each other by name. They call out threats to one another. They fight hard, try to keep up each others spirits, mourn fallen comrades. The wolves and the bears have good back and forth chatter. By the time you get to the end of the last level they are all dead. You as the main character of the game are a god. Your success is all but assured and so you play your way through and are eventually victorious. After playing many times it seems easy but if you listen to the chatter of the soldiers it makes you aware of the great toll this campaign inflicts on them. They serve to emphasize the stakes. In the last level there is a cutscene and it has always stood out to me as just a great storytelling moment. One of your last wolf soldiers is dragging his dying buddy away from the undead horde while firing his rifle one handed. A Valkyrie descends towards them. He sees her coming and still firing with one arm the soldier tries to hoist his friends body up to her and tells her to take him. As she arrives she pushes the body aside and grabs the lone survivor who starts struggling and shouting something like "No! No! Not me take him!" because he doesn't want the body of his pal left behind in Helheim. He is the one she is here for though and so they ascend. Beautiful.
Man what a blast from the past. This was one of the first games i bought with my own money. I knew nothing about it, i just thought the cover looked cool at the store. I kept trying to convince myself i hadn't wasted my money, but i never did complete the game in the end.
I don’t get the criticism about the graphics, it looks just like Gears of War… and that’s pretty much the pinnacle of graphics on Xbox 360. Anyhow, Silicon Knights seems to have lost the vision on the game right after jumping g the boat for the GameCube.
That bit on the podcast wasn't a "rant". Gaming magazines were brutal in their wording and overly dramatic. So many people put so much effort into making this game and the magazine is rude and insulting.
I actually really enjoyed this game. See, i'd never heard of it, prior to buying it....never heard any of the controversy, or hype, so i went into it without all that baggage. It was on a shelf, i looked at the back, said "hey, this sounds pretty cool", and i bought it, and i played it, and i really liked it. I was so pissed to find out that i'd never get the rest of the story, because it was damn cool.
You must be really young, because this was very common during the PS1/Saturn era, with the likes of Phantasmagoria (8 CDs), Black Dahlia (also 8), Riven (5) or Fear Effect (4) and on PC it was sometimes even more sever. Everquest 2 came on 10 Discs, GTA 5 on 8 DVDs, Unreal Tournament 2004 had 6 Discs and so on. Of course all of this is nothing compared to the madness of the Amiga days, were for example Biiing came on 19 floppy discs.
@@shadowangel2235 says “it was very common”lists only 7 examples (most of which weren’t even on console & when they were they had no more than 2 discs)
Of course it's up to you to decide what sponsorship deals you engage with and share with us. Of course. But this time I'dl like to ask that you read why this franchise is controversial so you can decide if you want to keep this sponsorship or not. Not many people are aware of the topic I'm talking about. Once you do, it's your choice, obviously, but it's getting difficult to spread awareness of a human rights issue when it's been weaponized against those who suffer from it the most, minorities. Thanks for your videos, I'll respectfully skip this one.
One thing Too Human did that I thought was really neat: attacks on the analogue stick. I think Diablo-likes could still do well w/ a similar, albeit, tweaked control scheme. I'm always interested in games that map non-movement inputs to the analogue sticks (see: Skate., Fight Night etc).
Eternal Darkness is one of my favorite games of all time. One thing. Eternal Darkness 2 was never a thing because Nintendo owns the IP. Precursor Games which was the new company Denis founded after losing the court battle with Epic was making a spiritual successor of the game called Shadows of Eternal and if I remember correctly they used the Cryengine not the Unreal engine
Ya know, I actually enjoyed this game. I loved the setting. Loved it. One of a kind. The combat was unique, could’ve used more polish but unique. Rpg elements like the different builds you could make was too good for its own good. Some of the background scenery was aw inspiring. It wasn’t without its blemishes, of course. But it had potential. I really hoped back then for the other games of the series to come out. Love the video.
I played tf out of this game when I was like 12 - 13. Almost 30 now and I just downloaded it off the Xbox store. A few hours in and I love how it wasn’t just nostalgia. This is genuinely my type of game. I was playing Elden ring right before this lmao.
Game had such potential, but the actual gameplay was terrible. That bizarre semi fixed camera that moved on its own for no reason, and the weird controller layout just sucked. Also the waaaaay OP enemies, even the grunts, and the super long death scene were just salt in the wounds.
