I'm not sure sure he was complaining about New n Tasty but just cartoonish graphics as a concept.

There were so many story elements cut out of MO such as Mulluck's trial I think they would have remake it before moving on to Sqeak.

I'd rather see Munch's Exoddus if they cannot incorporate those elements into Squeek, though. After the Exoddus remake they've essentially brought the four Oddworld games to a new generation. I don't see them remaking MO after doing the HD version.

In fact, I'm not even sure we'll see even a Munch's Exoddus. I imagine both JAW & OWI would rather tread fresher ground after the Abe's Exoddus remake.

Wait is Munch HD on Steam yet? Because last time I checked it was still pretty unplayable on PC.

Well it's not unplayable for everyone. Plays perfectly fine on my PC. but no. Stew said they'd get on it after they finished up New n Tasty.

So you think it would be a good idea to have JAW, a company with no experience making massive 3D platformers, remake a 3D platformer from the ground up, when they've already proven that they can't even upgrade the visuals of a 3D platformer without rendering that game an unplayable mess. Good idea, bro. I'm sure they'll be in business a long time.

Was Munch HD that much of a mess? I only played it this year so it had been patched but I thought it was only really the PC port, which JAW didn't really do, which was unplayable for a large part of players?

Apparently, it is unplayable on pc. If it wasn't JAW, then who? Did the third party that was hired to do the HD upgrade hire a fourth party to do it for them?

Munch HD isn't available on PC. The only thing they did for MO was a quick duct tape and gum patchup to make it compatible for PC. Obviously they fucked that up.

What Havoc said - sort of - Munch HD is only on PS3 atm. The PC port was made by a different developer who left, i think, and JAW had to do a quick mop up to meet the December 2010 deadline for the Oddboxx. They were only hired to do the Stranger port.

As far as I know Munch HD had some bugs not nothing game breaking.

I guess that shows how much attention I pay to the game that the forum I go to every day is dedicated to.

It's still a huge gamble to have a small company that is untested with that kind of development take on a project like that. It also seems smart to play to the strengths of the series.

well I'm sure they learned a lot HDfying Stranger and Munch. And if Fangus is their next game after the AE remake then it might be the stepping stone needed before tackling a bigger title.

I don't see that turning out well. Updating graphics can't possibly supply the experience needed to jump to 3D level design in a way that would make the game significantly better than it was initially. They would really need to add a great deal of staff, costing a great deal of money.

They'd need more staff, certainly. Also JAW are tackling some non-Oddworld projects also which may or may not give them some much needed experience for the big potential Oddworld products.

But presumably Fangus would be a relatively small game and could be the project where they learn their lessons about 3D game design.

But perhaps returning the Quintology to its 2D roots might be the best option. And leave 3D for the likes of Fangus or a possible Stranger sequel? We'll see what they do with Fangus, anyway.

I would have thought if they don't want to do platformers they might try their hands at HoO--whatever that is--as a stepping stone into another genre. Isometric RTS style games can't be terribly complex compared making FPGs.

Lorne's got a really good chance for a fresh start here. If he's learnt from his mistakes he'll take his time and not bite off more than he can chew. The Oddworld piece d'resistance doesn't have to be tomorrow...

Considering Lorne plans to reinvest as much of the games' profits as he can, there's no reason OWI couldn't make a big-budget game a few years down the line.

Depending on how much they sell though! Let's just spitball and say they sell 1,000,000 copies in 18 months. That means they'll make £17,990,000 on NnT before tax. That's not a bad number but then you have to factor in wages, corporation tax, cost of travel to gaming venues and so on and so forth.

I'm pretty sure most of a video game's budget goes into wages, though.

Is that New 'n' Tasty?

MOHD.

OANST was talking about Munch's Oddysee HD which he thought had been released on PC. But it is the 1:1 port on the PC that had been getting all the negative rep.

Munch's Oddysee HD is available only for PS3, isn't it? So what's the matter with pc? I'm sorry I don't get it.

People were complaining about the Munch port on the PC. OANST thought it was the HD version and was saying that if JAW couldn't HDfy a 3D game properly how could they hope to develop one themselves. And then we corrected him in that Munch HD is only on PS3.

I know this post was a page ago, but I was asleep when it and all the other posts in this thread were made so

That's exactly it. The cartoony comicalness wasn't established until AE. AO had some comedic elements, and like most of Oddworld's humour it was kind of forced, but it wasn't so in your face it took away from the story telling. This is a remake of AO, and they said they were doing their best to capture the tone and feel of the original. My complaint is that with just the intro alone they didn't capture it at all. The comical elements were too in your face, and having the characters so highly exaggerated when the focus is meant to be on the story being told takes away the impact of the story and puts the focus on "these goofy over exaggerated characters". The narration was more like Alf telling his story at the end of AE than it was Abe looking back on the events of AO. Abe's movements and reaction to discovering New 'N' Tasty was more Looney Toons than classic Oddworld. In AO, his response to NNT was complete and total distress. I could feel how terrified he was in that moment. In NNT, it was more "haha look at that stupid face he just made".

