Score
Gameplay:	8
Graphics:	9
Sound:	7
FunFactor:	8
PlasmaFactor:	9
Overall:	8.2

Oddworld Stranger's Wrath Review
April 10, 2005 by Mike Lanier

by Mike Lanier - April 10, 2005

A chippunk is making the most annoying racket imaginable. A sentry walks over to it and starts beating the crap out of it with his gun. He spots you and calls another guard over. Before either of them can fire you shoot a stunkz their way. The smell is so awful that they both start throwing up uncontrollably. While they�re incapacitated you vacuum them into a special device and relax for a moment. These two will earn you a little extra scratch. Good thing they were puking and not bleeding; they�re worth more dead than alive. Now it�s time to move on . . ..Stranger.

Play With The Animals

You remember Oddworld Inhabitants? They�re the guys that Made Abe�s Oddysee, Abe�s Exodus, and Munch�s Oddysee (three of the most unique and funny platformers ever created). Well they�ve got a new game. You guessed it, it�s a . . .. first person shooter? No, seriously, the new Oddworld Game, Oddworld: Stranger�s Wrath is a first person shooter. In a time where we�ve played Halo 2, Far Cry, and Half-Life 2, what could a production house with no prior first person shooters under their belt possibly bring to the table? The answer is simple: some of the most innovative and challenging gameplay you�ve ever experienced.

In Stranger, you play as The Stranger (surprise!), a bounty hunter who is earning money to buy an operation he needs for survival. You�ll be able to move from town to town in a fairly linear fashion collecting bounties and talking to residents RPG-style. The Stranger captures defeated bounties by sucking them into a collection device on his arm. If a bounty is dead this process is quick, if he�s not he�ll resist and it takes a little longer. The flip side of this is live bounties earn you more money. At any time you can switch from the 1st person perspective to 3rd. This not only affects your view of the game, but also offers a few additional moves. While in 3rd person you can do a spin attack (a la Crash Bandicoot) and gallop, given enough free room to run. While in 1st person you can shoot two different types of ammo and melee attack with your left fist. In either view the Stranger can perform a double jump, but platforming is definitely easier in 3rd person.

The first thing that separates Stranger from other FPS games is the ammo. Oddworld Inhabitants have taken the notion of �live ammo� at its most literal interpretation. You won�t fire a single bullet, grenade, or rocket in this game. Disappointed? You shouldn�t be. Stranger provides weapons that do everything typical FPS guns do, and then some. Instead of the typical starting pistol you�ll have zapflies. You never run out of ammo for these, but you can only fire off a few shots at a time. If you wait long enough before firing, the zapflies will build up a charge that can stun enemies or detonate explosives. As you progress through the game you�ll also find chippunks, that attract enemies by being horrendously annoying, fuzzles, that you can fire at enemies or leave as a sort of living proximity mine, and all other strange creatures. There are two ways to acquire ammo. You can find boxes of these creatures or you can hunt them. Say you find a pile of bones in a field. Chances are you�ll see some fuzzles around. Shoot them with zapflies and you can capture them for later use. Hunting your ammunition becomes very important as you face more and more enemies because your enemies do have guns. Downed enemies won�t give you ammo like in other FPS games. It�s up to you to hunt or otherwise find ammo and go into firefights prepared.

In addition to an innovative ammo system, Stranger also combines the FPS action with some platforming and stealth elements. Whenever you encounter enemies a radar will appear showing enemy locations and where those enemies are looking. Anyone who�s played a Metal Gear Solid game will be familiar with the cones of sight on the radar, but that�s all you get. The radar does not display a map. This isn�t a huge problem, but a lot of times you will find yourself in an open field with only a few rocks for cover and a dynamic map/radar will start seeming more important. There are some sections in the game where you can hide in thickets of tall grass, but these are infrequent and almost seem like they were added as an afterthought. Stealth aside, the firefights in Stranger is great. The controls are tight and reminiscent of Halo. Enemies have very decent aim and AI. They will team up on you, call other enemies into the fray, and basically do everything they can to bring you down. Shooting is the bread and butter of this game and it works very well.

Lookee Thar!