I thought this game was pulled off the shelves and not sold anymore but it's on the Microsoft store for Xbox. I remember back in the day when this first came out and all the stores were selling all the new copies for next to nothing trying to get rid of them before they couldn't sell them anymore and then once they couldn't sell them the dumpsters behind all the GameStops were full of them. I found probably 120 brand new sealed copies of it from the dumpster behind my local GameStop when I was like 15 when this came out and sold them at school for 20 bucks a piece. Still got a couple copies lying around
This kind of malfeasance is why Publishers interfere with Developers, this isn't a defense of the Publisher/Developer model. But there is a reason why it exist.
I find it kinda humorous that they described working on the MGS: The Twin Snakes and Eternal Darkness as keeping the studio away from their "Dream Project", given that those games are the things that the studio is looked at most fondly, while Too Human, that very "Dream Project", and everything that came with it was ultimately what killed the studio. Sometimes, it's the things we do when we're not chasing our dream that becomes our legacy, not the dream itself.
I absolutely loved the idea behind it - a sci-fi bent on Nordic mythology without making barely tolerable action figure shlock. Too bad everything else was, well... (If you're interested in seeing the sci-fi twist done justice, go grab Apsulov).
Played thru it fully with a friend. It had some issues and grindy gameplay, but some of the end-game type content felt fun, once you got better gear and a decent build running. At the same time the quality sort of took a nosedive. Game could have used some more finetuning, perhaps another redesign. There was potential there.
I remember playing Too Human, having picked it up a couple years after release used. It wasn't an awful game and there was fun to be had in it, but it definitely did not live anywhere near up to the hype for the game.
Man, I remember hearing about this game getting utterly panned and bought it one day for about £2, then tried playing the co-op with my brother and we had a blast. The game has a lot of problems, bad co-op isn't one of them, and even now the fact I can play it on the latest xbox consoles is a nice nod to such a maligned game. It's a shame the game was so bad as the world it took place in was fascinating, and I'd love to see something else done with it in future.
Co-op isn't as indepth as it should've been. Its functional yes, but they had really big plans. Problem was that they were building a trilogy before getting out a game, so they shat the bed.
I loved this game so much. Every play style was amazing and played for months online because the loot system was beyond good. Imagine not hiding stats on the weapon/armor card. Imagine games not giving +2% damage but actual impactful buffs to whatever you want. Imagine actual varied classes that overlap little to no skills with other classes. Extremely miss it.
I was one of those rare people who actually really enjoyed Too Human. For a loot / hack and slash game the controls were remarkably different, and there was a lot of subtlety to the controls I think weren't communicated well by the game. Not perfect, or even excellent, but for a discount buy it was a lot of fun.
I remember the game actually tracked how much time you spent in game. I couldn’t play it for longer than five minutes before I returned it from my rental place.
I remember every announcement with this game ever since the Gamecube days. At no point did I ever think this looked like it was going to be a good game.
Eternal Darkness is still my favorite survival horror game. Twin Snakes made an awesome title (MGS) even better. So I was completely on board for Too Human, and then jumped off about 4 hours into its horrible experience.
I was pretty young when this released (maybe 13?) but I remember adoring this game and grinding with the homies for two weeks then promptly forgetting it even existed. It holds a similar space for me as Advent Rising; loved it briefly but forgotten quickly
There's a good reason all of the sequels to Legacy of Kain were done by Crystal Dynamics and NOT Silicon Knights. I heard that if it were left up to Silicon Knights they would've never gotten Blood Omen done and it would've sucked if they did. Seems like Dyack NEEDS a publisher to keep him straight.
