In the wake of Dean Takahashi's investigative report, I thought it'd be fun to hear and read out your red ring stories (MsCortana, I'm looking at you and your second broken Xbox in a row :(). Those of you who haven't worn yourselves out sending such stories to other podcasts should take a minute and send yours over to mailbag AT!!! trigames DOT!!! net or use this form right here.

Also, as per my last blog, send in questions or comments about both the Sore Thumbs blog that gives the publisher's perspective on the "publisher versus games media", er, "battle" as that guy calls it, and the editorial/soapbox I posted earlier this week dealing with what a DRM-free world might mean. You can also find the latest episode of the podcast there.

UPDATE: Nevermind! It's up!

Folks, the wireless connection here is very slow and my upload keeps getting cut halfway. If you have to ask why I'm using a wireless connection, it's because it's my only means to the outside world in this office. Anyway, it should be up tonight hopefully, at around 10PM EST.

This Saturday, we'll either be talking about Good Old Games' DRM-free digital distro (see my latest soapbox entry) or discuss the publisher's view of game journos (read Dan Hsu's latest SoreThumbs blog). Either way, send us questions about both. mailbag ATT trigames DAWT net, or here.

So, here's some clarification on what Ron B. can and cannot answer on the podcast(if you're confused, see my last blog post):

- He can talk about WHO his clients are.

- He cannot talk about what they're currently working on.

- He can't talk smack about his clients as if he were just one of us (obviously, since he's in P.R.).

I've asked him if he can talk about the PR experience with products out on the market already, such as Spore. Waiting to hear back on that. Regardless...

...I'm brewing up a new short 1-minute segment called "Conflict of Interest" in which you, dear listener, send in questions that are so obviously a conflict of interest or biased for whatever guest we happen to have -- or even any of us. The object would be for us to choose the most asininely conflicting/biased question. Pointless? Yes. Makes everyone uncomfortable? Yes. That's the point. So I guess it isn't pointless. Or maybe it is.

For some mild examples, you could ask Ron, "Why did Army of Two suck so much ****"? (He can't talk smack about EA), or you could ask Mr. Alex Navarro (who may or may not be able to join us for a few minutes in the weeks to come depending on his schedule), "How often do you dream about Guitar Hero: World Tour?" (He works for Harmonix.) You might ask me something intentionally ridiculous about Gamespot's reviews system or ask Al why Optimum Online is the worst internet service out there, since he works at, oh let's call it Snablevision. Or you could ask Slunks to recite the entire recipe for Chick-Fil-A's waffle-cut fries. These are supposed to be asinine questions, folks -- nothing really serious -- but at the same time not so random that they don't make sense. In other words, like I said, REAL questions that you know we can't answer or to which you know exactly how we'd (have to) answer.

This new segment may not fly if it sucks (and it just might suck hard), so it's all up to you, dear listener.

Anyway, Ron will be joining us as the subject of our "main" segment as well as for our mailbag (obviously). Since I'm sure there will be some sort of news attached to at least one of his clients in the news bucket, he won't be joining us for that. He may join us for What We've Been Playing and we'll just edit around it, so don't be shocked if you hear him for the first segment, bow out for the news, and return for the final segments. (Obviously we'd record the News last, and editing magic would make it all happen properly.)

"Where do I send my questions / comments in?" Well duh: mailbag AT!!! trigames DOT!!! net. Or this form. (Also feel free to send in questions about Too Human since that's fresh in my mind.)

Other Things:

* the_antipode just txt'ed me that he's about to buy Too Human thanks to the aid of a gift certificate. Hopefully I'll be able to dive into co-op this week and lend my final thoughts on the game in the form of a review.

* I just started Blue Dragon yesterday, in yet another blow to my backlog. I played it while packing for my train ride back to NYC today. Whenever a cutscene (there were numerous 30-second cutscenes, which -- if you know me, you won't be surprised -- irritated the living **** out of me) popped up, the controller went down and more clothes were folded. Whenever a battle popped up, I mashed the A button with my foot while folding more clothes / throwing them into my luggage. Yeah. So far, not impressed. But it's only been 45 minutes and I hear the job system gets pretty FFV-ish, so we'll see.

* Today is September 11th, and while I am traveling home via train instead of plane, I am still nervous. Go figure.

* Playing Xbox 360 in SD resolutions, and interlaced to boot, is painful. Graphics still look tight in Too Human and Blue Dragon, but reading the smaller text hurts. It's legible, and it's not like Dead Rising was, but it's still a shocker even when knowing what to expect.

Trigames.NET Podcast episode 105 is up now. You can find it at the usual place. Instead of giving the blurb thistime, I'm going to take the room to make a special announcement for the podcast: one of my high school friends, Ron B., is now working for a PR firm that handles Capcom games, EA games, and gaming journo site Crispy Gamer (where Alex Navarro contributed a few reviews while he was freelancing).

