http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/781/781085p1.html
Hands-on Too Human Everything you didn't know about Silicon Knights' epic science-fiction trilogy.
April 16, 2007 - Denis Dyack, the president of development studio Silicon Knights, has held his arm in a bucket full of ice for hundreds of days. Were this literally true, the appendage would have become frost-bitten and useless months ago, but we mean this figuratively -- as if that's any consolation for Dyack, who is also the director of the software house's forthcoming epic Xbox 360 trilogy, Too Human. The ice bucket is actually a metaphor for the suck-it-up-and-buckle-down attitude that Silicon Knights has clung to as a defense mechanism since its showing of Too Human at the Electronics Entertainment Expo last year -- an unveiling that was by some accounts a mistake and by others an outright disaster. The result was a tidal wave of backlash and through all the criticisms by media and all the verbal lashings by fans and skeptics, there was the ice bucket -- cold as a bitter storm.
Storms do, though, eventually pass, and plenty of games with poor first showings have gone on to become outstanding final products. Take, for example, a little title called Halo, which looked clunky and unpolished in its early state, but sure came together in the end. Now add in the fact that Silicon Knights has a proven track record. It created the Legacy of Kain franchise. It delivered one of the highest-rated GameCube titles, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, to Nintendo fans. And it even worked alongside the legendary Hideo Kojima when it developed Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.
It's a cold day in Ontario, Canada as we stream into a high-tech theater hidden within Silicon Knights' St. Catherines headquarters. We take our seats in the front row and several Too Human team leaders sit quietly in the back of the space, eager to watch us as we play and ultimately learn what we think of the latest demo. After a year of waiting, this is make or break time and that simple truth has everybody, us included, a bit on edge. Everyone seems optimistic, but there's always doubt, especially when you've got something to prove. "When you're told for more than a year that your game sucks, you actually start to wonder," Dyack once said and we're sure that somewhere behind the excitement in his eyes -- perhaps in the very back of his mind -- he's wondering if we're going to love or hate this mega-project. The lights dim and the Silicon Knights logo appears on the oversized projection screen in front of us. We watch as a futuristic aircraft carves through a heavy snowstorm and Silicon Knights' god hero, Baldur, is reborn.
Gods, Machines and Men
Norse mythology is the backbone for Too Human. To create the game, Silicon Knights dug deep into the ancient Eddas and found its heroes and its villains buried within. These works, written hundreds of years ago, tell of gods, of giants, and of monsters. You may recognize the god of thunder, Thor, whose mighty hammer unleashed thunderclaps. However, you have probably never heard of Baldur. He is the pretty boy of gods by some definitions and maybe not the ideal choice for a warrior hero. He is said to represent goodness, joy, forgiveness and peace, but in Too Human he carries a big sword, wields two powerful guns, and he's out to destroy anyone or anything that gets in his way."[Why not go with] some of the cooler gods?" jokes Dyack when we ask him why Silicon Knights chose Balder as the protagonist of its epic story. "You know, I think that's a really good question and the answer to that comes out in the story. Right now, it might seem like a bad choice, but I feel pretty confident that by the time the story comes full circle, people will think it was absolutely the best choice."
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