Oddworld stranger's wrath was enthralling to me as an outsider to oddworld growing up. Watching its promotional material and game trailers captured my imagination for years. You know that feeling of envisioning what a game might be like, to the point you would construct your own imaginary version of a title? This was one of those games that really did away with my mind for hours, and having played it now i'm sure 7 year old me would have loved what was on offer with this title, give or take a few complications with the end product.
Oddworld inhabitants' body of work bears little ressemblance to other media i've been exposed to, i'd have to dedicate years of my life to trace oddworld back to other works in a capacity greater than just superficial. I can at least attest to this game beckoning my mind in the direction of the dark crystal and spaghetti westerns mixed with 2000's cartoon humor, i truly believe its one of the greatest fictional universes i 'll see in my life, and as games they've built a reputation as games with no equal in terms of polish and originality, something i can only confidently attribute to the first 2 titles at least. Not to discredit stranger's' strides in making the fps genre something all its own, but i can't deny there was something barring the studio to truly come up with a totally masterful game after having transitioned to 3D games, elements of their first 2 games that were lost in the transition.
But lets talk more concretely about the game. The story is simple, yet effective, and stranger is almost charming with his complete lack of personality and completely monotone line delivery mixed with goofy sound bytes for gameplay, leaving a lead character cut short by game scripting errors and overly long portions of ambient noise where clever exposition, descriptive worldbuilding, impactful characters or simple art set pieces, significant on a subtextual level or nay, could otherwise reside. Stranger, much like abe is a prophesied hero in the space between reluctant but not particularly vocal against his calling, but his odyssey is much less fruitful in impacting the world, as far as i can tell, where the physical space his journey takes place in doesn't stray farther than the land of identical southerner chickens and newts the studio was able to render into this version of oddworld, or rather odd neighborhood.
Going into gameplay i'll contradict myself immediately by mentioning how impressive the scale of the levels was, as the approach of early open world style of exploration was a pretty good decision for this game: transitions are smooth, there's little loading, the hubworld if at times confined is still very comfy to explore, even if doing so won't accrue you more than some ultimately insignificant currency, and if there was any environmental story telling to speak of then it must have flown over my head because i don't believe the environment enhanced the narrative at all. What i can speak very positively of in this review is the gameplay which had to do so much heavy lifting in order to carry the rest of this game which was quote "sabotaged by EA" with its offering of easily some of my favorite gameplay in the fps genre.
The mix of 3d platformer and first person bounty hunting is merged to a nearly sublime level, with excellent game feel, not so perfect pacing and a unique adoption of the typical fps conventions of the time that only these particular developers could have brought forward. Hell i even admire their attempt to incorporate abe's style of puzzle solving into combat sections, giving you the choice between killing and non lethal takedowns which affect your earnings in a level. I'd wish it had some sort of bearing in the plot or at least some easter egg in the world whether you chose to let someone live or not, the game could have been accomodated better for this, at the same time i preffer that it was less ambitious with its capture mechanic, it was the better decision given its unique publishing circumstances.
Adding to this, the difficulty was enjoyable, hard and a smidge unfair, but hardly frustrating, the only issue is how repetitive the game can become because of it, but you're more than well equipped to deal with anything this game throws at you, its like a consistent level with occasional small peaks of death and levity, and topped with some great gameplay mechanics, specially the running and sneak tackling enemies made this a really energetic game that captures the appeal of its great contemporaries like XIII and half life.
the music however, i don't have nearly as much to say about, its ominuous and pretty at times but often rests in the territory of generic film score, too comfortably for its own good, and at least on ps3 the sound design is completely fucked, probably something to do with the framerate and issues with being downported from some other version.
This was a nice treat, having finally scratched it off my backlog, after years of wanting to see it, even if it parts leaving behind desires that could never be fulfilled, it is a game i have a great appreciation for, with all its scratches and nicks from the factory it had me invested, its length is great, i love running around, it looks gorgeous for a late 6th gen game and i love it the way it is, but it lays out everything it has to offer very quickly. It shits the bed just a little, little enough that you wouldn't mind sleeping with it.
