#too human

Tasia Valenza

- Sniper Wolf, Metal Gear Solid

- Poison Ivy, Batman: Arkham Asylum

- Shaak Ti, Star Wars: The Clone Wars

- Kaliyo Djannis, Star Wars: The Old Republic

- Hel, Too Human

- Spider Woman, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

- Valar, Baten Kaitos

- Myra Castellanos, The Evil Within (1 only)

- Maria Amino, Ozzy & Drix

Konata: “Did you guys hear the news from Tokyo Game Show—Too Human is coming out! Finally! I’ve been waiting, like, half my life for this!”

Kagami: (blinking) “...Too Human? What are you talking about? That game already came out. Years ago.”

Konata: (stares, shakes her head) “No, no, no, you’re thinking of something else. This is the big one. The cyber-Viking epic Denis Dyack promised!”

Tsukasa: (tilting her head) “Cyber… Vikings?”

Miyuki: (off to the side, she is also in this episode) “Konata-san, Kagami is correct. Too Human was released in 2008, as an Xbox 360 exclusive. It had been in development since the late nineties, originally planned for PlayStation, then moved to the GameCube, and finally to Microsoft’s platform.”

Alright, so I posted about this asking, and no one responded, so clearly no one cares, but SCREW IT! Today You Learned about the Goblin Man of Norway!

The Goblin Man of Norway is a short film/documentary about the discovery of a little robot thing that resembled a goblin deep in the ice in Norway. What made this discovery very notable was the age of the machine, going back ages and ages, long before the rise of the Bronze Age--and it still works! And it can learn chess! And--

Okay, as you may have worked out from the premise, the poster, and/or critical thinking skills, this isn't real. No one found a prehistoric robot goblin--and I'm not sure how someone looked at that robot and said, "Aha! Clearly this is a goblin!" Where did it come from, then? Well, it's a viral marketing campaign for the then-upcoming Silicon Knights 2008 video game, Too Human.

The gist of the game's story is that it's a sci-fi retelling of Norse mythology that happened in the distant past (I think Fimbulwinter is the Ice Age?), where the Aesir gods are cyborgs, and the monsters of myth are actually robots. The game... didn't sell well, because it didn't get great reviews, and the control scheme was very strange (you attack by swinging the movement sticks, I think?), so the planned trilogy went nowhere, and because of legal issues after the studio's closure, it is very difficult to get the game now.

It was a cool take on myth, though.

Anyhow, the first link I shared up above? Is the movie! You can watch the fake documentary (a "mockumentary" to use the correct term) can be viewed for free on YouTube. The game failed, no one ever talks about it, but that viral marketing campaign? It's still out there to watch.