My taste in games are in how good a design a character is given.
Take the early concepts for Abe (4-finger), for example. His hand looked kind of like an Iguanodon, with the huge thumb and tiny pinky finger, and his reptillian appearance with a feather topknot reminded me of the bird-dinosaurs, halfway from dinosaur to bird (evolutionarily speaking). I imagine that the Mudokon race hasn't finished fully evolving quite yet. I also liked how the Eyelids continuously display facial emotion without the help of eyebrows, i.e. with most characters in the game.
And then came Latimare Munch. I thought: "He's a beefed-up cane toad with a bug-zapper in his head. So what?" It wasn't until I took the time to really look at his anatomy that I got a good understanding of what he really was. The large area between the eyes reminded me of the forhead (Melon) of a cetacean. The eyes, which elipse off the head, are a great asset for any animal (especially an aquatic one) because it gives him the ability to see in all directions. His jaw is double-hindged, to allow prey in large groups to be scooped up. And the five fins on his head were not only used for directional purposed, but display emotions with little speech. I also think that his head port goes deeper in his skull, probably a long rod of circutry attached to different areas of his brain.
Munch spawned many character designs for me. The first was a Star Wars character and looked cross-bred with Ed from Ed, Edd n Eddy. This, of corse was before I knew the boundarys for Copyright infringement.
So, I understand where you guys are coming from. Munch seems kind of cartoony (but to me it still retains a morbid atmosphere that Oddworld tries to keep us in contact with), but I feel that if I ever DO get Munch's Oddysee, I will be as happy with it as I was with Abe's games.
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