Ten years in the making and over six hundred trillion dollars of resource fees and the demo for Canadian developer Silicon Knights’ opus, Too Human, is finally here. Does it live up to the gargantuan hype? I brought agent b on board for a quick round table to help answer that question…

Massouken: Wow, Bungie pumped out Halo 4 really quickly! I’m impressed. Wait, this is the Too Human demo?

agent b: The photosensitivity warning is a little off-putting. This demo might kill me; having an epileptic seizure is the least of my concerns.

Massouken: Press Start!

agent b: Why does everyone on your squad look like Sylvester Stallone?

Massouken: According to Norse mythology, all the space marines looked like Sly Stallone and all booming, disembodied voices that speak cryptically sounded like Bo Derrick. Sadly, that’s the closest this game will probably get to a perfect 10. Anyway, it seems like my squad has been sent to explore a giant, frozen castle. The size and scope of the structure is impressive, as is the frozen landscape it sits upon. Luckily, we were able to get there without incident thanks to our Scorpion tank giant metal truck.

agent b: How Canadian is this? The controls even feel maple syrupy. This dialog is awful: “Humans this far beyond the wall generally don’t come back.” Yeah, neither do people playing this demo.

Massouken: According to one steroid-enhanced space marine, “today’s a good day to die.” Is this what passes as good writing in Canada?

agent b: Your laser guns need to be reloaded? I guess Space Vikings haven’t invented guns with unlimited ammo yet, even though they’ve perfected supersonic flight and bodily augmentations via cybernetic slap bracelets. If that was the only questionable design decision present, I could let it slide, but it feels like I’m exploring the oldest vagina on earth and my treasure is archaic game design and bullshit Nordic fetishism. When does this demo kill me?

Massouken: Here we go – the meat and potatoes of a video game. I’m finally in control of Baldur, the “too human” star of Too Human. The last thing I’d think looking at this guy is that he’s too human. The guy’s got glowing blue ass cracks all over his face. Maybe this is what passes as looking too human in Valhalla or Midgard or the North Pole or wherever this game supposedly takes place. I just encountered my first enemy…and it looks like a robot dog.

agent b: Can we euthanize it?

Massouken: Alright, so melee combat is mapped to the right analog stick, the triggers (surprise, surprise) shoot your guns, and the camera is controlled by…the left bumper? Oh, it centers the camera. OK, no camera control at all. I’m sure I won’t miss it when I run into a couple dozen dog-bots swarming me from all sides and shooting rockets at me from off-screen…like what’s happening right now.

agent b: So there’s a 17 minute unskippable animation every time you die. At least that’s how long it feels.

Massouken: That’s what she said. I wonder if I could put the controller behind my head and clear out a room of enemies using only one hand. Baldur literally glides over to attack nearby enemies at the push of the analog stick. Maybe Silicon Knights had one-handed lion attack victims in mind as their target demographic when they were nailing down the controls?

agent b: Let it be noted to the audience reading at home that right now Massouken is literally clearing out a room full of enemies with only one hand on the controller. Fuck this shit!

+ The demo will save you $60

+ It gave me a newfound appreciation for legitimate combat systems in games like Ninja Gaiden II and Devil May Cry 4

+ Easily deleted from your hard drive in seconds

- Where to begin? (Deep breath) Combat is a technical mess on almost every level, no camera control, repetitive battles, incompetent A.I., amateurish voice acting, an overall pretentious concept, nauseating dialog…I’m gonna stop here; this could break my keyboard.

- The demo seemed to take almost 45 minutes to complete, thanks to optional side rooms (note: we didn’t know they were optional until after completing them) that only open at the clumsy push of a mystical rock on a floating island within the game’s version of cyberspace. How fucking fun does that sound?

- Over ten years worth of time, money, and effort was dumped into this game. Free Radical was able to achieve the same extreme level of failure with Haze in less than half that time. Shame on you Silicon Knights, shame on you.