Yes, it couldn’t hurt to re-state that I am not trying to deflate the fact that Oddworld Inhabitants are a remarkable team, a creative genius in the video game industry. I admire them every bit as much as I’ve always done. The core of what they’re doing remains thoroughly Oddworld, in my opinion, and I don’t think their most famed and celebrated attributes of quirky characters and plots, innovative gameplay, beautiful cinematics, great graphics, outstanding vocal talent and Hollywood-style character-based storytelling are going anywhere fast. It’s just that I fell in love with an Oddworld with even more standards than that: imaginative and unique character design, gameplay that discarded the use of in-game menus, a practically utterly believable and clearly well-thought out universe.
Live Ammo is, I think, an example of how gameplay has been placed over the universe’s integrity. I expect to be pointed towards the fact that we haven’t seen the species in the game yet, and that their biographies as creatures could be known by then, either via the game or the website. In that sense, it’s not so much a complaint as a concern. Boombats are well explained – they live in caves and eat Sulphur, hence their nickname Sulphur Bats and their explosive properties. I imagine they’re also nocturnal, which would make them come out at night with the Paramites (quite obviously). But everything else just seems rather… flat. The characters don’t seem so fleshed out. I’m really sorry for saying that, as I guess we don’t know anything more about Mudflubs, Stangs or Sea Rexes. I guess Live Ammo just seems somewhat artificial.
I think the emphasis being placed on expansive environments was more a description of in-game graphics rather than standards of design, and possibly a response to some reactions (such as those bemused by the lack of bump or normal mapping). I’ve heard people saying that the environments in the new game look very Earthly. I personally think they’re being somewhat stubborn: the lush forests, massive Tibetan valley and expansive rocky outcrops look simply gorgeous to me.
And I hate to dismiss Khan’s point, but the bats in Stranger are explosive, not electrocuting, and are also very blatantly different from those in AO. What I would say in OWI’s credit is that they have definitely shown signs of putting a lot of thought into the game. The Vykkers phone, I think, is a good example of that, even if it is the only one I can think of. I would have expected Ratz to at least make an appearance, seeing as they’re supposedly found all over Oddworld. Yet we’ve only seen less than a dozen in total.
No, character design definitely remains my biggest problem with Stranger.
EDIT: Hahahah, screwed up that post. *deletes all past messages from own post before anyone notices*
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