I guess the moral of the story really goes, if you're going to try to pull a valve.. probably better you own your own store? It's too bad they knew how to play that one part of the game in a way that might have actually yielded really good results on the development end, in ways that most studios were being stripped and taken out back to the shed essentially during those times being on the receiving end of that.. and if they've been able to manage both that level of incredulity for major publishing while also managing to you know manage the actual game development part.. they probably could have created enough of an insulating bubble to fuel that without a lot of the problems then ended up in the 7th and 6th generations and eight generations and now... It's a weird one because, valve succeeded out of the PC ecosystem by basically creating the new pc ecosystem.. in the console ecosystem that system really doesn't quite work that way.. and I'm kind of impressed that they managed to pull it off as long as they did.. and it really makes me wonder what what could have happened for them if they had also known how to make good game.. which it sounds like they had some ideas LOL every single developer using unreal engine 3 had nightmares of the same note.. you couldn't make a game back then without modifying the code and that's how games got made, especially if you needed to make the game during the development of the engine.. Like we countlessly have stories of problems like that.. from source engine to unreal 3 to now.. and an unreal 3 was a real bad one cuz everybody got these signed up deals and when you look at like the level of documentation and tools nowadays, which sadly are accompanied by a lack of technical skill in a lot of cases.. back then, they didn't have the tools or documentation LOL like it's night and day by comparison.. and pretty much everybody using that engine besides epic which doesn't really count because they're also making the engine.. had to do significant modifications to the engine in order to do anything with it outside of you know what epic was doing at the time.. which is kind of the same thing nowadays but they've got a broader scope.. I just wish it wasn't so because Tim Sweeney really needs new glasses.. I'm really tired of the the the visual representation of broken cracked peeling miserable ancient bifocals showing up as features and best practices in the rendering pipeline and standard somehow.. but regardless anyhow should have could have whatever right? As an interesting note, valve success in playing the the super game of corporate dancery came more or less out of the fact that they created basically the future PC ecosystem distribution platform.. which was done on the bolstering of the success of Half-Life 2 for sure, but what did they do after that..? Certainly wasn't developed the engine technology, although they did bring in some cool things for portal 2but that was that was a long that was like that's a good stretch after Half-Life 2 came out LOL.. like, it's almost like the difference was beyond the circles they ran in, valve would have not released a bad game, or at least one they thought was bad anyhow.. because they knew it was bad.. that's not going in too much into the ones they think are good.. but, they also didn't have to I suppose.. It seems like SK made one of the very common seventh generation 6th generation we have graphics technology now mistakes of desperately trying to make movie things in interactive media.. and as bungee wrote the Bible on interactive media that interacts for you while thinking that you're helping.. the trick is you got to make it seem like they think that you're helping LOL it all falls apart as soon as the game just lets you straight up know it's playing for you.. or least it used to now that we have 10 years of this normalization we can now have the parkour assassin's Creed games without a jump button, and calista protocol without.. most button.. I actually think that game could play on a original PlayStation controller without really noticing much.. that's not a good thing... Presentation has never been the problem in the grand scheme of things.. it's certainly not the problem today, but you're never going to fully succeed that presentation level of quality that you think that you're going for but trying to achieve the best aspects of a static medium.. now you could actually make interactive media, that doesn't seem to happen very often and seems like that might be a decreasing factor even further the way things are going even in the indie sphere.. but the way you be successful at it it seems is you've got to be really good at lying about it.. and that's hard to do if you believe your own BS about your bs, you just have to you just have to believe your BS will work and then you can go from there.. Can you imagine if silicon knights had tried to make Star citizen.. that's kind of what that would have looked like if they had actually tried, and trying is hard LOL.. and certainly not clean in a lot of cases.. but you know you don't have to try that hard LOL you can have scope control too but I got respect for the ones that actually realize the context of what the scope they wanted was and then just you know.. use any and all morally and ethical options at their disposal in order to achieve it.. trick is you have to actually be trying to achieve it for that reason to rationalize it.. or be valve, and just not care.. which I also respect I'm not saying I I endorse this but I respect it.
I've been waiting for this one. This was one of the first games I closely followed whenever there was a magazine article (game informer, Xbox, etc) talking about it. The downfall of this game was so sad, and everything that came was horrible.
I had no idea it was worked on for that long. I was intrigued by the name so when it released, I looked up its story. I think it was high fantasy involving future alien human things and what not. Pity management was trash though.
I really wanted to like this game but ended up really not caring for it. If I rememeber (and it's been while) the controls were really funky and killed it for me. I still own my copy, but doubt I'll ever revisit it again.
I remember when this game was coming out! I was so excited and I had it preordered at GameStop. Game demos can be a double edged sword because once I played the Too Human demo I didn’t like it and cancelled my preorder.
Always thought this game was pretty cool, but it made the critical error of not completing it's story somewhat in the first game. I know their ambitions were big but if it doesn't get a sequel, it makes it worse