Having a very lively and exaggerated cartoony character isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just completely unfitting for this specific game. I like Abe's cartooniness and wouldn't mind seeing him move and act like that in something like an AE remake or the rest of the quintology, but for NNT it just doesn't work that well. Even Molluk was too exaggerated. AO gave him that mysterious calm and collected persona, which frankly makes him much more intimidating. Now he just seems like some asshole with anger issues.

This is just what I've pulled out of the intro. I have yet to play the actual game, and I can only hope that the rest makes up for what I've gotten out of the intro, but I know the story is going to feel nothing like AO and that's not something I can get behind since I believe the way AO told it's story was masterfully done.


Also, AO only needed a remake gameplay wise. And that's only because a few mechanics and puzzle designs were crap and a half. The back and forth in AO was definitely it's worst point, but that's not saying much considering how well done the entire rest of the game was and how solid the controls were.

Well my point was that the characters in AO essentially had no personality. Maybe it's different strokes and all but I thought the characters and characterisation in Exoddus was *much* better than in Oddysse.

I meanthe thing I loved about it was that it had rather goofy characters in a dark world. AE is the game where they actually seemed to figure out what Oddworld was supposed to be. Munch took it too far in the goofy direction at points but from all the livestreams I've seen there hasn't been anything that seemed sillier than Abe falling down the cliff or banging his head on the conveyor belt from the original.

Oddysee had a great mysticism that AE lacked but AE certainly seemed a much more confident game with the handling of its characters and creatures - and I'm no seeing much in NnT that's steering it into Munch direction (I do think Abe's reaction is less chilling than the original - but I don't think Molluck feels neutered)

But I imagine opinions from those who've actually played the game would be better.

AE was a continuation of AO, so of course it's going to have more characterization. You know, characters become more established as their story is told and what not.

THANKFULLY it doesn't look like the over the top cartooniness or failed attempt at making the protagonist seem badass of MO or I'm pretty sure I'd just drop the franchise as a whole

Basically, what I'm saying is, gradual characterization > BOOM OVER EXAGGERATION LOOK AT THE EXACT ARCHETYPE THIS CHARACTER IS RIGHT OFF THE BAT YEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHH

I agree with Slog Bait that the cartoonyness has been taken way over the top and should really go back to the levels of AE and not an inch further. I dunno how Lorne thinks mixing this pretty deep story with over the top comedy is a good idea. Because the story of Abe is inherently not a comedic one. It has some very serious tones that are kind of bleached out by the forced comedy that is supposed to brighten it all up.

A good example, aside from the mentioned intro, is the cutscene where Abe gets his Shrykull powers. It's a pretty powerful cutscene where Abe is greeted by some of those he already saved, is unsure on what to do next and then gets this ancient mystical powers. Afterwards he realizes what he has and walks out with this badass look on his face. That's where it should have ended. But for some reason there has to be some forced comedy and Abe trips and falls on his face. Sure it makes you chuckle, but it's extremely out of place.

I really hope they tone it down a bit in future games.

But from what I've seen the humour coming from the characters seems no more goofy than it was in AE. I mean pretty much every cutscene in AE was filled with humour besides the Bad Ending.

EDIT: And I mean, Havoc, they took out the goofiest scene in AO and replaced it with a relatively dark one (Abe hitting his head versus the attack between two Scrabs).

Yeah because AE was a continuation of AO and AO was the start of Abe's character arc, therefore the start of his character development from our perspective.

It worked for AE, even if there were still some cringe worthy moments of forced humour, but AE and AO were not the same game and both carried different atmospheres. AO was someone who I can guarantee was the goof he's been portrayed that... up until he found out his "employers" planned to kill him and his buddies for food and they were all being kept in the dark about it. Then the entire rest of the game is basically him going through a massive crisis and trying to get everyone the hell out of there before they all, you know, DIE. They even showed right off the bat he was kind of happy go lucky and generally a laid back goof considering he thought he had a good job and was happily waxing the damn floor before the events of the story.

I can guarantee his levels of goofiness would drop an insane amount during all that. They would pick back up for AE slowly along the course of the game because you can never change who you are at your core, but even then he was still kind of cautious and uncertain about everything while everyone else around him and inhabiting the world showed they were much more confident and were generally goofy in comparison. It was a good contrast and showed how the different characters handled the past events and current scenarios. And heck, the further into AE you got, the more confident Abe became. It was pretty cool.

The way AE's story was told allowed the focus to be on the characters and their general silliness. The way that silliness was portrayed didn't take away from the story at all. AE was more focused on expanding on the world itself, rather than telling the tragic story of this naive slave with a ~destiny~.

Comparing AE character's portrayal to AO's character portrayals only works when talking about perspective and character development. It's likely in AO everyone around him and inhabiting the universe acted just as it was shown in AE but that wasn't important to the story, so there's absolutely no need to show it.

Nah. I like the goofiness. I mean Abe has a command to fart for fucks sake. And you get to control them in AE. It fits Abe's character so well as well as many other creatures in Oddworld.

Plus the Abe tripping up after acquiring Shrykull actually made me giggle