Please send in questions for Ron. I am currently finding out exactly what he's able to talk about, as he just started with the company a few weeks ago, so the more you send, the more we have to filter from. I'd assume that more general questions about the PR industry and games, or how everything works, yadda yadda, would have a better chance of avoiding the "no comment" answer, but still, ask whatever comes to mind.

mailbag AT trigames DOT net -- and only there. Comments here are NOT guaranteed to be seen and thus NOT guaranteed to be asked on the podcast. So if you want your question answered, email us at that address or use our email form.

Ok I lied -- here's a tiny blurb (and oh, it's 2 hours and 11 minutes long):

"Listener Digi_Matrix asks about Quicktime Events, and listener supersonic97 asks about game unionizing and makes note of the tragic self-shooting of a boy who stayed home from school to play Halo."

Too Human beated.

Yeah. Detailed text thoughts on single player tomorrow during lunch, perhaps. For now:

3 out of 5, "Decent", Rent It, whatever you want to call it. That's my summary.

EDIT: For those who are wondering, podcast will be uploaded tomorrow evening.

I probably should have done this with the Callout blog, but then that would have resulted in multiple new blogs and I really just have time for one.

teirdome proposed the following in a comment to my Too Human: Day One blog...

I think the key to finding real enjoyment in the game is trying to do the little things. For example, try not dying, even though there is little incentive besides an achievement or 4 for it. You will have to do things like maximize your armor and actually give a crap during fights to not take damage.

Personally, I think that the problem with Too Human is that it listened to gamers (big no-no). People said they were tired of having games hold their hands, so they removed any semblance of a tutorial (as per Dyack in an interview). People complained about death having too great a sting in other loot gathering games, so they made the penalty 20 seconds of your life wasted.

I just find it interesting that the game is so polarizing. I personally had a lot of fun with it. The depth is there if you look for it, the problem is that the gamer is never encouraged to brush past button mashing of a new variety.

It's very sound advice and I agree with what the comment is trying to say as far as that goes. My response is as follows. The thing is, teir, is that I do try not dying. And I've been pretty successful at it. It's that the act of trying not to die doesn't prove entirely entertaining. The act of fulfilling the charm quests isn't entirely entertaining. That's what's un-motivating for me; I probably should have made that clearer.

In any case, I hate to chalk it up to a je ne sais quoi, because that's a cop-out, but right now I just can't put my finger on it. It's not like I dislike the game, either. I'm just... unmoved by it.

It may sound silly and petty, and I'm almost embarrassed to say it, but if they would just let me press a button to swing the sword, it might change things in the slightest way. The way it is now is definitely accessible but also... kinda... lulls me to sleep (not literally).

I'm starting to think about it, and it alllll comes down to the most minute of minute differences. I hate that it does because, again, it's almost petty, but right now it's all I can come up with in my quest to understand why -- for example -- I'm not "bored" by Titan Quest, which is largely similar.

In games like Titan Quest on a PC, you just click on a unit and hold till it dies dead. Not exciting. Sometimes though you need to be quick and precise about clicking correctly. It definitely doesn't require the precision of a first-person shooter, but there's still a tiny element of perception there. If enemies are surrounding me, I need to click around me. I can just click haphazardly, yes, but there's still this element of, "Crap, I gotta be quick about this."

With Too Human, as long as I'm pointing in a general direction of an enemy, Baldur will just slide over and make with the awesome. I found that if I slowly rotate the stick in a circular motion, I can cut through a swath of enemies that are surrounding me. No stress, no fuss, no muss. And maybe there's something to be said about that, but in my case, it results in me just not feeling "attached" to my strikes, and I don't feel any sense of urgency.

It sounds really stupid, I know, but I can't help how my brain processes these types of input. Believe me, right now I so badly want to love the combat. It LOOKS cool, aside from some janky strike animations, to see a pile of enemies just get demolished by Baldur's best Chuck Norris impersonation.

Now, the air combos do inject a bit of fun into the equation. The double-tapping is me actually doing something and feeling like I have a say in what goes on in the battle. But at the same time, like I said, double-tapping just feels clumsy. It's not that it's hard to do. It's not that I can't do it. It just feels clumsy. It's like how you have to jiggle the Wii remote to get bonus damage when jumping on an enemy in Super Paper Mario. It's easy to do. It's easy to time. It results in crowd-pleasing (literally) graphical feedback. But it feels clumsy, as if you're trying to shake something through a sieve. It doesn't feel graceful.

Why does a button press feel more graceful, when all it amounts to is someone's thumb smashing down on a raised object? The only thing I could guess is that the button-press is a much quicker action, one that comes more naturally when the thumb is called to do multiple things in succession. I never took an ergonomics course in school so maybe I'm just insane and am pulling all this outta my butt. But it's just how my hands, eyes and brain feel about it. Double tapping an analog stick in a direction doesn't feel natural; pressing a button does. It's the same reason I would never play Mortal Kombat with an analog stick -- playing as Raiden (back, back, forward! back, back, forward!) would leave me in fits. (EDIT: I just had a thought. What if... what if I could play Too Human with a controller that had two arcade joysticks instead of analog sticks...? That might push the combat from doofus to w00t... perhaps it's simply a matter of the input device as opposed to the mechanics.)

