Okay, so I watched a lot of the E3 footage again.

Here's what I think:

JAW, you've got the environments near perfect. The level design, the moving parts, the mood lighting, it's all looking great.

On the other hand I think that effect lights and explosions could use some work. Specifically, the blue electricity looks a bit dodgy, maybe you could make the individual strands a bit thinner?

Anyway it looks good so far.

I had an extra thought about the electricity. It looks more like there's a malfunctioning electrical device than that it has been specifically placed there as a security barrier. Was that your intention?

I like the idea of the malfunctioning device, environmental hazards would fit in perfectly to a grimey, neglected old meat grinding facility!

Yes but on the other hand, security gates served a pretty important purpose, and they made sense to be there.

Are you saying malfunctioning machinery doesn’t make sense?

I'm saying that it makes sense they would have security gates for security purposes. Malfuntioning machinery is unintentional. While still completely plausible, where did the security gates go?

They do have mechanical doors as well, you know. If anything, the E3 footage showed that they have more of them now. There isn't really any good reason why a factory with total surveillance would need electric doors and metal ones.

I'd love to see a malfunctioning meat saw, one that appears idle but when you get close it suddenly works, so you have to stop and wait for it to finish malfunctioning, just something to trick those who are in a rush in the game

Why?

Concerning doors, I think the reason for the flickering electrical door is to help the player realize it'll kill you, since people tend to equate sparking, shaking jagged lightning with danger while seeing more solid, static beams as being safer.

In the original games, the electrical thing just looks like a single beam, but I always thought it was more of a row of them in 3D. Kind of like electric prison bars.

I'd love to see some water areas.. maybe instead of having those big drops off screen, have water, and Abe can have a disturbing drowning animation where he cough, chokes, flails his arms around in a panick..

maybe have areas with hot ground that Abe can't stay standing on for too long or his feet burn and he falls over and cooks to death, meaning the player must not stop, but continue on.

That's a good idea if it can be made believable, random pools of water would be a bit out of place in the factory although I can sort of see them working in Monsaic Lines or Paramonia.

Still, the huge drops were something I liked in the native areas, they gave more of a sense of scale to the place than I can ever see water doing.

The water idea could work well if executed correctly, but the idea of hot land seems entirely pointless. If certain areas are actua floors and plains instead of catwalks, I was thinking that the pits in Scrabania could be cracks in the floor, like what you get from earthquakes and stuff.

I like the sound of the hot floor, it would add an extra dangerous mechanic in there. I could see it being in some of the Zulags, maybe if the catwalks become overheated and they would glow red to show they're too hot to stick around on.

New 'n' Tasty is now set inside Paramite Pie Oven #438

I hope not.

I would like to see a catwalk over a hot vat...

Having just watched the gameplay demo now, for the first time, I have to say that it does indeed look glossy, and improved upon the original in many areas but I also agree with a few of the criticisms I saw while skimming the pages of this thread.
Somehow Abe running from the scrab, for instance, seems a bit cartoony and not quite as menacing as in the original, although it may be just my memory being fuzzy.
In any case I have only watched the demo as of yet, so has it been confirmed whether this is an actual gameplay sample or simply a pre-rendition akin to all those Munch's Oddysee videos that never made it to the final version?

I'd just like to point out that scrabs will always look hilarious while they're running. If it weren't for the music that played when a scrab was nearby/while you were being chased or the atmosphere of the game in general, being chased by the scrabs wouldn't have been nearly as intense as it was.

Anything with the Scrabanian Nests music would be tense. Replace a scrab with a waddling fat kid and it'd still be pretty worrying.

I agree. In the original, it wasn't the graphics that made the game look and feel menacing but the music and most especially the gameplay. You got shot, you died. You got touched by a scrab or a paramite or a laser you died. It wasn't forgiving at all. The quicksave in Exoddus made the game a bit more forgiving, until you accidentally pressed the quicksave button instead of the quickload button right before dying...

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree here due to the fact that this idea is detracting away from the originality of the game. Make the area seem wet and glossy yeah. Make the factory seem boiling hot and uncomfortable, yes. But new deaths by standing on hot floors and waggling in the water is something that i'd see in Munches Oddysee and its kind of humor. Honestly it reminds me of crash bandicoot dying and getting angel wings and floating up to heaven. It doesnt work in the AO scene. I am however keen on seeing the new fizzle deaths :)

The Malfunctioning bit of machinery, while it being new, it works because there was an electrical hazard there. I think if he is falling into water, it'd need to be subtle. Like a sploosh sound at the end of the drop with a bone cracking sound too.

oh god those endless falling loops lol.

But you're right, scrabs looked like horses in AO and because of their size and bulkiness, it felt menacing. But i totally agree that a good percentage of the Abes oddysee atmosphere was menace. It had its own form of beauty.

Personally, I don't think scrabs ever looked silly running. I have to agree withSTM about the Scrabanian Nests music, I fucking love that. Pity it wasn't in the rip or official soundtrack.

We've never seen Abe injured, have we? He's always either in top form, or dead.

I always loved the way scrabs moved as sprites. They only looked silly running in 3D (walking was fine). I thought in Munch that that was because they were animated differently, but it may be a matter of perspective.

To be fair, limbs with only a single joint, and a hinge one at that, are never going to move in a normal or familiar fashion. There is absolutely nothing like it on Earth.

I thought there was a ball-and-socket at their 4-way pelvis thing. Or do you mean that they don't have ankles?

I don't think so. I think the one-hit-kills definitely added, if not created the tension in the first games and certainly hope they remain in New 'n' Tasty!

Abe could take multiple beestings though, and multiple hits from fleeches in Exoddus, which was far more believable given those creatures are small. I suppose we could see some visual effect on Abe (bruises, cuts, swollen stings etc) in the game, but nothing that impairs his actions. The game would be impossible then!

Jesus though it would be good to have some different death noises. I just came off a session playing that bit in Paramonia with the prickly balls...Abe's WOOOOOAH has driven me insane.

So we haven't really talked about the Logo for New 'N' Tasty. I was going to bring it up earlier but the discussion about the Portal went on for ages.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5457/8...7ecbc47983.jpg

I personally like it. I think the Glukkon head is a bit streched at the bottom though.

He looks like a mix of a Glukkon and a frog because of that neck. The color choices are weird. I'd have used red, orange, brown, and black or something. Otherwise, it's great.

I love the use of colours! The logo retains the Oddworld feel which is great.

What oddworld feel?

Oh, and the old logo:
http://speeddemosarchive.com/gfx/AbesOddysee_1.jpg
(It's kinda lame, if you look at it now)

I think it looks fine. They could always change the neckline to look like a collar or something.

Since the game is so early in development, don't you think it's just a quick mockup for publicity purposes? It's awful overall, but if you take away the saw and the evil frog head, you're left with the lettering, which I love! Like I say, hopefully just a quick mock-up, but the lettering is lovely and I hope they keep that, if not make it even more delicious!

I agree that the lettering is awesome

I honestly think it looks like a tacky advert for surfing gear. The colours are horrendous and it just doesn't sit right in my opinion. Then again I may be the most over critical person walking this planet.

I agree with Connel. The only thing I really like is the lettering. I also hate the chosen title, I'd have gone with Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee - New 'n' Tasty if they had to use New'n'Tasty, but it's too late now.

We can just basically pre-determine everything Connel says now. You could just write, 'generic pissy statement' and we'd get the same message.

Looks fine, just got a phat neck.