Eurogamer's 5 games improved by their remakes
 

New 'N' Tasty is on Eurogamer's '5 games improved by their remakes'



Eurogamer has been there for Oddworld ever since NnT was announced so it's no surprised it made the list.

But it's a good discussion point, Does anyone think New 'N' Tasty is better than the original? I feel NnT does improve in some areas such as the quicksaving and speaking to multiple Mudokons.

Just something to talk about :)

I do, because it has excellent cutscenes, excellent gameplay and now it's coming to PC, I'll be able to play it all again! I also like the quiksave and the all o'ya.

Heh, I bet the comments will be filled with people saying "Watch Matthewmatosis' video to see why you're wrong!"

EDIT: Hey, there were! I like to stick my nose in...

I haven't actually played it, so I can't really comment. Although I think some areas look better than the original.

Technically yes. The screen-transitioning methods used in the original are fairly outdated, the controls are less sluggish and leave more room for different strategies, and of course there is no need to use pre-rendered backgrounds anymore.

Is it better in terms of story-telling and atmosphere? That's debatable. I personally feel like the Sligs were less threatening than the original and that removes quite a bit of the tension.

Ah... Matt's review. Even if it was really aggressive towards the game and at times, too harsh and nit-picky; It's nice to have a totally different opinion about it. And it did make me think about what could of been done differently. I also hope JAW watched it because it had some excellent criticisms to take note.

Though I will admit. I hate how some people just take his review as 100% true and form an opinion about the game without actually playing it. That's reviews in general as well, But I feel this review is a prime example of that.

Well they acknowledged it on Twitter as well as CrowBarSka. Which was probably the best move (well done, Wil). I must say it was good that ol' Glanville was cordial considering young Matt essentially slandered the fella.

I think so. I liked the original. But I wasnt a fan of the series until I played stranger. Before I played New n Tasty I was more looking forward to Stranger 2 than New n Tasty.

Theres no way I could every like the original again after playing New n Tasty.

The dark and gritty style of the originals always makes me wanna play them again. I loved the original Rupture Farms and Stockyards.

The themes alone cant carry me through that now awful gameplay...
Woes of the modern age.

I've got to disagree with you. Even though New 'N' Tasty did play well and emulated the original very well. The original Abe games still do a better job. And I doubt I'm alone in that opinion.

Because it uses sprites and a grid like system, The gameplay is more precise, quicker and every time you die. It's your fault. not the game screwing up.

I still think the Abe games play just as well as they did back in 1997.

I haven't played the game yet but did the old school controls not help in this regard, Crash?

AO and AE have superb gameplay, and nobody has any right to say otherwise.

Ha, I was reading a review for Stranger Mobile and the guy loved it - but he completely shat on the gameplay of the originals.

I never really got the criticism that Abe was awkward to control. Particularly on PC it's one of the smoother platformers I've played.

EDIT: maybe completely shat is wrong but here's the quote:

Oh yeah they definitely did. Especially if your used to the PS1 controls.

But I'm saying is even with that, The original Abe games play better. At least in my opinion.

They wont emulate the PS1 controls, if thats what ur looking for. Theyll make it so u can hop forward without holding forward (essential if U dont want to blow up, some times abe decides to step forward before hopping) and hold L2 to run instead of the analog stick, which I had grown accustomed to, so I dont use it.

I more or less played new n tasty first. I only put an hour into the original. As someone who didnt grow up playing abes oddysey, the controls suck. In comparison. IMO New and tasty feels slick and flows alot better, and AO feels super clunky. But im sure you guys played a hell of alot more of the OG than I did.

AO and AE have some big problems with controls. The gameplay is smooth, but they do some crazy things that leads to clunky input handling. You have to hold down keys for an uncomfortably long time before Abe does anything, and it's really inconsistent. Sometimes Abe will just twitch, but not actually perform the action you want him to. I've died to Abe not crouching when I wanted him to, sligs not shooting/turning properly and everything to do with elum.

Seriously anyone saying AO and AE control well need to go play the elum sections of Scrabania and Paramonia again.

Also inb4 PC port - this was most problematic for me on PS1.

I had that in AO on PC but nowhere else. Even AE didn't have that problem for me.

Abe never does this, unless you press DIRECTION then JUMP. The game was built with tolerance into the hopping, the intention being to tap JUMP then DIRECTION, which worked every time.

