Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee

aka: Abe a Go Go, Oddworld - L'Odyssée d'Abe, SoulStorm
Moby ID: 1058
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Abe is a Mudokon, a member of a once prosperous race which has now been enslaved by the Glukkons, forced to work in their huge corporations. The food factories have found a new type of meat, delicious to all the inhabitants, though no one knows the recipe. Following his stomach, Abe eavesdrops on the corporate leaders' conversation and makes the most frightening and disgusting discovery: his own race is that secret delicious food.

Alas, Abe has been spotted, and the guards are marching towards him. He must escape, but he can't leave his friends to the mercy of the Glukkons and their henchmen. He must rescue as many as he can, and tell the world the truth about what he has found out.

Abe's Oddysee is the first game set in the fictional Oddworld universe. It is a platformer with puzzle-solving elements, focusing on the portrayal of a weak, underpowered character in a grim and hostile world, who has to rely on his cunning to outwit enemies and overcome hazards. Abe is almost completely helpless: he cannot use weapons and is usually instantly killed by his brutal enemies if he confronts them directly. For this reason, most of the game involves careful exploration, timed movement, sneaking, and outsmarting the foes through various means: throwing stones to confuse them, luring them into traps, etc. Abe can run, jump, climb, tiptoe, crouch, and roll; in most areas, these actions are essential to his survival. A few stages involve Abe riding a large animal known as Elum.

Abe's only special power is chanting, which he can use to stun certain enemies for a while or possess them. When Abe possesses an enemy he gains his abilities: for example, possessing the body or a ferocious Slig allows the player to shoot from his machine gun, communicate with other creatures of his kind, and even commit suicide, clearing the way for Abe.

Chanting is also used to open "bird portals", which is the final action needed to bring a fellow Mudokon to safety. Before that, Abe needs to locate his enslaved friends and lead them out of the hostile environment by using a communication method called "Gamespeak". Gamespeak is a way of verbal communication through simple commands, which are assigned to various expressions, such as "Hello", "Follow me", "Wait here", etc. It can also be used to memorize passwords given to Abe by other Mudokons in a few areas. Many areas in which Abe can save Mudokons are hidden and not required to complete the game. However, the ending of the game differs depending on the number of Mudokons saved by the player.

The game has pre-rendered background graphics and uses CG movies of similar style to advance the story between the levels.

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Credits (Windows version)

112 People (72 developers, 40 thanks) · View all

Executive Producer
Director
Production Design
Producer
Assistant Producer
Game Design
Lead Technical Director
Technical Directors
Lead Programming
Programming
Audio Producer
Sound Design & Music
Character Voices
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 85% (based on 44 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 112 ratings with 4 reviews)

Hard platformer

The Good
- very detailed, believable World - interaction with AI characters in the game - ambient soundtrack

The Bad
- sometimes super frustrating - you have to try some passages over and over again

The Bottom Line
Okay, this game is pretty unique! Though it uses recipes that had been there for a while - what I mean is the “trial and error - jump'n'puzzle” game, but adding a unique world with fascinating creatures and new gameplay elements like communication. The puzzles take some time to solve - and the game requires you to have good timing skills to perform the actions. Abe's Oddysee can get frustrating as you need to try some running and jumping parts over and over again to get to the goal. But it is also quite fun to get the "aha!" idea how to solve puzzles. In overall a very good game and the prerendered 2D graphics look good even today. The ambient soundtrack is a plus to the atmosphere of Oddworld.

PlayStation · by cosmo ruski (39) · 2011

It's like a spiritual experience

The Good
Recently, I have talked about the sequel (Abe's Exoddus) extensively, which is very similar to this game - looks similar, uses a lot of the same assets and gameplay mechanics, etc. Both are excellent games, but Exoddus polished out the rough aspects of Oddysee, and has a lot more content. Neither does help that playing Exoddus first made this one look a bit jankier. A.E. is the better game in general.

However, there is one aspect in Oddysee that I think is superior to Exoddus: The atmosphere! This game has such a uniquely sober, depressing, and contemplative mood to it, consistently in every aspect from the audiovisuals, down to the interactions with the Mudokons. It's a piece of evocative art come to life, even more so than Exoddus.

