Hiya, Moodokon Man, I haven't seen you in a while, so welcome back. The beef with the Steef is that Oddworld 4 is not actually part of the Quintology, but it will run concurrently with the evolution of the Quintology. What this means, we can assume, is that characters, environments and results that take place in the game could all potentially 'flavour' the overall story of the Quintology. It certainly takes place in the Oddworld Universe we're used to, and in Mudos, but the Steef (or The Stranger, as we suspect he will be refered to as in the game) will not be the third Quintology hero, which is a common misbelief. That honour more than likely still goes to Squeek.
As for our complaints about MO, well, there are two sides to the story. Yes, they had to work to a deadline, especially following the technical and programming difficulties encountered with PS2, and true, they were programming a 3D game space for the first time, and it's true also they revealed a lot of their development plans before the game came out, revealing plot lines, characters, environments and such long before it was decided they wouldn't be included in the game, but a single list of explanations will reveal the depth of our disappointment with MO.
We can excuse the poor level design, lack of decent AI and dreadful gamespeak because of deadlines. We can also forgive there being a distinct lack of cinematic footage, and following on from that the terrible teleporters. Unfortunately they're not the only things to protrude from continuity and style - the Mudokons are no longer peace-loving, they've been beefed up and are now carrying weapons, which clearly is against their nature, while Glukkons, Scrabs and Paramites have all changed their voices - and not for the better. OWI didn't even bother using samples from the past games. Mudokons now use ridiculously out-of-character phrases, while Sligs and Vykkers insult each other, something which would seem to contradict their personalities. Abe can suddenly do somersaults, and there is absolutely no excuse for that, neither is there any for the characters actually bouncing off the walls and floor - that's just screwed up: it's childish, not funny, and not at all ALIVE.
The environments are pretty drab, too. Indoors we can unimpressive, spartan environments, while outdoors is full of nothing but endless cartoon green, not to mention the infamous cloudy edges - to take things one step further, it's very apparent that each environment is not an environment crafted into a level, but vice versa, giving the entire game a very artificial feel, which is devastating after playing through the beautiful backdrops of the first two games. Munch hardly has any role in the game whatsoever, most of the gameplay seemingly Abe's. Oh, and then there are Fuzzles and Meeps, quite unimpressive characters (their final iterations being done after Farzad left OWI). Oh, and the in-level music is a bit tacky. Not to mention resurrection shrines actually go against one of the on-goings plots of the Quintology, which is that only by exploring their religion and spirituality will Mudokons find the power to transcend death.
So, while there are several very good reasons for the disappointing aspects of Munch's Oddysee, when you examine it, there are even more very good reasons to be disappointed in the game. It's still a good game, though, and if you're willing to look carefully enough, there are several levels of gameplay and depth that you can create for it.
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cant wait.
