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I pretty much agree with you about the state of SoulStorm but I would argue that Oddworld's strongest aspect was the gameplay and the atmosphere. The story was never the outstanding aspect about Oddworld, although it was well-told in AO.
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Agreed. As for the story, I usually view it in close conjunction with the overall atmosphere and lore. For a visual medium such as a videogame atmosphere set up by graphic design is an integral part of storytelling. AO's story was fairly simple by itself but it was well enaugh to keep one engaged.
To be fair, I begin to doubt that they are going to pull off the dark atmosphere they promise. While the established Oddworld lore presents really good turf for a dark story, it's not enaugh. AO and MO are good examples. In AO everything was a potential threat and the game didn't care too much to openly inform you. This made you pay more attention to inspecting the world before taking action. When Abe got shot or gored by the creatures it looked brutal. I'm not saying that in Soulstorm they should animate a slog eating Abe's guts out in full detail but if you look at the way Abe's deaths were animated in AO they looked disturbing and painful enaugh to make one feel that vicious deaths and violence are not all that abstract in that world. This adds weight to the overal hostile atmosphere set up by the story and the environment.
In MO they completely lost that, adding all the goofy effects and making the animation cartoony. The action became too abstract. The story itself might have had a serious tone but it was not enaugh. There was a very steep contrast in overall tone comparing to the previous games, at least for me.
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Admiral Zaarin I completely agree with your reasoning (plus the addition of double jump!). You're completely right in why AO was loved and I would love a sequel true to the flavour of the original too.
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What has become of you, Abe, the double-jumping, bullet-sponging Sonic the Hedgehog of Oddworld?
All in all I'm worried that they're drifting towards the more casual, 'user-friendly' style which natually comes in opposition with having a darker, more serious atmosphere in line with the original game they keep promising. When OWI announced Soulstorm it was this promise that caught me. I was actually quite ready to accept major techical changes such as doing away with platforming genre in favor of something else and leaving out all the old locations from AE as long as that promise was kept.
For me the annoying thing is that OWI are seemingly aware of the drawbacks MO and N'n'T had since they are promising darker atmosphere and return to the old ways but yet there are symptoms indicating that we might not be getting it after all. I just hope I'm being too fearful about that and they keep the promise.