As noted in my most recent blog post before this one, I brought my 360 with me to work for the express purpose of marathoning through Too Human. It's a game that I'd been following for years, and as someone who liked Silicon Knights' previous efforts (specifically Legacy of Kain and Eternal Darkness), I just wanted to play the damn game. Even with all the mixed press and the controversy surrounding it, I still want to experience what Denis Dyack has been working on for the last 3 - 4 years.

Sticking to my policy of trying my damnedest to spend no more than $50 for a game (before taxes), I traded in my dust-collecting copy of Resistance: Fall of Man. It was packed in with my PS3 when I got it via eBay, I played it for 2 hours, didn't like it, and never took it out again. After using my EB Edge card, the grand total for TH came out to $43. I did text the_antipode in jest that I should have bought Kung Fu Panda as well, just to test Pereira's complaint. The more and more I think about it, I might actually go out and rent (but not buy!) KFP. Other Austin commented in my blog that it was actually tolerable, and that encourages me.

Of course, any conclusion I would draw out of this would be moot. I wouldn't be doing this to validate or invalidate Gamespot's scoring system or anyone's reviews on either TH or KFP. I wouldn't be doing this to shove a comment in Kevin Pereira's face. I'd just be doing this for ****s and giggles. Think of it as an achievement -- something you wouldn't normally do unless it was mentioned somewhere. Would you really go for 10,000 kills consciously if CliffyB didn't stick that Achievement in the game? I wouldn't have done this for any reason other than Pereira brought it up, and to me it sounded like something fun to do just for the hell of it.

I'm really liking Titan Quest so far (I promise this relates to Too Human). It's making me realize that it wasn't the excessive clicking that turned me off of Diablo (well, actually it was...) but moreso the randomly-generated environments that ended up somehow looking generic to me, as well as the progression model. In the original Diablo, all I did was go from town to the dungeon and back again. I didn't feel as if I was exploring a world, which -- for me -- is an important part of role-playing gameplay. That the randomized scenery looked largely the same and almost plain was another factor -- it's the same thing that drags down my otherwise intense experiences with roguelikes (Shiren The Wanderer, Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon). I know, I know, the loot and monsters were awesome, and that's why I stuck with the game -- but in the end, my brain just didn't appreciate the experience. I wasn't enjoying myself. Had I stuck with Diablo II a bit more, I might have liked it, since it gives you different lands as you progress through the chapters, but it just reminded me too much of the original.

With Titan Quest being modeled after a different mythology and in a totally different environment, I'm not as easily reminded of the "ugh" experience with Diablo. The gameplay is, at its core, almost identical; click and hold on monster 'til the lifebar disappears. But there's a sense of progress here that I didn't feel with Diablo, as I move from Greek city to Greek city. The story isn't terribly interesting, which is fine -- all I care about is jacking fools for their loot. The ability to choose two skill masteries instead of following just one path is great, too, and I'm really digging this mace I picked up that poisons every enemy on contact. Is the combat any better? Like I said, at its core it's almost identical to Diablo, which means that it's not all that satisfying since you don't really DO much. But the end result -- the dropped loot -- is what's entertaining about it. And these guys drop LOTS of loot, most of it useless, but still so tempting just because it's... lying there. So you really get the feeling of, wow, look at all of this stuff I *could* collect if I wanted to, and so when something special drops, you really feel that it's special. I don't play RPGs to feel like a badass -- I play them to explore, collect, and develop.

It's the same reason why I'm not deterred from Too Human's combat, even though I found the combat in the demo to be unfulfilling. Pushing and holding the analog stick does nothing for me, no matter how many 2378-hit combos you can do -- but knowing that at the end of this swarm of enemies comes another opportunity to upgrade Baldur, either by equipment or skill points, is what makes it all enjoyable. I just hope I fall on the side of people who aren't annoyed by the claim that too much special loot makes it not feel special. I've not yet played a loot RPG where they give you too much good stuff, so I don't know how I'll feel about that yet.

EDIT: I should probably start a betting pool to see if anyone wants to guess whether or not I'll even actually be able to play the game at all this week, thanks to my job. Who wants to bet that I'll actually go onto my own time before 9PM at all this week? Step right up!