Game of the Month #6 - July: Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee

Abe's Oddysee is a two-dimensional platform game in which players take control of the character Abe, to travel across separate screens: solving puzzles, navigating obstacles, and avoiding enemies. Abe will die if attacked by an enemy, touched by an obstacle, dropped from too great a height, or even holding a grenade for too long, respawning at the last checkpoint. As well as jumping to navigate areas and crouching to roll under obstacles, Abe can break into a run to jump over large gaps or escape enemies, or tiptoe to avoid disturbing enemies. Abe can also use throwable objects such as meat, rocks or grenades to bypass enemies or destroy obstacles, though grenades have a timer and, as explained, will blow up Abe if he holds one for too long.

I'm playing the remake, New N Tasty. I think it has the exact same level layout, but were there always 299 mudokans to save?

So I feel the need to, perhaps... break the ice. I haven't finished the game yet, I'm 6 hours in and.. umm.. I hate it. Well perhaps "hate" isn't the right word. I sometimes hate playing it, but I don't hate the game, I strongly dislike it. So far (and I doubt this score will change) it's a 4/10, which is shockingly bad for something that's considered a 9-10/10 gaming classic.
I find it ugly, the story bland, the gameplay an unfair trial and error nightmare and it's humor non-existent (I don't mean the jokes fall flat, I mean I literally didn't see any humor in it. Most opinions I heard about it implied it was funny/amusing, or did I misunderstand something?)

It's a chore to play.

Well, I'm sorry that I didn't manage to contribute to any of the GOTMs prior to now (meant to with Parasite Eve, but goddamn the last semester was rough), but I was happy that things managed to coincide so that I wasn't busy and had the game. Plus, I wanted to try playing a game with my new glasses, my first pair in 22 years. I was surprised to see that I had apparently been seeing the games on my TV through that good, good RuPaul's Drag Race season one filter. I now question my entire life, or at least the past several years.

Anyway, on to Abe. I played New 'n' Tasty, so my impressions might be different from those of you who played the original. I thought it was a lot of fun! I instantly fell in love with the story and the atmosphere. The gameplay is obviously from another era in game design, but for the most part it aged well. A glaring exception was the controls, especially how stiff Abe's jumping was. It's one thing for the original to have that problem, but I wish they'd made things more fluid for the remake. Still, it was never to the point that it was unplayable. My biggest problem, though, was that despite my rescuing every Mudokon I came across on my initial playthrough, it wasn't enough to prevent me from getting the bad ending, which felt like a gigantic kick in the teeth. All of the hidden entrances to Rupture Farms really messed me up, since I didn't find them the first time around. Because of this, I ended up having to replay all of the chapters with Mudokons hidden in them to get the good ending, which was kind of a bite, especially since I still couldn't find 79 of them. Seriously, where were all the Mudokons hiding in Zulag 1 the two times you were there?

The music was lovely but largely unmemorable, in that I can't really remember any of the songs off the top of my head. The voice acting was charming and very well done, not to mention hilarious in its own way. The graphics were great, and definitely a welcome change from the Unity-built games I've seen lately in my attempt to research every PlayStation Mobile game before the platform's demise. It's really cool that the rebuilt backgrounds still have that pre-rendered essence from the original. Overall, a very nice experience, 4/5 stars.

I think the point of a book club is to build on what other people have to say, too, so I hope it's okay to respond to some of your thoughts? If not, I'm doing it anyway. Monolight, I think the reason you might not see the humor in the game is because it relies heavily on black comedy and situational irony. Fart jokes notwithstanding, that tends to be a smarter sense of humor that a lot of people either don't get or don't like. burningsoup, I think you hit the nail on the head regarding what makes the trail-and-error gameplay bearable. It's exceedingly fair, and it never makes you feel like you failed because you weren't "good enough." That's part of the reason I hated Stealth, Inc.

It's too bad we've technically only gotten two parts of the "Oddworld Quintology;" hopefully they'll rectify that in the future.

Can you name a couple instances of black comedy? I'm genuinely curious where it's hiding. I rewatched a couple cutscenes on youtube, all I saw was slapstick, which I didn't think was all that well done.

On another topic, I watched some New 'n' Tasty gameplay and it seems like an objectively better game. A 1/3 of my gripes with the original are gone. Because it's in full 3D you can now clearly see what is in the foreground, what's in the background, where you can and can't go down...

My main problem with the game is that it's tedious. It's tedious with bursts of irritation. The amount of times I had to replay a section with those whistling passwords and jumping and levers only to reach a point where I don't know what to do, test something and then die and have to repeat all of it again is ridiculous. What worsens the problem is that enemy behavior is different in different rooms. Sometimes they instantly shoot you, sometimes they give you time to turn around and run away, sometimes they follow you to the other screen, sometimes they can't, sometimes they can go down from a platform... you get the idea. That's why I called the trail and error gameplay unfair. Because it keeps changing the rules. Never too much, but little things are always different.

