Too Human Preview

WorthPlaying has put together their own hands-on preview of Silicon Knights’ sci-fi action RPG, Too Human.

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.

In other news, GameInfoWire has posted four new screenshots from the game.