Oddworld inhabitants' body of work bears little ressemblance to other media i've been exposed to, i'd have to dedicate years of my life to trace oddworld back to other works in a capacity greater than just superficial. I can at least attest to this game beckoning my mind in the direction of the dark crystal and spaghetti westerns mixed with 2000's cartoon humor, i truly believe its one of the greatest fictional universes i 'll see in my life, and as games they've built a reputation as games with no equal in terms of polish and originality, something i can only confidently attribute to the first 2 titles at least. Not to discredit stranger's' strides in making the fps genre something all its own, but i can't deny there was something barring the studio to truly come up with a totally masterful game after having transitioned to 3D games, elements of their first 2 games that were lost in the transition.
But lets talk more concretely about the game. The story is simple, yet effective, and stranger is almost charming with his complete lack of personality and completely monotone line delivery mixed with goofy sound bytes for gameplay, leaving a lead character cut short by game scripting errors and overly long portions of ambient noise where clever exposition, descriptive worldbuilding, impactful characters or simple art set pieces, significant on a subtextual level or nay, could otherwise reside. Stranger, much like abe is a prophesied hero in the space between reluctant but not particularly vocal against his calling, but his odyssey is much less fruitful in impacting the world, as far as i can tell, where the physical space his journey takes place in doesn't stray farther than the land of identical southerner chickens and newts the studio was able to render into this version of oddworld, or rather odd neighborhood.
Going into gameplay i'll contradict myself immediately by mentioning how impressive the scale of the levels was, as the approach of early open world style of exploration was a pretty good decision for this game: transitions are smooth, there's little loading, the hubworld if at times confined is still very comfy to explore, even if doing so won't accrue you more than some ultimately insignificant currency, and if there was any environmental story telling to speak of then it must have flown over my head because i don't believe the environment enhanced the narrative at all. What i can speak very positively of in this review is the gameplay which had to do so much heavy lifting in order to carry the rest of this game which was quote "sabotaged by EA" with its offering of easily some of my favorite gameplay in the fps genre.
The mix of 3d platformer and first person bounty hunting is merged to a nearly sublime level, with excellent game feel, not so perfect pacing and a unique adoption of the typical fps conventions of the time that only these particular developers could have brought forward. Hell i even admire their attempt to incorporate abe's style of puzzle solving into combat sections, giving you the choice between killing and non lethal takedowns which affect your earnings in a level. I'd wish it had some sort of bearing in the plot or at least some easter egg in the world whether you chose to let someone live or not, the game could have been accomodated better for this, at the same time i preffer that it was less ambitious with its capture mechanic, it was the better decision given its unique publishing circumstances.
Adding to this, the difficulty was enjoyable, hard and a smidge unfair, but hardly frustrating, the only issue is how repetitive the game can become because of it, but you're more than well equipped to deal with anything this game throws at you, its like a consistent level with occasional small peaks of death and levity, and topped with some great gameplay mechanics, specially the running and sneak tackling enemies made this a really energetic game that captures the appeal of its great contemporaries like XIII and half life.
the music however, i don't have nearly as much to say about, its ominuous and pretty at times but often rests in the territory of generic film score, too comfortably for its own good, and at least on ps3 the sound design is completely fucked, probably something to do with the framerate and issues with being downported from some other version.
This was a nice treat, having finally scratched it off my backlog, after years of wanting to see it, even if it parts leaving behind desires that could never be fulfilled, it is a game i have a great appreciation for, with all its scratches and nicks from the factory it had me invested, its length is great, i love running around, it looks gorgeous for a late 6th gen game and i love it the way it is, but it lays out everything it has to offer very quickly. It shits the bed just a little, little enough that you wouldn't mind sleeping with it.