Out of This World

The Good
The best things about this game is its super-slick presentation; beautiful graphics, haunting music and stunning cut-scenes. The way it mixed these jaw-dropping cut-scenes with its gameplay sections was the most unique thing of all. Half-Life is praised for its sublime storytelling abilities, but Another World (aka Out Of This World) made the first step in creating the first fully cinematic, but still gripping and engrossing, game. Eric Chahi should be praised for making the leap from gameplay to storytelling seem so smooth to the player. Truly a milestone in gaming history for being the first game to manage to mix story and gameplay so effortlessly.

The Bad
Sadly the gameplay sections themselves are not that much fun to play. Each section is really nothing more than a basic sub-game and are often extremely annoying and fiddly. The mid-section of the game (where the hero must navigate catacombs) is so incredibly frustrating that I imagine most players gave up or simply cheated. The worst aspects of the gameplay have you repeating the same task over and over until you manage to pull it off perfectly.

The Bottom Line
Thankfully, through its poor gameplay and level design, Another World still manages to satisfy and frustrate is just enough equal measures to keep you coming back for more. The later sections of the game are particularly satisfying. In all, Another World might not be the most fun game to play, but it's certainly one you should experience!

The Good
Truly an "art house" game if there ever was one, Out of this World is one of those rare gems that make you somehow proud of being a computer gamer, I mean... geez, what a game!

Well, actually, what an odd game! Loaned to me as a "sci-fi" Prince of Persia, this game belongs to an era when the technical constraints seriously limited the creative capabilities of the designers. Thus they had to work around that, and in that way ended giving us much better content than if they had free rein. Much like in the late golden era of Hollywood, when the use of the Hays code of censorship meant that the filmmakers had to insinuate all they couldn't say out loud, and generally work out the holes of the system and "smart it out". It is a pretty general conception that the main bulk of movies made in that period where much better than the loads of crap the studios started churning once the code was removed, and in fact, people like Hitchcock made their best movies in that period... I guess for all the problems they cause challenges bring the best in each one eventually, right? And that's exactly what challenges brought to this era of gaming and particularly to this game.

Want to see how to tell a really touching story about friendship when no voice overs, pre-rendered cutscenes or award-winning script writers are around? Play this game.

Want to see how to develop an engrossing gameplay experience relying only on 6 keys, no inventory, no health indicators, no nothing? Play this game.

Want to see how one can be transported to a truly alien world using nothing but what seems to be different shades of blue, and an early generation soundtrack? Play this game.

Want to bla, bla , bla... Etc, etc, etc? Play this game. Probably no other game screams so subtly the real power behind videogames. The real power to convey emotions that never sink to cheapness, to entertain with an actual content, to be so much a masterpiece of imagination as to ignite a spark that rivals a book's literary prowess (and mind you, I am most certainly NOT one of those fools that scream how videogames can be as good as any work of literature and the only thing they have ever read are Superman comics).

The Bad
I don't think I can objectively write anything in here. Out of this World was a real shock to me when I first played it as a kid. I had pretty much no idea what I was getting into, and it was only as the years went by that I fully grasped it and replayed it several times. I am still amazed at how still at that time, expecting to end the game jumping over some monster's head 3 times, or shoot some baddie in the ass I found myself mulling over the ending and even tough I couldn't grasp it all, I still thought to myself "Damn, this is special". Out of this World is one of the games that shaped my view of the videogame world, one of the few that showed me that you could take the same thing that gave you Mario, but make it into something much, much more engrossing (mind you, I am well aware that many games before and after did this, but at the time they were pretty obscure to me, and the few that were around really crossed the line for a kid my age. I mean, sure Wasteland came out earier, and was as mature (in the content-wise meaning of it) as Out of This World is, but I didn't give a flying fuck about realistic roleplaying, text parsers, or crap like that at that age! Say what you will of it, but Out of This World really grabbed me even then. It's a part of me by now. I can't really say anything bad about it.

... Tough on retrospect Lester really had a pretty gay name.... :))

The Bottom Line
Some people have Mario, I guess I have Out of This World. It takes a special game to brand someone like that, and this game does just that, it comes to you with the promise of being just another platformer, and it leaves much, much more. Get it. Now.

Hmmm... Wait a sec. I see now as I re-read this thing that I've done what I always hate when someone else does it: I waxed poetry and touchy-feely crap and I didn't really tell you why the game rules so! Ok, sorry for that, here it is:

Superb gameplay that combines simple yet silky smooth controls with excellent visual coordination and deduction puzzles. Incredible graphics with the best animation this side of Prince of Persia (and all done without any Hollywood stuntman wearing pin-pong balls) and a striking graphic design filled with jagged edges, weird formations and all sort of cool expressionist stuff, great sound and a remarkably touching story with one of the best endings in the history of videogames.