I don't think that was particularly well communicated though (although we did try) and hence a lot of the complaints about the controls stemmed from people trying to push forward then jump. Of course, in this instance, Abe would move forward first.

Without the "old school" controls, it's simply JUMP then DIRECTION to hop. With the "old school" controls on, it's just JUMP to hop.

Lol, it kind of reads like you're telling him off, alex. That's capitalisation for ya.

Not at all. :p

Alex must be super tired to explain this over and over again. I remember he even had to explain it to me at the Gamescom when I was playing Alf's Escape.

I blame the playtesters!

If you have to continually explain to people that they keep getting the controls wrong, maybe they’re not as intuitive as you might think.

Well I think the problem is that the game itself doesn't really make it clear that you press X before direction. But the hop button just seems far easier.

I dont remember much how it worked before the old school hopping came out, but It kinda worked 50% of the time. I didnt know whether it was random or not. Made boardroom a right pain in my buttocks.
Old school hopping is better, in all respects. U wont ever accidentally walk into a mine before hopping unless ur stupid and held forward.

Also, I dont think any player would think to press jump then forward. Since if u press jump on its own abe will jump up to grab a platform. Usualy if I want to jump forward in a game, I press forward first.

Some fans are just really dumb, though.

'Button to jump' was what New 'n' Tasty had originally, because it emulated the original game. Then we started getting people to play New 'n' Tasty, see how they did. Some loved Abe's Oddysee, some hadn't played in a long time, some weren't big on platforming at all. Universally, everybody got confused when jumping didn't make Abe jump straight up in the air. We changed it in response to watching how people played the game.

One bonus of turning 'button to hop' off is that you can push in the opposite direction to the one you're facing, and save the time of turning Abe around. I found that handy in a couple of places, and I thought speedrunners would like it. Hey ho.

Ill take the hop over turning around easier. Have u ever beat Freefire zone without rocks Wil? I rely too much on the universal cycles, made me reset so much in that level before old school controls were added.

I don't think I had, but I tried it just now and did it. Not speedily, but it was easier than I thought it would be. But it was fun.

The fastest way to do it follows the cycles of the motion detectors, so we can drop, roll and jump up past the rotating mines without stopping. U guys also didnt make the mines tall enough for Abe NOT to jump over, so we just run straight through the first motion detector (dont fix pls)

I had the best time for Freefirezone with rocks at 1:50. Until Qwerku smashed my time with a 1:18 run. We pretty much all use that strat now, thats why the top 4 are all like 4 seconds from each other.

Unfortunately Qwerku hasnt played since the wipe. So its just been me, Blacksuit, sutiibu and starwin. Hopefully sam gets back into it as well though. And who knows who migth start giving us competition on the PC version.

I know a runner called Shunpuk who might run the PC version when she gets it.

Cool. When I get a PC and stuff, and start streaming and all that junk, we can set up leaderboards so each version can come together. That is unless the versions have differences. Like a trick working on one version but not the other, or loading time variations.

I am running an online leaderboard here at Speedrun.com and it covers all Oddworld games:
http://www.speedrun.com/onnt

Sick! Thats hella cool.
You can categorise by region, platform and add videos? Ill be making full use of that when I get a PC. Ill let starwin and Sutiibu know about it.

This is a super old thread, but it links into what I posted the other day. If you have to explain it over and over again, then the problem isn't with the player, it's with the controls. Controls should match player expectation, not the other way round. Usability!


EDIT: And, believe me, I'm saying this with empathy. I've made some really stupid UX decisions and coded them up in my time. That's why I'm so obsessed with usability testing - because I've learned the hard way that what makes sense to me rarely works for everyone else.

Indeed, and noted.

I enjoyed the re-make as I've mentioned in a dedicated thread but for me Abe's Oddysee is still a better game for multiple reasons.
Also I forgot to mention one thing which I regard as N'n'T's principal flaw. In-game ads. They're subtle but still ruin the suspension of disbelief once you notice them and go against Oddworld games' philosophy (the same goes for Munch oddysee which had even more blatand product-placement).

They are cross-promotional inserts for other indie games, designed purely to help indies get noticed. They were also confined to secret areas.

It definitely doesn't go against Oddworld's philosophy.

That said, due to the backlash, they were removed on other formats.

That said, there is a banner right at the start of the game that explains how to jump laterally. It says something like "Press X and THEN tap sideways" or similar.

If so, I think a better way to do this would have been to place a button in the menu like it was done in Half-Life (The button was "learn about Valve's other products" or something like that).