The Mudokon workers of RuptureFarms are... kind of creepy. You know that in Exoddus, the Mudokons can have different moods, and their voice sound more uplift in general. They also react with shock if they see the death of Abe or other fellows. However in Oddysee, they all sound so numb and deeply traumatised! It's a bit like they are dead on the inside. The little detail that they don't even bat an eye when Abe or a fellow dies a grizzly death right in front of them, implies that they see and live trough such horrid events on a daily basis, and they don't even care anymore. This is some North Korea level of sh*t.

Nowadays I find that in Exoddus, I don't care about the cutscenes. That is because the leisure manner and the childish humor in them (like "fourth wall" breaking moments) is bit distracting to the overall experience. Not that I hate it, Exoddus feels more liberated, where Abe is kind of a famous celebrity/terrorist, so it makes some sense. But here in Oddysee, the story in the cutscenes is told in a serious and poetic way, that is more appropriate with the oppressive feel of the gameplay. It makes the game's world more coherent and immersive overall!

Abe's journey is told in such an effective way, that we can easly sympathise with - even if the cutscenes are left out! Starting out as the punching bag of life, in the suffocating court of the dim and filthy slaughterhouse, with a desire to escape this horrid place to anywhere else. At this point, freeing the fellow workers is optional, just wanting to get away with your pathetic life, even if that means everybody else gets gassed for it. Then making a narrow escape from the inside of the factory, to the open air stockyards. Now we are able to see the smoke filled sky as the sun sets, but still not in safety, as the path is laid out with traps and corpses trough a wasteland. Finally making our way out into the nature, meeting with the natives, who propose you a challenge. Travelling to far away lands, to the ancient temples of the Mudokons, that are inhabited their sacred but wild (and deadly) animals, to ignite the all the flint locks and survive the trial. Gaining a mystical, Abe's life gets to a new goal: freeing the remaining Mudokons and shutting down RuptureFarms!

The Bad
That dreadful checkpoint system makes this otherwise hard game into extremely hard! There are very few checkpoints laid out troughout the levels. So if you die, you often are put way back, either to the start of the level, or to the last checkpoint, losing a lot of progress you made since. And so you have to repeat sections, that are often very difficult, and also have to keep saving the same Mudokons over again. Saving the game just saves the state of gameplay as it was at the last checkpoint when you reached it.

Worse yet in this game, you can command only one Mudokon at a time! That makes a lot of extra work to get all of them individually to safety.

The Bottom Line
Well, what can I say? Both Abe's Exoddus and Abe's Oddysee are my all time favourite games! They still hold up despite the remakes.

Many people complain that Oddysee is too hard, and a bit of chore to repeat things because of the checkpoint system. So now I want to brag, that I have beaten Oddysee the within the first week (of schooldays) I got it, saving all 99 Mudokons. That is because playing Exoddus before it was a very good training, and I have laboriously examined every inch and corner of platforms to find the hidden places and Mudokons. You can do it too!

Windows · by 1xWertzui (1135) · 2024

Riddle Me this Platformer

The Good
Graphics in the game are what you'd get out of a steampunk movie with the grisly details of a slaughterhouse. Although the detail is top-notch, only the correct settings can allow you to fully enjoy the cutscenes without frame skipping. What adds to the level art is that the background is just as busy as the layout of the level, making it a convincingly realistic place.

While there is no proper tutorial in the game, the hint messages you get at least help you practice the moves. It will come as a surprise to find hidden rooms where you're expected to have forehand knowledge of the gameplay to rescue the Mudokons and escape them alive. The more you progress, the more interesting challenges await you, ranging from disarming traps to stealth to mind-controlling Sligs. You essentially have all the means at your disposal to get through the levels, which is half the challenge, and rescuing at least 50 Mudokons for the good ending is the other half. And if you get tired of the main game, it's fun to play with Abe's speech.

