Preview of "Too Human"

I have been a fan of Silicon Knights ever since they put out one of the greatest games of all time: Eternal Darkness. As a warmup to talking about Too Human, I want to briefly discuss the merits of Eternal Darkness and what it says about the commitment of Silicon Knights to transcending the art of video games to a new level. Eternal Darkness may have had some small problems, but I was so attuned to the storyline and the visceral images being presented that I found myself not caring about any small clipping problems or frame-rate dips. The game was positively oozing with subtleties, especially with the incredibly innovative insanity effects. With as much care as was evidenced with that game, I have been positively drooling over the possibilities of Too Human.

Those possibilities have been displayed of late by all of the screen shots and videos that have been available on the various gaming sites as well as the homesite of Silicon Knights. Additionally, they have shown through their blog their desire to let their true fans and even those who are not initially fans in on their philosophies about game design as well as the latest news on Too Human. I truly admire this, because I have never known of a game designer to truly care as much about the opinions of their fans as Silicon Knights. They are truly a fans' company.

Too Human is a game that takes a new take on Norse Mythology, an oft overlooked religion of our past ancestors. As an anthropologist, I am inherently intrigued by the care and attention that they have been evincing surrounding the intricacies of this ancient mythology. It is nice to see them branching out and attempting to educate many of their players about that long-ago culture instead of taking the easy route and taking a mythology that is "easy" and known by the majority of people: such as the ancient Egyptians. Now, I realize that their reimagining of the Norse mythology is adding several fictional components by making them, instead of gods, a highly technological society where it is the technology that makes they "like gods". However, simply by telling a story and allowing the background research to fill out the universe that they are recreating, players will be hard-pressed not to learn something. After all, in this particular medium it is not necessary for Silicon Knights to actively teach us about this universe because we will be experiencing it.

As a video game junkie, I am ecstatic about both the look and the feel of the game. The look is, quite simply, absolutely amazing, and I can imagine that while playing it I might just wander around aimlessly looking at the surroundings. Here we come to the hard part to define, because I have not personally had the chance to play any portion of the game. All I have are impressions of others, which have been very good so far. The actual gameplay seems to be an RPG hybrid of sorts, where it is very action-oriented but with very many branching possibilities on upgrading skills and talents. I'm not sure at this point whether anyone but Silicon Knights is truly aware of just how deep this system might go, but from several hints that I have read I get the impression that it is deeper than most games out there on the market today.

I have a plea to Silicon Knights: Please don't make us wait forever for the game though if it helps to make the game better than even I can imagine I can most certainly wait.