It's fitting, in a way, that Too Human is inspired by Norse mythology and features Loki, a character bent on creating chaos. The lengthy development cycle for the action-adventure role-playing game from Canada's Silicon Knights was filled with obstacles, almost as if the trickster deity was at play.

In a phone interview, Henry Sterchi, lead designer for the game and director of game design at Silicon Knights, told the Georgia Straight that Too Human is the biggest title ever to come out of the studio, which is located in St. Catharines, Ontario. Despite how long it took to develop Too Human, he admitted that he wouldn't have minded just a little more time to work on the game.

"Obviously, I would have loved a little more time to put in thousands more armour sets," Sterchi said.

Although the game was released in August, company founder and president Denis Dyack unveiled the concept in 1999. Too Human was conceived for Sony's original PlayStation, but the idea was shelved while the studio made other games in partnership with Nintendo, notably Eternal Darkness and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes for the GameCube console.

When Dyack resurrected Too Human, it was for the Xbox 360. Then difficulties with Unreal Engine 3, a software system Silicon Knights had licensed from Epic Games to develop Too Human, stalled progress. Silicon Knights scrapped Unreal and created its own game engine instead. That led to a lawsuit-countersuit battle over alleged breaches of the licensing agreement between Silicon Knights and Epic that is still before the courts.

Sterchi said that Too Human's unique gameplay is what makes it stand out. Its focus is on "fast-action combat", which pits players—armed with an assortment of swords, hammers, and guns—against hordes of enemies. The game was designed to appeal to two core groups: action and role-playing gamers.

He said he hopes action gamers find the intensity of the fighting and the complexity of the combat combination moves interesting, and that they get hooked by elements that typically appeal to players who prefer role-playing games. He expects role players, for whom improving the skills of their character and collecting valuable items are paramount, to be intrigued by manoeuvres used by action players.

"The bottom line is that action for the sake of action eventually gets tired and repetitive," Sterchi said. "And it's only so much fun to click a button over and over to get your 400th pair of boots."

Another thing that sets Too Human apart is its cooperative-play feature. Players can jump in and out of their friends' games, and any abilities or items their character collects will follow them back to their own single-player game. This social aspect of Too Human, Sterchi said, adds to the experience of playing the game.

"Somebody asked me if there were any escort missions in this game," he said, adding that the answer depends on the skill level of the people you're playing with.

"You can have that great player who is pulling you through, or a bad player you have to pull through," Sterchi said.

When playing Too Human, you're only as good as the people you play with.