The Bad
The controls are nowhere near as tight as they should be. If you're accustomed to cinematic platformers like Blackthorne, you'd expect to be able to pull off a move or action with the light tap of a button, but then you find Abe killed before you've made your running jump or climb. You can make better jumps on Prince of Persia. And the running is so sensitive, you'll find yourself thrust forward to the middle of the screen before you have the chance to stop. While it's okay for getting across rooms faster, it's not okay when trying to hurry from one dangerous room to the next. When throwing a grenade, pressing up makes you throw it forward and pressing the opposing direction makes you throw it upwards. That doesn't even make any sense. The throwing direction should correspond with the arrow keys. Furthermore, there's no arc indicator to tell you exactly where the grenade will land, you just have to experiment.

As if the game wasn't difficult enough, there are some annoyances that should have been stamped out, such as secret portals permanently vanishing if you skip them and platform edges that don't let you climb down, you just crouch instead. The lack of checkpoints in the more desired rooms adds to the frustration, so expect Abe and/or other Mudokons to die lots of times until you've rehearsed the precise steps and moves, sometimes ruined by the unpredictable behaviour of the Sligs.

The Bottom Line
You think you're a master at cinematic platformers? Well you don't know Oddworld. The difficulty is ramped up way more than Broderbund's, Delphine Software's or even Blizzard Software's platformers. For the most part, you're going to need a lot more luck than reflex to play this one perfectly. But learning patterns and steps is where the fun really gets to players. No matter how hard it gets, you know you want this title. With the amount of carnage and meat processing, you'd best hope it doesn't put you off your next hamburger.

Windows · by Kayburt (30354) · 2021

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

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Oddworld Inhabitants made a TV commercial for Abe's Oddysee called "Guardian Angel", which features the shrink, a strange spider-like robot that warns Abe about his oncoming adventures. Eventually, this commercial got cancelled because it could scare children. Rumors say that the shrink was originally supposed to be a boss in the game but it was "cut out". According to Oddworld Inhabitants, shrinks are robots, whose purpose is to keep the captive Mudokon mother happy in order to produce eggs for the industrialists. Shrinks were also supposed to appear in Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, but they were left out.

Endings

There are two different endings. If Abe save less than 50 Mudokons, the player sees a bad ending. Bonuses are awarded for killing more than 76 or saving all 99 Mudokons. In the PlayStation version, the reward for saving all Mudokons is the "Guardian Angel" commercial described above.

Fingers

In this first Oddworld game, the Mudokons had four-fingered hands, but in later Oddworld games, they have three-fingered hands. This was changed after complaints from the Japanese government. Four-fingered characters are offensive to the Japanese, because Japanese meat-workers will often lose a finger (thus making them four-fingered). To make it extra ironic, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee begins and ends in a meat factory.

References to the game

This game is referenced in the Eiffel 65 song My Console.

Voice acting

Oddworld Inhabitants boss Lorne Lanning provided every voice heard in the game.

Awards

  • Electronic Gaming Monthly
    • March 1998 (Issue 104) - Best Graphics Runner-Up
    • March 1998 (Issue 104) - Best Sound
    • March 1998 (Issue 104) - Side-Scrolling Game of the Year Top Write-In (Readers' Choice)
    • March 1998 (Issue 104) - Strategy Game of the Year Top Write-In (Readers' Choice)
    • March 1998 (Issue 104) - Best Graphics Runner-Up (Readers' Choice)
    • March 1998 (Issue 104) - Best Sound Runner-Up (Readers' Choice)
    • 1998 Buyer's Guide - Best Voice Acting
    • 1998 Buyer's Guide - Hottest Game Hunk Runner-Up (Abe)
    • 1998 Buyer's Guide - Best Intro Runner-Up
  • New York Festivals Awards
    • 2002 - 3 Gold Medals for Best Computer Generated Images
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 01/1999 - Best Action-Adventure in 1998

Information also contributed by Jeanne, Lain Crowley, Little Yoda, Qlberts and Wertzui.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MAT.

PSP, PlayStation 3 added by Charly2.0. PS Vita added by GTramp. Android added by CrankyStorming. PlayStation 5, OnLive, PlayStation 4 added by firefang9212. PlayStation added by Grant McLellan. DOS added by Crawly.

Additional contributors: Roedie, J. Michael Bottorff, Shoddyan, Alaka, Pseudo_Intellectual, DreinIX, Cantillon, Barbarian_bros, Patrick Bregger.

Game added March 16, 2000. Last modified March 11, 2024.