Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath

The Good
O.S.W. is a unique hybird of a 3D platformer and first person shooter. The game graphics/engine looks like a direct evolution from Munch's Oddysee. Unlike the other Oddworld games, this is all about a mysterious figure only known as Stranger, in a land far away from the previous stories/species/characters. The hero is not a defenseless little thing this time: Stranger is a big and strong creature, with a weapon! In the first half of the game, he is a bounty hunter, capturing outlaws for money, in a Wild West type setting. In the middle of the game, there is almost like an Akira level of twist, and the game sheds away its Western-likeness. In the remainder, he fights on the side of natives against the industrialists, in varying settings. This game does away with the alien aesthetic, in favor of a more dramatic storytelling, with places and beings that are slightly less weird. I am not entirely a fan of the story or the setting, but at least I can't say they're milking the same thing over again. All creatures are fully voice acted, we will not hear the familiar one-word talks here (which left much to the imagination and felt appropriately alien), so it was strange to me hearing the goons shout "Yes, lure him out, boys!" or "Aim at his groiiin!"

You can actively switch views between the outside view (with a following "camera"), and the ego view. In the outside view, it is more comfortable to travel around and explore. In this mode, Stranger can jump and double-jump, climb ropes, perform hand-to-hand combat, or run (which gradually becomes speedier as you move forward without interruption, eventually running on all limbs like an animal, causing damage if you collide into destructable/killable things). You can also control the camera around Stranger with your mouse, separately from the movement controls of the character, albeit the camera subtly aligns itself up to your movement.

When you decide to holster your weapon, the game becomes an FPS. But you don't really have a gun: your weapon is a double barreled crossbow, firing live creatures! Yes, your ammo is the local Oddworldian wildlife of small bugs and rodents, and you stock up by capturing them at their habitat, buying them at the store, or from designated crates (Take that, PETA! :D). All ammo types do different things, like making noise to lure enemies to it, knocking them out for a short while, schocking them or activating electric machines, etc. It's your choice, which two you keep loaded for which fight. And you fire with both barrels independently at will. You can carry only a limited amount of each ammo type, and the firing rate is also slow, but both limits are upgradeable in the shops.

The playable world is impressively big for a game from 2005 (I think, admittedly I don't know much modern games beyond the year 2000). And you have to travel a lot, between towns or the places where outlaws reside, going through lush wilderness and beautiful deserts. Your method of travel is by foot, the very fast running is the way to travel distances. And all this works mostly seamless, there are no visible loading screens, no levels in the traditional sense. Sandbox would be a massive overstatement though, the gameplay area is always constrained between canyons/cliffsides, and the missions are clear cut. In the towns you can have short conversations with the Clakkerz(sic) that inhabit them, sort of "OG Nintendo RPG" -esque, except fully voice acted. This is not an RPG though, there are no experience points to gain, just earning money from the missions and sometimes buying things that can enhance Stranger's abilities. The sum of money you have is also the indicator of your progress for story reasons, so spending has to be done carefully. Aside from those I kinda felt like, the way that you, as the player, are getting to know the intricacies of your strange weapon, ammo types, and abilities better with each battle, until you can successfully take advantage of them, that is the real leveling up. Anyway, the towns have bounty stores and shops, these are usually the main points of interest there. The towns also act as a hub. You take up a missions in the bounty store of the town, then you have to find your way to the path out of town (usually trough secured gates that get opened for the mission), that leads to the location of the wanted outlaws.

Speaking of missions and battles. Each bad guy you embark on to capture, hides at some place that acts as their fortress. And they command a slew of goons equipped either with guns, rockets, melee weapons, or even doing the "arab terrorist". You have to infiltrate the place and defeat most of the goons, to be able to face off with your main target. The missions then usually escalate into a monumental and tiresome boss fight, to the last man standing. Apart from the instances of total alarm (like in a boss fight), there is an element of stealth in the gameplay mix. Each enemy has a line of sight, which is shown to you in a radar indicator. The music is minimal, but during action, it accentuates what is happening. What I want to highlight here is the creepy, spine chilling music during stealthy affairs: it got seared into my brain! While there is no dedicated stealth takedown, with the webbing ammo type you can incapacitate your prey in relative secrecy. The enemies can be either knocked unconscious for a short while, or killed after a few rounds of punishment. This is indicated by "dizzyness" stars above their head. 3 yellow stars and they faint and get a red star. Once they accumulate 3 red stars they die. Or in case of the bosses, there are dedicated bars on screen. Speaking of indicators, Stranger himself has a health bar and a stamina bar. While raining gunfire can quickly deplete his health, once safe, he can heal himself by the press of a button, which only costs stamina. And the way he does this is very badass: he just shakes off the damage! By the way, all fired bullets remain as visible objects stuck to the characters or in the environment, a neat gimmick. Once the foes are down unconscious or dead, you can capture them in your... Ghostbusters-like suction tank of infinite capacity? (never explained), but you are vulnerable to the others while you are doing so. Captured enemies can be later cashed in back at the bounty store. It should not be a surprise that each one is worth more alive than dead, and killing the bosses is less of a peculiar work than stunning them. One more thing to talk about is the enemy AI, it's deceptively stupid, yet can be pretty clever in times you don't expect it. For an example, I was chasing an enemy, I was on its tail, and it acted cowardly. But once I relaxed a bit, it noticed and got confident, became an agressive nuisance.

