this time the puzzles are gone and its time to bring out yer dead as oddworld goes western!.
in the game you play the stranger, a bounty hunter of sorts, no one knows who he is or were he came from, and they dont really want to know.
at the start all we know is that the stranger needs a lot of moolah to pay for a complex operation he needs.
so he does this the only way he knows how. collecting bountys. and for the first 2 thirds of this game thats the story right there and you'll fight these no good varmints in a variety of locations mines, a graveyard showdown, and even native american style ruins some of these places are littered with statues that look a lot like the stranger himself only with four legs instead of two and horns.....
little things like this keep you coming back ,not least to find out what this msyterious operation is.
this is pretty free roaming and goes from dustball towns in the desert to buslingtowns near great rivers, like ''new-yolk city''.
see the reason for this pun is this part of odd world, conveinienty on the other side of the planet to abes swamp laden home, is inhabitet by chicken men with southern accents, i could use a kfc joke here but that would be lame.
the enemys and outlaws are all kind off mutant lizard folk kinda like the ones from past oddworld games, only less technologically advanced and slightly more humanoid.
the gameplay in this is pretty unique the third person mode is for your standard platfroming areas like rope climbing jumping and other such things.
the first person is where this game truly sticks ouut from the bunch, click the right analouge stick to go into fps mode and your exuiped with a cross-bow of sorts and your weapon of choice is, well anything that looks remotley damgerous. stranger uses the critters of oddworld as weapons, remember the fuzzles?, well in this game there lures that ,when fired bring an enemy towards them others explode and fire like a machine ,all kinds of different effects, each with a more powerful upgrade, this idea works well as some ammo is rare others not so rare, and you have to seek out the nests of these creatures to catch your ammo. i liked this as its pretty easy but a nice touch to the overall gameplay experience.
the controls are overall responsive with no lag and the only gripe i have is that the melee really doesnt have any real chances to be implemented as the enemys are surprisingly powerful right off the bat.
graphics wise this games is spectacular ,it really gives it the feel of the old west, but with chicken men and as you progress some areas are really impress and on par with farcrys sense of scale. for example later on you arrive at a snowy beach while a towns being raided, explotions are going off and enemies are everywere and this looked every bit as impressive as the d day landings in call of duty, granted they dont look realistic but they have an artistic flair and really mix the old west stylinggs with oddworlds quirkyness and i liked it overall and cant find anything to speak ill of, so full marks for graphics.
sound wise though this game really is nothing spectacular the sounds are basic and tend to lag a little and this does cause problems when the characters are speaking in a cutscene and i think this let down an otherwise great game.
value wise its a long and large game but theres not THAT much insentive to go through it all again, but if you really liked it i suppose you could.
now finally id like to give my veiw on the enemies , the enemies in this game range from easy as hell to the stronger ones being a complete bee-yatch to kill , which is hard considering if you catch them alive, while stars spin around them then there worth more and there fire power is almost comedic in its intensity, and you can find youself in trouble if your surrounded by 4 gyus at once.
health wise there are no healths in this game and the way to regain health (which i only discovered half way through - listen to the tutorial!) is to shake off your wounds like a dog, this comes in the form of a blue stamina bar that gradually, if a bit too slowly replenishes itself continuosly this makes you think a little more about fighting than just running in cross-bows blazing.
overall it evens out with the difficulty of the bad guys, but one word of warning this games final boss is tough.
overall i was pleasantly surprised by this above average game and i would love to see a sequel. it is'nt just a standard shooter or platformer.
if you like fps games you'll love this as will fans off oddworld, its too long to finish in a rental and its a worthy addition to any gamers collection.