Anybody Feel That......
 

Stranger's Wrath not feel like an Oddworld game? I think they went too far out of the way to be different from the other games like a total lack of species from the old games minus two. I may not have liked Stranger simply because I'm not a fan of shooter games and found it ridiculously hard for a newbie to the genre. I think I would have enjoyed it more if they used more from the old games instead of trying to abandon it. I don't even think they mentioned they were on Oddworld once in the game.

I guess it just really lacked all the things about Oddworld that I loved so much and that may be why it left such a bad taste in my mouth.

I also can't help but think they were getting pressured into doing a more mainstream genre type game, it just kinda comes off to me as they were pushed into making a game so far from the main storyline because the publishers wanted something more marketable.

well they wanted to take a break from abe and munch, try somthing new.

Abe's games are very different from Munch's game and Stranger's game is very different than Munch's. Oddworld Inhabitants has only made four games, the first two being released almost at the same time and being tied together.

Point being, I don't think there's a type of "Oddworld" game. I think that OWI intended to make each of the installments play differently than the others intentionally. In anycase, Oddworld is about the size of Earth and SW takes place in an entirely different area than the other three, which explains the difference in environment and species.

I understand where you're coming from, but I felt story and themes to be very 'Oddworld' to me. Plus I greatly enjoyed the game and I normally hate shooters. Different strokes and all that.

I guess it just didn't click for me. It's by no means a bad game just not my cup of tea.

I think one of the most impressive thing for a storyteller to accomplish is to tell their tale and get their themes across in different styles. Lorne accomplished this with flying colours.

Stranger is by far my favourite. Best Story. Best gameplay. Best OW game.

Despite it being a first person shooter, which I cannot stand at the best of times, the additional strategy involved in it actually made me play the way through it. I rather like the story, and to have it told differently was actually quite nice ^^ Much better played out than Munch's Oddysee. It feels more otherworldly and distant from earth, much what I like, despite the shooting ^^;

I agree. Oddworld-game without Abe just doesn't seem right, even if I have never played Stranger's Wrath in my life.

At least play it before you come to any conclusions

What is seriously so good about abe?

It's an absolutely gorgeous game?

It STILL stands high as an excellent Action Platformer 12 Years later?

It was revolutionary for its time and isn't too shabby nowadays either?

The voice acting was top notch?

Take your pick.

I think he meant Abe as in the character, in response to Grandi's comment.

I think it was response to MoxCo. Executive's comment, at least he quoted his message.

Thanks, but no thanks. I have lots of better things to do :)

AO and AE are both very good but I am referring to abe as the scrawny little blue guy.

He's an underdog character who can blow shit up WITH HIS MIND.

I never really cared for Abe much at first either, but he breaks stereotype and therefore is cool.

Surely though there is more to oddworld than Abe? Abe is cool, I won't deny that, but mudos is large and oddworld even larger. There are surely more underdogs fighting 'against the system' so to speak than just those sparked off into doing so by the one little mudokon meat-packer?

Same for me.

I kind of agree with you there. I've never played Stranger's Wrath, and so my judgment may be (or will be, actually) a bit impaired, but I've seen quite a bit of the game and I know what it's about...I'm certainly not saying it's a bad game or bad plotline or bad anything. But everything that I see related to it is just missing the feeling of Oddworld that I've gotten so used to (and grown to love) in the first two, to a stretch three, games.

Partly I think this is because Lorne did a complete 180 on his statement that he made during the Oddworld Quintology era --- that the stories he wanted to tell with these games were about the "little guys" who seemingly didn't matter but rose above themselves, to use a sickening cliche, and changed circumstances that they would have never even dreamed themselves capable to affect. Basically, they were stories about how much an ordinary person (or, in the case of Munch, a sub-ordinary or disadvantaged person) could do with determination. Stranger just doesn't seem like that at all --- physically powerful and with an exciting lifestyle, and so on, and so forth...it just doesn't seem like an Oddworld sort of story.

Also, as we all know, a huge factor in establishing a game's atmosphere is just the design. As much as I hate to say this (yet I've said this before) --- Raymond Swanland, although he is an incredible artist, just wasn't born to be a designer. At least not a designer for Oddworld. His work, which was strongly based off things that come from our universe, just couldn't connect with the kind of completely new, original, alternative reality feel established by Olds and Farzad. The way the characters in the game were designed just don't feel natural to me, I guess, and this makes them less believable.

Anyway, that's as much as I can say without actually having played the game.

At first I thought this too. Then I thought of the bigger picture. Stranger is a little guy, literally; no but metaphorically; yes. He may be pretty burly but Sekto and the wolvarks are all his enemies, he is out numbered. Unlike Abe who can take refuge with other mudokuns Stranger is on his own, he has no allies. It's a one man's war.

I've thought of it that way, but I dunno, it just doesn't seem to fit. Stranger at least has the
means to protect himself and a certain way to live; maybe I haven't understood the plot quite right but he's not like Abe and Munch in the least, since they (Abe and Munch) were both trying to figure out what the hell they were doing here and how, if at all, they were going to do it, and Stranger just kind of focused more on his own existence.
It seems to me that Stranger's plot was just missing the type of global applicability the Abe and Munch games had that made them so much more relatable and made the player actually think about issues in the world that surrounds them. One of the things I most admired about the AO, AE and MO stories was that they went so much deeper than just being a cool story, that it was just an unfamiliar twist on something that could happen in real life.

I think you think that because you haven't played it, as it does have the global applicability that you mention. At least, that's how I see it. Like Moxco said, Stranger is the 'little guy', he's pretty much the last of his species - one that's being viciously hunted into extinction and one that has no allies (save for the Grubbs).

Stranger's self-absorbed personality in the first half of the game is entirely the point. He's jaded, concerned only with himself and his survival and would prefer to have nothing to do with anyone. If my species were nearly driven to extinction, I'd want to hide my identity too, and probably hate society for considering my species disposable. I mean, there was a huge bounty on Steef even though they are clearly sapient and once Stranger is found out all the Clakkerz he'd been helping immediately disowned him and tried to kill him because he was a 'wild animal'. The game had a socio-ethical themes in this respect, including AO, AE, and MO's themes of what life is worth (or, rather, who's life is worth). It just viewed the subject from a different perspective (from the hunted instead of the slaves of the hunters). Not to mention the intriguing point of spending have the game hunting for money, only to have tables turn and BE hunted and have to defend yourself - and later, a cause.

Further, the relationship between Stranger and the Grubbs is very Oddworld. Stranger is Abe in this respect, he is the only one with the power to save a species. The difference is that its not his species, its an entirely separate one. Through them, Stranger becomes more socially aware and realizes the importance of preservation and the need to protect. I think that's a very important lesson we must learn and thus the story has a lot of global applicability.

In my opinion, SW is very Oddworld in theme, mood, and socio-ethical commentary. I understand that it -seems- unOddworld, but anyone who's really played it should be able to see that there's nothing unOddworld about it. Its just told from a different perspective.

Well argued. I know I should probably actually play the game before giving an opinion, but I was just expressing the impression that it gave me.

Stranger's Wrath takes place in Mudos like Abe's games... SW's characters are other creatures that live there... I don't think they're so different.

Nicely said! +rep!