The gameplay of AO and AE were great, but far from the best. There are other games that I'd put up for best gameplay. That being said, AO is still my favorite game of all time.

For me, the world itself is as important as any character.

I guess I'll always miss the pre-rendered backgrounds in some respects because of that mystical feel they gave to the game. I love the new 3d environments obviously, but those pre-rendered ones will always be my personal favourite, just as they were in, say, the first Resident Evil titles. I love pre-rendered haha.

Anyway, OT: I'm behind the idea of any new Oddworld games. The concept of this 'Quintology' is nice, but with all the games that are or were going to be considered additional bonuses (AE, SW, Munch's Exoddus etc.) it's gotten kind of convoluted. I don't think it's entirely necessary to try and group 5 main titles together, and sign the rest off as 'bonus games', especially if they are aesthetically or mechanically very similar to the main games (AO and AE for example).

Bottom line, I want more games and stories from Oddworld, but it doesn't fuss me whether they are part of this Quintology or not. As someone else pointed out, that has seen only 2 proper games in 20 years...it's lost some
some of its weight now, I think, and so maybe all Oddworld titles should just be considered as part of one full series.

Did you mean 'other games' as in other 'Oddworld games' or just games in general?

Other games in general. Among Oddworld, AE had best gameplay to me. Nothing in the Oddworld series has best gameplay to me. Don't get me wrong though, the gameplay is still great.

Nep said something up above about how it’s not the story itself but how it’s told, and really I agree with that.

What makes Oddworld the series it is isn’t the specific characters or their particular journeys, it has always very much been about the world itself – the species and their entwinement, the histories deeply engrained in the native and industrialist factions, the massive scale of destruction and atrocity being committed by the more villainous groups.

The reason I love the Quintology and want to see it finished is because it has always been the central point of our exploration of this world. Abe’s quest to shut down RuptureFarms felt like a huge endeavour, but everything we’ve seen and heard about the rest of the Quintology tells us that this is just a tiny glimpse, and there’s so much more we’ve yet to see and will see later in the story.

We know from Lorne’s interviews that the central point of the Quintology’s story is that in each instalment the scale just gets bigger and bigger, and over the course of the story we’ll get to see more and more of the bigger picture, discover more of Oddworld’s history and geography, and eventually see more and more inhabitants and their stories until we get to the highest levels of the Odworld societies and see who’s really pulling the strings behind everything.

Side games like Stranger and Fangus are perfect for telling smaller stories based around specific characters and settings, and they add additional depth and flavor to Oddworld that the Quintology just couldn’t give us. They’re a nice counterpoint to the epic tale that the Quintology is meant to be – one story which will covers the planet on a broader scale, paired with smaller stories which give us a deeper insight into specific communities or events on a smaller scale. I want to see more of these side stories and more of the color they provide, but I don’t think they can be justified without also having the larger story of the Quintology to contrast them with.

Abe and Munch aren’t necessarily the most original or interesting characters in fiction – they’re loveable little guys, but there’s hundreds of characters in fiction who follow the same archetypes as they. But their story is the vehicle for which we are going to see more and more of Oddworld as a whole on an increasingly larger scale, and that excites me.

I think Manco has completely nailed it on the head.

Yup, I've got to have to rep that post. It's everything I agree on.

^^^
Precisely. Well said Manco.

As much as I would like to see closure of certain stories, the universe, lore, planet and inhabitants all come together and make Oddworld itself a truly rich and unique planet. From a creative point of view, making a planet that big gives it a lot of space to dip into some really interesting stuff in terms of seeing the rest of the world and telling more stories that keep us hooked.

Personally i was always fascinated with the secret areas in the games because of the exploration and seeing things that you wouldn't normally see. I cant wait to find those places again in NnT.

I think Manco just single handedly said the what the most of us were trying to say, but were too lazy to type it out.

...Manco.

Someone better get a towel for Manco's arse.

Can we get Manco to read that post out to an audience of thousands? and then get presented with a Nobel Prize?

We need to rename the thread to: "Who Gives a Shit About Manco?"

Okay this is what I think:
What is a quintology?
and I love AO and AE even if some of the glukkons act stupid in some cutscenes. whoch brings me onto munch... I haven't even played that game it looks so bad I mean it made oddworld looks silly! don't get me wrong I like the odd fart and fall but when eveything has to act stupid and silly... it makes me just annoyed to be honest.
I liked the dark gritty feel to AO, the menacing glukkon with cigar and vicious sligs. coupled with the deadly wildlife it was so cool.

I really need to get around to playing strangers wrath but whoever said about an ending were he gets given a bounty for abe... that i just genius!

I'm not sure they even take place during the same time period...

They are at the same time period, but there's no cross-over.

Or at least there wasn't until JAW added that barrel easter egg.

That was me! I thought for sure that that was what was going to happen because of the wanted posters for him in oddysee and exoddus. But nope! god damn would that have been sweet.

I think it's a series of 5. Just like how a trilogy is a series of 3.

Actually, it's just a made-up word. The real word is 'pentalogy'.

This interview was what really made me care about it.

If I recall correctly there was a really interesting, and spot on, comment by Lorne somewhere on people with disabilities and how some of them refuse to get any of the life altering treatments or operations available to them.

I know some fans are turned off by what they consider to be his far-left, hippie dippie, conspiracy theories and opinions but it was comments on human conditions, like this and the one on inheritance mentioned in the link above, that really got me more interested in what Lorne has been trying to say with Oddworld - beyond the more superficial draw its world and characters had on me when I first got into the series.

That quote's from the link I posted, actually.

Ah, thanks. I just Ctrl+F'd "disabilities" and didn't really want to trawl through it all at such a late hour.