And thats my two cents - Part 1

Warning: This is another Too Human Related post. I have an idea for a more "my life" post and I'll try to do that later.

I've been able to get a lot of time in with the game over the last week. Sunday, whilst in Fort Wayne, I had the entire house to myself and got to hook my 360 up to my parents insanely large HDTV along with the floor shaking sound system. Sitting happily in a living room I'll never be able to afford, I got to play a ton of Too Human and found out some pretty interesting things.

When getting the game, I played with my bud Doug as a Bio-Engineer (Doug took on the role of a Defender) and we worked our way though the first 1 1/2 levels. By the Ice Forest (Level 2) we were getting our asses handed to us (on top of it being extremly late) and decided to call it a night. We decided that we chose the 2 lowest damage output classes and made a pretty terrible team. The fun part came when on the weekend when I took the Bio-Engineer and respeced him. Before I was attempting to make a pure ranged engineer which does not work because he simply does not have enough natural skills to augment it (making you rely solely on gear). The repsec had him focus on 2-handed weapons (using ranged to take out pesky Trolls, etc). Even though the engineer is slow, the fact that I could heal myself let me stay in the middle of the fight or focus one guy while he was in the air. I also started getting more Fierce attack bonus gear which helped round out my problems. I noticed a crazy change in the amount of damange and survivability of my character. My only problem now is that I've realized the Human Alignment tree is much more appealing so I will be recreating my engineer so he can focus on combo efficiency for heals and fierce attacks (both of which the Human tree focuses on). My engineer is still a support role when in co-op but I changed up how he does it.

I've come to understand that with Too Human, you really have to set out with a goal in mind for your character. The Alignment trees are more about how you like to play then whats better for your character. This is kind of the first time I've played a game where you have more fun with the more you put into it. Kind of a bizzare concept.

Candy Apple Island

Just called. Its there. Waiting for me....

Damn Flanders

Apparently all stores/vendors/etc for Too Human listed the wrong day for copies actually being available. So my store, along with all stores across the land of Americus didn't have it. My bud Doug and I were pretty dissapointed when we got the automated call while we were still at work telling us to go f*** ourselves in terms of our ambitions for the rest of the day. Nicely enough, Laura helped me bounce back and we went out for bad-ass mediteranean food and then for a pleasant walk.

Allright so THW...not the same ring but still gonna kill me some monsters. Hopefully this blog will stop being the Too Human blog...or else I should start a new blog...but then what would I post on this blog?

A Wedding Cake with No Bathroom and THT

I am not sure if I mentioned this already but Laura and I have only spent one actual weekend in Chicago since we moved in. We have been making runs to Wisconsin every weekend to take care of wedding stuff. I have to admit it has been kind of nice to change up the scenery on a constant basis (makes me appreciate our place so much). Last weekend, we went to take care of our cake (I missed the dang tasting..) and went to meet our cake vendor out at her place somewhere in the wilds of hilly Wisconsin. Unfortunatly we stopped at a restaurant area on the way that served draft-style A&W Root Beer. I had way to much and by the time we go out there..I found out here bathroom was broken. Well that was a fun excercise in...well lets just call it 'personal' control. I do have to admit we had a good time with our vendor and are shaping up to having a pretty awesome cake.

So the wedding is very, very close. I'm starting to get jitters about how much has to execute correctly at one moment for the actual ceremony but I've got a lot of faith in Laura and her Mom's control and management of the wedding plans. I'm trying to help where I can but I find that I'm better off giving Laura foot rubs.

To top it all off, tommorow is THT! Too Human Tuesday! I decided a while back to establish G.R.E.P.T. (Game Release Extended Play Time) to give Laura at least one month in advance notification of a new game coming out. While it sounds nerdy, it prevents any dissapoinment with me walking through the door with the game and ignoring all my responsibilites for the evening. I marked out Too Human about a month ago.

Today is also our Engagment Anniversary so we are going to cook-in and watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Then I kill monsters from the future the next day.

Life is grand.

Digital Heroes

Felt like I should post something. So right now I'm still going strong at work for WMS. It has definitely been getting more and more stimulating and interesting. I haven't started my side project yet. I think I'll end up waiting till after October. Laura has been working like mad on the wedding and I'm trying to step up to do more to help. In my free time after work, I've been still going pretty strong into the Too Human Demo. I'm compleltly head-over-heels for this game. I will acknowledge that it could still be a let down but so far it has proven to be just the right game at the right time. I discovered some more stuff with using the ranged melee attacks and for classes like the defender and bio-engineer, this proves to be amazingly effective with hammer-class weapons. The ranged attack will do a half-circle in front of you and can take out tons of guys at the same time.

I normally don't read extended universe books (for any world) but I finally picked up Dan Abnett's Horus Rising. Its actually pretty good if you are into the Warhammer 40k universe. Since this is giving more information on events that actually change the world (where most extended universe books have to keep the world relatively the same), its actually keeping me intersted. Hearing Horus talk about wanting peace and seeing the first arrival of demonic infestation into the Astrates is actually pretty haunting. If you are a fan of the Horus Heresy storyline in 40k, I highly reccomend the first book. Depending on how it turns out, I'll probably go and grab the next one.

To tie the first 2 paragrahps together, I've noticed that Too Human really reminds me of the Primarchs from Warhammer 40k. Primarchs were described as super soldiers who were even mighter then the Astrates (who are technically super soliders in their own right). In the current storyline of Warhammer 40k, it has been 10,000 years since the Primarchs walked amongst men so there deeds have become legendary and they are revered as gods. Too Human gives me the vibe that I'm playing as a Primarch or that this what they were capable of. Its really the first game that I've felt captures the spirit of one of the best parts of the 40k universe and is probably doing it inadvertently. I think that has added a whole other layer of appreciation to this game for me.