A short, but Awesome game!
Graphics:
This game to date is the best looking action-adventure game yet, it is also one of the best looking Xbox games ever! Let’s just say the graphics are so good that this is the cartoon version of the Chronicles of Riddick. First of all, Oddworld stranger has very original characters and the art-style is just beautiful. The textures in this game are some of the best textures in a console game. Let’s talk about the environments now, all I can say is "wow". The scenery is so beautiful in this game it will make you cry. I can’t believe its so good looking even though this is very big game. The water is also very, very well done, probably the best water in a console game to date. Then there are the "live ammo" creatures witch are very interesting looking and get even more interesting when they get upgraded towards the end of the game. Stranger, the main character overall looks great, but some of the enemies are just poor as well as some of the towns folks. Another bad thing is that they overuse the same character models too much, which takes away personality. But back to the good parts! The CG cut scenes are very amazing looking even though there are only a handful of them, to be more exact, there were only 5. The intro, 3 cut-scenes and the end movie! Well that’s about it, awesome ass graphics for this game!
Audio:
This is probably the worst part of the game, it’s not bad, but compared to the rest of the game, it falls short. The reason why it is the worst part is because some of the voice overs are very annoying, scratchy and have the same type of voice. This makes the characters lose personality. I don’t understand why they couldn’t make it as good as the CG cut-scenes? That’s probably the only thing that’s wrong with the audio, but it sure does bring it down a bit....For the music, its cool. The first 10hrs, the music is really good, and fits the mood perfectly. After the 10hrs, it starts to become epic and really shows off how awesome this game is! Overall, the audio is very well done...
Gameplay:
Now here's a game that flawlessly combines 3rd-person and First-person action into a wonderful game! Let me start off with the character stranger, he is a bounty hunter who is trying to obtain 20000 grand for a secret surgery. So he has a couple of melee attacks in third-person, when you press the L button, he does a spin punch, when you press R he does a head but. And also, while in the third person you can run very fast to escape enemies and do some jumping puzzles. But the core of the game is shooting, and it works very well with the puzzle and strategy elements that some of the very difficult boss battles throw at you. Now, you have 10 upgradeable ammo "things", they are all highly original and later in the game they get upgraded into even more vicious and awesome creatures. Another cool thing is that you hunt for your ammo, instead of buying which you can still do but it ill cost you "moolah". Anyway, so the first half of the game you travel to towns trying to hunt down bounties which will give you moolah and help you pay for your surgery. When you meet the bounties, you have a boss battle, a very difficult boss battle. There are about 12 bounty boss battles in the game and MOST of them are pretty different and unique from each other. But after the first half of the game *Small Spoiler* the bounties don’t matter and the money you made is all gone after the plot twist. So you end up thinking why did you save your moolah for the surgery if you could have just bought all the upgrades and amour and stuff. But then you realize all your live ammo is upgraded. This will piss you off at first but then you become cool with it and you go along with the awesome story! *Spoiler Over*
Anyway, let’s get back to the enemies. They are pretty smart most of the time and are difficult to beat up. Capturing them alive will give you more moolah, but capturing them dead won’t give you as much. As I mentioned, this game can be pretty difficult at times, but you can shake your self and your health will get back up, but there is a stamina meter and the enemies take a lot of damage so it is pretty well balanced. But after the first half of the game which is western, the game really starts to show its greatness. After the plot twist, which got me by surprise, the action and fun factor starts to jump off the scale! The second half of the game is what it’s all about! The gameplay becomes very different from each thing you do. You now use more strategy then ever, and have the most fun too! I don’t want to spoil anything but let me just say, the fun, plot and everything else becomes just very unique and becomes a true adventure and just very satisfying. Overall, this is one of the best action adventure games made and will stand out from the rest because of its uniqueness, especially after the plot twist!
Value:
It took me about 18hrs to beat the game, but I never tried to search for things or just mess around, for the most part I just tried to do my missions. You will be stuck to your couch until you beat this game. There is also reason to play this game over a couple of times and just mess around at some of the towns in the game. Redoing some bosses and watching the amazing CG cut scenes will also make this game stay longer in your Xbox. I can see someone playing this game for only about 30-40hrs tops though. But please pick this game up (or rent it), not for how long you will be playing it, but how unique it is!
-----------------OddWorld Stranger's Wrath-------------------