You'll get both a lot of agreement and opposition here, Moodokon Man. Personally, I agree that the characters in Oddworld 4 are shaping up... not too good. Blame that on the absense of Farzad Varahramyan, whose art and design was almost the life of Oddworld - he will be sorely missed, and judging from the chickens, salamanders and such, he is already. Unfortunately, it's something we're more than likely just to have to put up with, which is incredibly sad. However, bear in mind that the footage from the X-Factor video is over a year old, so potentially the character designs have changed for the better.
The chickens are arrogant townsfolk, but their role is unknown. It looks like their going to be providing the 'comic' relief. I put the word 'comic' in inverted comics, because talking about 'pork and beans' is not funny. At all. Especially since pork doesn't even exist on Oddworld.
The Steef is a centaur by nature. I agree it's more of a cut-and-paste design than the previously original species like Scrabs, Vykkers et al, but don't feel too bad about his design, because you probably haven't seen the salamanders or blob yet - man, you do not want to get your hopes up about them: disappointment central.
