Too Many Humans – Review
In most games, zombies take on the role of enemies. In rare cases, you lead these monstrosities yourself, such as in RPG titles where you play as a necromancer. Too Many Humans fits in the latter category, although the game feels more like you’re playing as the director A.I. from the Left 4 Dead franchise. You are sent to Earth to teach humanity a lesson for their greedy ways, turning them into a better version of themselves in the process.
Story
The story begins on our very own planet. Gaia, as she is called here, is filled with pain, after another nuclear accident poisons her land. It seems that humanity has gone too far, using her fertile lands and plentiful resources only for greed and disrespecting nature. You play as Phthisis, the God of pestilence, decay and death. You are sick and tired of your sister being abused by the humans and want to teach them a lesson. Even though Gaia has had enough of the constant pain, she asks that Phthisis doesn’t wipe the human race out completely. You find a loophole, and decide to turn some into zombies, ultimately infecting more and more humans. This way the humans are still ‘present’, and they cannot do much harm anymore.
For a game this small it actually has one of the better stories that we have seen this year. The game begins with a rather elaborate introduction, perfectly underlining the current issue with the planet and how Phthisis is going to solve it. During the campaign, the motivations of the lead character are continuously explained. As a result, you’ll notice that your protagonist isn’t a bad character at all. The story flows nicely and the conclusion of the first chapter is that this is the beginning of renewal, and that there is still much work to do. Currently, there is only one chapter, but the developers plan on releasing more in the future.
Graphics
The game looks decent enough but is far from special. The many different locations provide you with different scenarios and lovely settings, yet all the character models remain exactly the same. It feels a bit strange seeing people dressed for the office working on a boat for example. It would have been a nice touch to have some different character designs between the many locations, instead of the simple recycling of assets.
Sound
Just like the graphics, the sound design isn’t anything special. The game solely uses basic sound effects and boring background music to entertain you. This feels like a missed opportunity, as some voice acting and a more powerful soundtrack would have been a serious step up in quality and enjoyability. Nonetheless, looking at how much this game costs and how much fun you are getting in return, it seems logical that some corners were cut in both the graphical and sound departments.
Gameplay
Too Many Humans is a real-time action strategy game where you must lead your zombie army to teach humanity a lesson. It all starts when your sister Gaia is complaining about the abuse she is getting from her human inhabitants. As she has worked hard to create them, and grant them the many rich resources on her back, human greed has poisoned her. Her brother Phthisis becomes angered by how she is treated and wants to teach humanity a lesson. Gaia begs her brother not to just simply wipe them out, as killing them would mean even more work for her. Phthisis comes up with an even better plan, if humans don’t use their brains, why not eat them? He creates a zombie army and goes towards Earth for a little chat with the locals. At first, it seems that you’ll need to talk to the president, but when he denies any wrongdoing, you’ll need to send a message to the humans. By destroying senseless consumption goods (like cars, goods from China, money), Phthisis wants humans to go back to their primal ways of working the land in a respectful manner.
In each of the seven available missions the goal is clear: take or destroy that what humanity desires most. Every mission is pretty simple and involves moving from point A to point B while completing objectives. From a gameplay perspective, it’s all straightforward, but you will still have to pay attention to the many tutorials the game presents you with if you want to maximize your efficiency. The first two missions serve as complete tutorials, but even during your remaining time with the game, you will be met with new mechanics and even more tutorials.
You start each mission with a handful of zombies. By attacking civilians you can increase your population, by turning them into followers. You can create even more monsters with the flesh your minions nibble off the healthy bodies of their victims. You won’t get far with your standard walker, so Phthisis has a few mutations up his sleeve. By collecting resources like petrol, uranium, electricity, and flesh, you are able to mutate zombies into more powerful creatures that are very effective against certain opponents and structures. There is a slight difficulty curve in mission three, but this is done purely so that you learn to mix and match your troops to be as efficient as possible. When your zombies bite the dust, you can always respawn new ones, provided you have enough flesh. One small oversight (or possible safeguard) is that when you run out of flesh, the game does not end the mission. Perhaps this was done to prevent the game from closing too soon while resources are still being gathered. Keep in mind that this means that you’ll have to manually reset the level if you have nothing left.
Overall, Too Many Humans’ controls are pretty easy. You send your troops from point A to B, and you can do this via your ‘Screamers’. These Screamers serve as waypoints for your zombie squads. This mechanic does take some time to get used to, and luckily these so-called Screamers don’t live up to their name and don’t really scream at you. You can either command your army under the lead of one Screamer, but you can also split them into five individual Screamers, allowing you to command five different squads. Splitting up your main army is actually advised, as it gives you more options and it’s also less draining for your PC. When you send in a complete army of the dead, the frame rate will instantly drop, making the game very hard to play.
Conclusion
Too Many Humans is a great game that offers good value for its price. Although the graphics and sounds aren’t anything special, they aren’t bad or unlikeable either. From a gameplay perspective, this title plays really smoothly, as long you don’t have a massive amount of zombies on the screen simultaneously. The game has a relatable story that forces the player to think twice about the excessive consumption of goods, and that we must take care of the planet.
Too Many Humans – Review,
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