Before I get into it I�ll say this: Oddworld: Stranger�s Wrath is a beautiful game. It might not have the bump mapping of Halo 2, the dynamic shadows of Doom 3, or the crisp spectacular highlighting of Half-Life 2, but it�s got something just as good: style. This game is dripping with style. Now don�t misunderstand me, Stranger�s graphical �wow factor� isn�t entirely style based. The main character model sports self-shadowing, all the models in the game are well modeled, textured, and animated, and the environments are gorgeous. It�s just that seeing Old West-style towns, with neon signs and rustic escalators, looks great, regardless of the engine pumping out the graphics.

The environments in Stranger are probably the first things you�ll notice. These areas are huge . You�ll find yourself fighting through towns and up canyon walls until you�re so high and far from where you started that the ground seems like an old memory. Look up and you�ll see the sun gives off beautiful lens flares and sports a great bloom-lighting effect. Aside from just being large, the environments are exceptionally well designed and textured. In any town walk up to a wooden house in 1st person mode and the textures on the wall will be crisp no matter how close you get. The other great thing about the environments is their diversity. Throughout the course of the game you�ll see deserts, forests, lakes, factories, and even a snowy, war-torn city with a D-day style beach, complete with ominous hovering warships. There are some nice depth-of-field and particle effects speckled throughout, but it�s the diversity, size, and attention to detail in Stranger�s environments that push this games graphics to a place mere processing power simply can�t.

Whassat You Said?

In an otherwise stellar game this is where Stranger loses some points. The music is minimal, but suits the mood. Short, clean strains fuel the Old West vibe. The sounds for the ammo are really good. The chippunks will talk to you and say some funny things, the fuzzles grunt and generally sound creepy, and the thudslugs you fire hit enemies with a meaty (you guessed it) thud. All of this is actually really great, but the dialogue in here gets pretty annoying. I understand a lot of the character voices and phrasing in Stranger are meant to push the humor and they do. It�s just that I can only hear �I got�s to . . .� so many times before it grates on me. Also, when the stranger double jumps (which you�ll have to do a lot) he only has two or three grunting samples, meaning you�ll be hearing �EUUUGHH!� and �HUAH!� a lot before you finish this game. Chicken townsfolk talk in squeaky, clucking voices while everyone in the lizard tribe you meet later on talks like Bobcat Goldthwait with a lung full of helium. Other sound effects are clean and functional and the surround sound works well.

The sound in Stranger isn�t bad by any means, its just average. And in a game that breaks away and innovates so much that�s kind of disappointing.

Old-Timey Fun

So you know this game is unique. You know it�s pretty and innovative. Does that make it fun? The answer is maybe. Stranger innovates with new weapon types and the ability to switch perspectives, changing your gameplay options on the fly, but having fun in this game comes down to you buying into the world and enjoying first person shooters. The enemies will team up on you and if you�re not careful and don�t hunt enough ammo you�ll be seeing the �Try Again, Stranger� screen ad nauseam. Also, some of the bosses have very formulaic strategies (like old-school bosses), which seems weird since the AI in the game is pretty good otherwise. In addition to that this is a relatively short game. You�ll probably be able to get through it in about 18 hours the first time. Like I said, though, buying into the world is what will make it fun.

Stranger�s story isn�t Shakespeare, but its presentation is top-notch. You�ll want to earn more money to find out about The Stranger�s mysterious surgery (which leads to a couple great twists I won�t ruin). The dialogue, though sometimes annoying, is funny and there are little touches like enemies poking at your dead body that make this an easy game to keep playing. If you�re somebody who�s not into first person shooters this probably isn�t the game that will bring you over. But, if you like FPS games at all, and are looking for something different, this game delivers some great challenge and fun.

Thar�s Plasma in Them Thar Hills!

Oddworld: Stranger�s Wrath gets extra points for not only being different, but pulling it off with a cohesive storyline, great graphics, and genuinely fun gameplay. I�ve already said this game is unique, but I can�t say that enough. After just a few minutes of playing Stranger you�ll know this game is different, and that�s a good thing. Oddworld Inhabitants gave us some great platformers and now they�ve given us a great FPS that�s totally unlike any game you�ve ever experienced.

 

Sometimes Stranger is Better

Stranger could have just been different, but that wouldn�t have been enough. A unique style and humor are cool. Innovative weapon systems are nice. Beautiful environments and some great humor are great too, but Stranger manages to be greater than the sum of its parts. This game messes with the FPS formula enough to separate itself without straying to far. The result is something new, something that works surprisingly well, and something that (if you buy into it) will keep you wanting to play until the game is over.