Also, some bits are just badly designed. There's an empty room with the hint lights. When you pray it tells you something completely unhelpful and then you explode for seemingly no reason. I thought maybe I didn't read the hint completely maybe there's more to it... explode for no reason again... and again. A bat was killing me. It took me a while to notice and when I did I assumed it was in the background. Why would you put a bat next to the slow as hell hint system that warns you about the bats.

Funny story, I'm 2/3 of the way through and for about an hour of gameplay I had a strong feeling of Déjà vu. I was convinced the game somehow glitched and made me replay a section of the game. Nope. It's just THAT repetitive.

I watched some New 'n' Tasty gameplay and it seems like an objectively better game

Can you name a couple instances of black comedy? I'm genuinely curious where it's hiding. I rewatched a couple cutscenes on youtube, all I saw was slapstick, which I didn't think was all that well done.

On another topic, I watched some New 'n' Tasty gameplay and it seems like an objectively better game. A 1/3 of my gripes with the original are gone. Because it's in full 3D you can now clearly see what is in the foreground, what's in the background, where you can and can't go down...

My main problem with the game is that it's tedious. It's tedious with bursts of irritation. The amount of times I had to replay a section with those whistling passwords and jumping and levers only to reach a point where I don't know what to do, test something and then die and have to repeat all of it again is ridiculous. What worsens the problem is that enemy behavior is different in different rooms. Sometimes they instantly shoot you, sometimes they give you time to turn around and run away, sometimes they follow you to the other screen, sometimes they can't, sometimes they can go down from a platform... you get the idea. That's why I called the trail and error gameplay unfair. Because it keeps changing the rules. Never too much, but little things are always different.

Also, some bits are just badly designed. There's an empty room with the hint lights. When you pray it tells you something completely unhelpful and then you explode for seemingly no reason. I thought maybe I didn't read the hint completely maybe there's more to it... explode for no reason again... and again. A bat was killing me. It took me a while to notice and when I did I assumed it was in the background. Why would you put a bat next to the slow as hell hint system that warns you about the bats.

Funny story, I'm 2/3 of the way through and for about an hour of gameplay I had a strong feeling of Déjà vu. I was convinced the game somehow glitched and made me replay a section of the game. Nope. It's just THAT repetitive.

Well, my favorite instances of black comedy have to do what what you overhear Mudokons and Sligs say during gameplay. For example, sometimes a Mudokon seen scrubbing the floor will say "this one square foot of floor is going to be shining!" It pokes fun at the uselessness of the task we see him doing, and also at the game design itself, due to the fact that the it can't have him do anything more substantive than just stay in one place and repeat his task endlessly, because otherwise Abe couldn't save him. Another choice quote is "climbing up that janitorial ladder." Two other instances come to mind off the top of my head, one exclusive to the original and the other to the remake. In the original, the design of the Mudokon Pops is just a severed Mudokon head on a stick, which not only does not give the Glukkons pause, they enjoy it. In the remake, the first lever you can pull (which has no indication of what it does) drops a Mudokon down a chute, instantly killing it; you're then rewarded with a trophy called "Oops..." for "failing to observe your surroundings."

I can understand your complaints, regarding the gameplay, though. Again, since I didn't play the original, I can't say I relate, but that does sound frustrating. I imagine there's no quicksave option, either, which admittedly was a godsend for me. At any rate, sorry it's not your cup of soup.

@BigDaddySpyce: You seem to feel quite strongly about that, but from what I've seen from the original, I have to agree with Monolight that New 'n' Tasty is superior. Care to elaborate on why you disagree?

Well, my favorite instances of black comedy have to do what what you overhear Mudokons and Sligs say during gameplay. For example, sometimes a Mudokon seen scrubbing the floor will say "this one square foot of floor is going to be shining!" It pokes fun at the uselessness of the task we see him doing, and also at the game design itself, due to the fact that the it can't have him do anything more substantive than just stay in one place and repeat his task endlessly, because otherwise Abe couldn't save him. Another choice quote is "climbing up that janitorial ladder." Two other instances come to mind off the top of my head, one exclusive to the original and the other to the remake. In the original, the design of the Mudokon Pops is just a severed Mudokon head on a stick, which not only does not give the Glukkons pause, they enjoy it. In the remake, the first lever you can pull (which has no indication of what it does) drops a Mudokon down a chute, instantly killing it; you're then rewarded with a trophy called "Oops..." for "failing to observe your surroundings."

I can understand your complaints, regarding the gameplay, though. Again, since I didn't play the original, I can't say I relate, but that does sound frustrating. I imagine there's no quicksave option, either, which admittedly was a godsend for me. At any rate, sorry it's not your cup of soup.

@BigDaddySpyce: You seem to feel quite strongly about that, but from what I've seen from the original, I have to agree with Monolight that New 'n' Tasty is superior. Care to elaborate on why you disagree?

It really comes down to Style > Substance in New 'n' Tasty. They decided that atmosphere and subtly where less important than the glitz and glamour of a lighting engine.

I did it! I finally finished it! It was horrible! :D

What a bump! Congratulations, you tortured yourself for 8 hours and 24 minutes and earned yourself a tag. ;)