That's about it! Now go!

The Good
Out of this World is largely the work of just one man, Eric Chahi. He has managed to create a game that is more satisfying than nearly any modern game you will have played in the past five years, and perhaps more satisfying than any you have ever played. There were no games like Out of this World before it came out, and the later imitations can't quite capture the unique spirit of their inspirational source. It's simply that good. While the gameplay is nearly beyond reproach, the best traits of this classic are its imagination, its gorgeous design, and above all its trust in the player's ability to imagine, to commit to the alien world on its terms.

The beginning of the game shows you one major ingredient of the game's genius, when the primitive vector graphics are displayed in fully-animated glory during the opening cinematic. The crude shapes would seem cheap and disappointing if not for the precision and elegance with which they are employed--cinematic angles and an engaging trust in the player's imagination serve to make these primitive scenes interesting even today. Lester's fancy car squeals into view, and we are treated to some of the green hologram-like interfaces Flashback fans will be intimately familiar with as we watch a physics expert burning the midnight oil. Something goes wrong during particle acceleration, and suddenly Lester and most of his console disappear with a flash of blue sparks and light.

Immediately, you are thrown into the game. Lester must escape from the pool and the grasping tentacles or face what will likely be the first of many, many deaths. Once out of the pool, you can appreciate the appealing sparseness of the alien landscape. With pale, simple blocks of color, an evocative alien world is realized: misty pillars of rock trail off into the horizon below a crescent moon; a beast colored an impenetrable black lopes into view and looks at you with red eyes. And then a tentacle reaches for you from the heretofore calm pool surface and it's time to move again.

From this bleak, lonely landscape that emphasizes sheer scope and emptiness the player travels to a claustrophobic cage, to a deadly alien tank, and to a swingin' harem--all the while that cinematic touch to the scenery rarely fails to amaze. Enemies are more than dimwitted patterns that are learned and consequently no longer require thought--the cinematic design goes down to individual enemy behavior. The puzzles come down to how exactly to defeat the alien who is behind six energy shields and lobs energy bombs that can penetrate your own, or how to defeat two soldiers who come in at both sides simultaneously. All the while the story is being told by your actions, and those of your surprisingly expressive alien friend. After you attract the ire of the guard below your cage, when he fires his gun another guard appears to watch the action in the background. When you crush the guard below you with your falling cage, the prisoners in the background stop breaking rocks as you grab the gun and flee. At no point is there a rote procession of action that involves the same stale maneuvers used just a screen ago--nearly every enemy encounter presents a new and unique challenge, often a new wonder of art direction, and sometimes a diabolically difficult puzzle to be solved. When the game is finally over, its ending battle and cutscene are as cinematic, as boldly unique, and as cohesive with the game's tone as anyone could wish for.

What's the point of all this cinematic style? It makes you accept the world on its own terms. You don't think of Lester as an abstract object, running lifelessly around a gaming world distorted and simplified into a recognizable gaming archetype--you live and breathe the world along with him, because both of you are experiencing this exotic environment for the first time, and it is full of wonders and adventure rather than trite platforming cliches. This game asks the player's imagination to fill in the corners, to ignore the blockiness and palette limitations of vector graphics. All but the most closed of minds will happily go along with that request. Those that do will be richly rewarded by this game, because a lot of love has been put into it.

The Bad
Some of these puzzles are very difficult to figure out. It is quite easy to die, and even easier to wrongly dismiss some section of the game as unnecessary when it is integral to ultimate success. For example, unless you've climbed on some pillars and have plunged into the depths, you are not going to be able to finish the game. Some of the combats are notoriously difficult, although there are strategies to at least a few of the more dangerous battles that make them as quick as hitting the spacebar twice. The only other thing that can be mentioned, as I'm sure has been mentioned by others, is that the game is too short. It's a brilliant effort all around.

The Bottom Line
A revelatory platforming experience, that has faith in the player to commit his/her energy to both mastering the challenges of the game and to completing in the blocky colors of the game world with his/her own imagination. The gameplay is simple and direct, with only six or so keys to master. Run, jump, and kick for starters. With the versatile gun, the player can now fire normal blasts, create a shield, or fire a charged burst that shatters both thin walls and shields--all with the use of one button. What can be done with these simple controls is a testament to the ingenuity of the game's design--an artsy, imaginative platformer everyone should give a chance.