The Humans (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
55The Humans is an arcade puzzle game, where we guide a team around, and encourage them to work together to accomplish a common goal. It's literally a team-building exercise. The concept is smart, but the Humans are idiots, so let's seem if our 21st Century brain power is enough to save them.
PATREON:
https://www.patreon.com/lemontubeamiga
Our 2024 Backers!
1. π₯ Kim Lemon
2. π₯ Sepp
3. π₯ Predseda
4. π₯ Paul Henderson (Loki)
5. π₯ Bloxyman22
6. π₯ π₯ Ed Heaton
7. π₯ π₯ Mahen
8. π₯ Eric Johnson
9. π₯ Bernhard Lukas
10.π₯ Glenn Main
11.π₯ Paolo Mirabella
12.π₯ Martin Roeleveld
Recorded: 22nd Dec 2023
Narrated: 21st Jan 2025
Uploaded to backers: 3rd Feb 2025
This was the first game I recorded for this series 7b, although technically Prime Mover was recorded before it for the 2023 season. The second game I recorded was Carrier Command. I had the Amiga Action demo, and always wanted to check it out, but games like The Settlers and Dune 2 just seemed to eat away that time, and I never got around to getting the full game. So for this series I wanted to check out games I always wanted to try, like Heart of China and Return to Atlantis etc, and get to know them while the shows are still running.
This review was then put on the shelf, as I wanted to edit and narrate almost every other game this year instead of it. I just went with whichever game I wanted to edit, in order of the ones I loved the best, and this video didn't get narrated or edited until it came up in the votes. As of writing this, there are now two games which need to be edited or narrated, but we are all caught up with the shows because some of them like Coarse Angler and Train Driver 3 were not voted in, even though they are done. The wavy voice in the intro when I say 'First' was actually me with an echo, toned down by one octave. It was not taken from Bloodmoney, although it sounds very close. This was what I was going for, and the inspiration for the 'First'.
I am totally aware that The Price is Right was ported from a U.S format, and that the show in the U.K has been hosted by many other hosts. But when this game was made, at that time, Lesley Crowther is the face they would be familiar with on British TV, so they included it as a clue in the game. The thumbnail for this video was auto-generated by YouTube, so it was not deliberate.
Danscore:
If anyone remembers Captain Caveman the cartoon, and Chuck Rock, it is fair to say that ice-age and pre-historic people are fun, and those ancient tropes can easily be used in video games, even though dinosaurs died out 65M years ago, and humans evolved only 200 thousand years ago. Brushing over that, The Humans offers a puzzle game, where you happen to control the characters with a joystick. However, there are no running and jumping and climbing abilities here. In fact your group wont wander like Lemmings and try to solve their own way out. Instead they stand there like idiots, and expect your Godlike interference will sort everything out. Even the most basic stuff like jumping must be done with a tool, and yet you cant use the spear to climb up or slide down things, and instead you must stack your people on top of each other to ascend waist-height boulders. The gimmick was very fun on the cover disk demo, but here it feels a bit thin as a concept, and you can't make a human ladder to climb down from high places, only stack them to climb up to things. The levels seem too samey early on, with drab first levels and scenery, dark caves or an outdoor level with a fairly horrible sky. While later swamp levels feel much better and more atmospheric. The lack of any in-game music which I could find was definitely a disappointment, but maybe I'm missing something; like switching off the SFX first? The SFX are very weak, and are mostly very quiet, apart from the nagging "HELP!"; which seems double volume, and that's annoying.
There were two more sequels, to The Humans. The first feeling more like a data disk update, and the second being made by a different team. The Humans 1 seems the best out of those, and for the patient strategy fans out there, its less of a headache than Troddlers or Rat Trap, but still not up there with The Lost Vikings. I like the idea of having a team around a big level, where you can pan around by switching players, and slowly upgrading your weapons and abilities level by level. But there was nothing here which made me want to sink a few hours with it. Still, there is nothing wrong or bad about it, so I'd say it is worth at least 6.5 out of 10. With more variety in the early levels and scenery, some kind of a mission or goal or arching story, a nice soundtrack, and the ability to jump, this could have been a lot better... maybe even a classic.