The Xbox classic receives an HD facelift as it's crammed into the tiny constraints of the Vita handheld.
You take the role of a bounty hunter known only as Stranger. There isn't much story to this mysterious fellow. You only know that he's the last of his kind, and he needs secretive operation to save his life, which will cost him 20,000 dollars. Bounty hunting isn't a glorious profession, and it will take him quite a lot of bounties before he gets that much money, but he needs to do it. So, we see our Stranger roam from one clakker (chicken people) filled town to the next rounding up all the outlaws he can. Little does he know that destiny's about to throw him a very special curveball...
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath is a first-person shooting game, and it's a third-person action platformer. When Stranger isn't involved in shooting at outlaws, he can roam around in third-person, which allows him to move faster. He can double jump and climb ropes and spin around and headbutt baddies in close combat. When in first-person mode, Stranger's equipped with his crossbow that gives new meaning to live ammunition.
Every round of ammunition you equip is actually a critter that Stranger hunts for and collects throughout the world. Most of the ammo types are damage dealing, from rapid fire Stingbees to homing Boombats to powerful Thudslugs that knock enemies down. Others can be used as lures and traps, such as the Chippunks that flap their yaps drawing enemies to them, Fuzzles that can be placed on the ground and will start attacking anyone who goes near and Bolamites, which incapacitate enemies by webbing them up.
The game starts out with you bagging your first bounty, and then walks you through a very helpful tutorial. When you make your way to the first town, you enter the bounty store to cash out and then accept a new bounty. You then venture out to the next area looking for the bounty while stringing up other outlaws that you come across. In order to capture an outlaw, you have to either stun them with your Zappflies or knock them out some other way. Then, you can just stand over them and suck them up into your little bounty container....thingy. Of course, if you kill your enemies, their corpses greatly devalue, so it's in your best interest to play the game by picking them off one by one.
Once you return to town with your next bounty, you can then check out the general store where you can stock up on ammo and buy armor and other upgrades. You can buy binoculars as well, which lets you scope out enemy territory at a distance so you can plan your approach. Once you have the binoculars, you can acquire Sniper Wasps, which lets you snipe outlaws for one-shot kills. There may also be a hidden shop or two lying around the towns, so keep an eye open or you could miss out on key upgrades.
Stranger can regenerate health by shaking off the damage that's inflicted upon him by using a self-regenerating stamina bar, but that by no means makes the game a cakewalk. The game is as easy or as hard as you make it, and plays as fast or as slow as you want it. If you go in guns blazing, you'll learn the hard way that it may not pay off, because enemy fire hurts. A lot. You'll find that you'll be hightailing it to cover to shrug off the damage before you can go back in and finish the fight. The other downside to playing this way is you'll lose a lot of money from dead bounties. The smarter and slower way is to lure them out with Chippunks and thin their numbers before you go charging in. The big outlaws can also provide some serious challenges, and some are even harder to the point of nigh impossible to capture alive. This makes Stranger's Wrath a game where every battle may not be as straightforward as you think.
The Vita version suffers from some control issues since its physical button layout isn't as complete as console controllers. The Xbox version used clickable thumbsticks to switch perspectives and to melee in first-person view, but the Vita doesn't have those. Instead, you double tap the touch screen to switch view modes, and you tap the rear touch pad to melee in first-person. You also need to pinch the rear touch pad to access your binoculars and sniper rifle. The problem with these rear touch pad controls is just how big the Vita's touch pad is. Some gamers will find themselves constantly meleeing and switching to binoculars accidentally because their fingers naturally rest on the touch pad. Even double tapping the touch screen to switch modes doesn't always work, so this means gameplay does get affected in the heat of battle as accidents can happen frequently. You really need to train your fingers to rest on the very edge of the Vita, which can be uncomfortable for some people.
J.A.W. did an excellent job making the game look very nice on the Vita. The high-definition graphics in conjunction with the Vita's brilliant screen make the game look even nicer than it did when it was on the Xbox, and it was one of the better looking games of its generation back then. Character models are beefed up with higher polygon counts, and textures have been accentuated with new effects such as self-shawdowing. The detailing is excellent, especially on the little critters resting on your crossbow in first-person mode. Environments contain excellent art direction that deliver a wonderful yet foreign sense of the Old West. The only real problem visually is that game doesn't always hold a solid frame rate. There are the occasional stutters, but it never slows down long enough to impact gameplay, and there are very minute pauses in the game when Stranger accesses new areas. Also, the FMV cutscenes are a bit on the grainy side, and should have been touched up.
The sound design for the most part is terrific, but it has one major flaw. The clakkers in town simply will not shut up once you attack them, either on purpose or on accident. They'll keep saying, "Now settle down there, you crazy varmit!" or "Cut that out you stanky turd!" so often that they will drawn out the person you're trying to talk to. When you're not being annoyed by the clakkers, the voice acting is rather enjoyable, with Stranger's performance being the stand out. He's gruff, burly and speaks with a pause to showcase just how rough of a character he is. The sound effects are done very well with lots of noisy bings, bangs and booms when firefights are underway. The soundtrack is nice to listen to as well, and it fits the western theme of the game perfectly.
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD is $14.99. What does that 15 bucks get you? Well, it gets you Stranger's Wrath and that by itself is worth the money, especially if appreciate original and quirky games. It also gets you a faithfully restored game with improved visuals that holds it own against the best looking retail Vita games. The only real drawbacks are poor implementation of rear touch pad controls, and the game is extremely cheap in its final moments. If you have a PS3, it might worth buying that version instead so you can play with a proper controller or even Move support. If you are in need of a really good Vita game, however, get acquainted with this Stranger.