That would be the real time lighting using the in game engine at work whilst the cutscenes in Abe's oddysee were pre-rendered CG.
It would be silly to disagree that the original looks grimmer and darker than NnT. In some respects I like the look of AO better - it's hard to beat the mood of painted environments - but in other respects I really dig the NnT aesthetic.
For example I think Zulag 1 looks great in AO but I always thought the rest of the Zlugas look relatively generic. Only distinguished, really, by their respective colour schemes. So I think NnT improved there. I'm also very impressed with the natural environments and think they're the highlight of NnT's design. I mean the Monsaic Lines look fantastic.
Certainly, in the Exoddus remake, it would be cool if they spent some time designing more various dirty industrial textures to make the areas look grimmer (there's a *few* I noticed in Rupture Farms)
Although I absolutely love the flies around the meat barrels. It gave Rupture Farms another disgusting dimension that wasn't in the original.
In regards the the bright lights on levers etc that simply looks like visual cues to tell players which lever controls which device (red = trapdoor, blue = electrical fence). And I imagine they pulsate to catch the viewer's eye. It probably made things a lot less confusing for playtesters.
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