[Mac Sirloin]

Oh man, so much of what Vlam is saying reminds me of how I felt a few years ago. When I first found Oddworld I was obsessed with it the way autistic kids are obsessed with Sanic and Lorne was like this weird spritual leader at the head of it all. Then I had him on facebook and he turned out to lean pretty far to the left and I got sick of his vitriol.

Separating the man from his achievements is essential because like the Biblical David, Lorne Lanning's tribulations are difficult to confirm. It's clear the man is incredibly creative and the fact that he's been lugging the vast majority of content around in his head for so long is just impressive dedication. I think that what's essential to understand is Lorne really put his time in with this series and a lot of people wouldn't sack up and be able to do that.

Professionally, four games were released under Lorne's tutelage. Aside from Munch these games have been stellar and Munch is just one of many platformers to emerge out of the awkward years of 3D platformers, and the thing is: I love Munch. I'm planning on buying it for the Vita soon because I'd be content to take it on the go. Not a lot of people feel the way I do, but I think Munch is a really distinctly atmospheric game.

I think a proper release of the game intended would obviously be radically different from what we ended up with, but was Munch really so bad? Yes. It was. But it was unique as well.
It was a massive leap in quality and experience from the Abe games, but despite all of the missing pieces it's still a very interesting game. The weird dissonant soundtrack, the weird use of power ups, vending machines, incomprehensible structures described as 'Windmills', the weird stilted environments...

It's not the best, but I'll bellyflop into my grave acknowledging Munch's Oddysee as an extremely unique game more than anything else. It's tedious and often irritating, but there's nothing quite like it either. It's a special kind of bad and demonstrative that even grazing the content of Oddworld produces something bizarrely engaging, you can't help but ride Munch's Oddysee out just to see where it goes.