There's no question that there's a lot to remember in order to create great-looking battles. I definitely get that. But quantity doesn't equate to comfortable feedback. I can get by with it; I can definitely DO it; but my brain just doesn't jive with it.

I wonder if this makes any sense to anyone, or if I'm as insane as I think I am. I think it's the latter.

I still have half the game left to complete. I'm hoping that by game's end, the combat will grow on me. As it stands, I'm firmly in the middle of loving or hating it -- but I think I should stress that I am enjoying some of the time I'm spending with this. It should also be noted that I'm a fan of not having a tutorial forced on the user. I like the pop-up tutorial boxes that come up in-context. A tutorial should be an option, but in lieu of one, what Too Human gives me is just fine. Also, as much as I would like to co-op, I'm playing this from work, which means hotel room internet, which means a browser is required to "activate" it on whatever device is trying to use it, which means I'm hosed for ANY online play.

The time count is around 5 and a half hours. The biggest inconsistency for me is the combat. One instant, I'm enjoying the multiple air combos and double-stick finishers. The other instant, I'm yawning at the monotony of it all. Every time a skirmish starts, I get excited but inevitably end up leaning back and then getting tired of it. It's like an unrelenting sine wave. I don't yet fully understand why I can't stay engaged in the combat like I can in Titan Quest; scratch that, I'm never "engaged" in either game, but I'm able to tolerate it in Titan Quest. So I don't know why I can't tolerate Too Human's combat past the first 60 seconds of every skirmish, but I also don't know why I'm excited again after each skirmish.

It might have something to do with the linearity of the game. I know there are little secret areas to find -- but I feel like they're either few and far between or they're just little side rooms as opposed to the breadth of optional caves and sidequests you'd find in such games as yes, Titan Quest (again). My aim, by the way, is not to compare this to Titan Quest -- but it's very similar in spirit to a game like Titan Quest, and while it should be able to stand on its own, my brain just can't help but wish that Too Human wandered off the beaten path more than it does. Because I know that all I'm trying to do is get from A to B, it just makes the combat-ridden path all the more monotonous. There's a reason I don't play Dynasty Warriors, after all.

The other thing is that I really, REALLY don't feel enraptured by just pushing analog sticks. In fact, while it's very simple to get into, I also find it incredibly clumsy (as far as the double-tapping, targeting, and RB mashing goes). In fact, the targeting and "smart" camera are, at times, unacceptable. Sometimes I'll be shooting at nothing even with my sticks pointed at the enemy. What gives? Also, I've had more than three instances of me executing a devastating air-combo... at thin air. Now, by comparison, Ninja Gaiden and God of War made me feel like I was in control of every blade swing, and Titan Quest doesn't feel clumsy. But, at least the mayhem you get to cause in Too Human is juicy to look at -- I definitely won't deny that.

I do like the variety of weapons I get, though I do slightly agree with the sentiment that they give too many good things too often. The problem is that I was able to make it through the last 3 hours of my playthrough without paying much attention to my inventory. Not having a real penalty when you die -- none of my armor broke, and respawning almost right where you left off is laughably lenient -- just saps all the motivation out of the game. And it's not even like I died often, either. So what's the point of fiddling with the inventory?

Messing with runes and charms felt largely inconsequential, too. Like with the inventory, I just trucked along, downing enemies left and right, barely batting an eyelash, for about an hour or two until I realized that I had new runes and charms to fiddle with. The "sidequests" are a nice touch, but they feel more like achievements than actual quests, and I don't feel like I have to expend extra effort, skill or gumption to explore in order to succeed at them.

The other thing is that these are some of the stupidest names I've ever encountered:

Reciprocal Blast Array of The Cunning
Mobility Plate Legguards of Ferocity
Dragon Shockplate Traction Pads of Ferocity
Willful Heavy Schynbald of Plate
Iron Fist of Striking (sounds like they got this one from Engrish.com)

It sounds like the designers just tried to stuff as many syllables as possible. It's not like these names matter, mind you; I just find these names both amusing and a little sad. But hey -- at least, presentation wise, the game looks and sounds good. Well... some of the character models and faces are quite poorly structured and animated, but the environments look really pretty. Artistically they're not the most mind-blowing or innovative designs, but they're very nicely detailed and colorful. And even on an SDTV via component cable, it still looks really good.

In any case, I don't dislike the game so far. I just don't like it very much, either, and that's disappointing considering that -- despite the reviews and controversy -- I remained deeply interested in it. All the positive points pointed out in all of its reviews -- whether the final assessment was positive or negative overall -- kept me interested, and are still tangible now, but so far they're just... not... enough. Of course, I'll reserve final judgment until the final hour is complete. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of Champion I can craft with my skill tree decisions, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with the dismembered head guy (I just defeated Hod), and I do want to try and do a 300-hit combo (my high so far is 207).

Regardless, even after only 5 hours of game, I am hoping that the Too Human trilogy continues. I see a good foundation that Silicon Knights can improve on. And if it's any comfort to anyone looking forward to this game or who likes this and was expecting me to love it, thus far it's nowhere near the disappointment that the god-awful Red Steel was.