The part when the Grubbs (the so called natives) were running in and out of their houses at the sight of you a was funny, especially while wearing a headphone, so you could subtly hear them peeking out :D

The Bad
The game begins with a classic tutorial mission, where message boxes jump up and pause the gameplay. Yeah, its an annoying little necessity, pretty standard stuff, ... wait a minute, Oddworld can do better than this! What did they used to do? Integrating the instructions into the environment in the form of billboards, information terminals, etc. so when you later played the game again, the start was like any other level that didn't interrupt you. Where did that idea go?

I have to nitpick some of the artistic vision aswell. As I mentioned, there is little to none of that Alien aesthetic. Bugs look like bugs (the Zapfly is nice though). Chippunks look like chipmunks. There are now vehicles in Oddworld, that look and work mostly like Earth vehicles. A far cry from the creative trains or the "mine cart" from Exoddus. Worse yet, in one mission you have to recapture a laptop, which is flat out just a 2000s laptop. I would have expected something quirkier, like a chrystal ball attached to a typewriter or something. The phone in a cutscene looked like the part, why not the computer? Aside from these, I often found thinking to myself "hmm, that technology/architecture is a tad bit anachronistic for a Western", then I had to remind myself that this is not really a Western.

The second half of the game is very rough around the edges. The circumstances of the game have changed, and your learned tactics and of ammo types have become mostly useless, to deal with this new kind of enemy that are better equipped and prepared. The creatures you can collect is often the type that you have no use for anymore. There is no point in capturing enemies either, you can suck them up endlessly into your suction-tank just to get rid of them from the battlefield, but nowhere to drop them off or get anything for it. It's a good thing that they make you feel overpowered in close combat - for a short while.

Hm, let me quickly go trough what happens towards the end of the game. Doing some industrial sabotage? Check, the expected shenaningan in Oddworld. Defending the Grubbs from small troups of Wolvarks that are terrorizing their village on a whim? Sure, why not! Wearing viking-ish armor while travelling long distances with a row-boat up on the river, complete an auto-firing machine gun? Badass! Dropping into like, a bleak long tortuous session of WWII trench warfare? What the heck!? Why? Am I playing Call of Duty all of the sudden? This is the point where it feels like it would be most appropriate to spread lead and spill the guts of soldiers, but you are still stuck with your sophisticated pea shooter and the family friendly rating. Sure, your close combat abilities are great at this point, but whenever you leave your cover, you get gunned down in seconds by the literal army of foes. And the whole setup is ridiculous: you tell me that bad guys are doing an all out war on just a bunch of cute little Grubbs who don't even have weapons? I really hated this part! Then it kind of tainted the final section of the game, at the dam aswell. The Grubbs (it's never shown how the heck can they even fight) are somehow storming the place and winning the battle!

Come to think, this is the first and only Oddworld game, which ends with a usual cliche epic boss battle, all weapon blazing. At this point I want to mention that I was very tired of these, how do I say it, "Fast and the Furious" type of grand set pieces happenning on the boss battles, where stakes are raised the sky, and the physics and game rules are glossed over, in order accomodate that. I don't like that in movies, nor really in games. I would have expected something smarter than that.

In the final cutscene, it is shown that by destroying the dam, you flooded the towns of the Clakkerz aswell. You know what, fck the Grubbs, what about the Clakkerz!? o_O

The Bottom Line
Finally! It happened! I had the fortune to be able to play and beat this blasted game! After such a long time of just reading about it! The darn thing was an XBox exclusive back when it originally came out. In 2010 I missed out on the PC release, and then ignored it for a long while, I guess wasn't all that interested.

I am not a fan of the FPS genre. But I can see why Oddworld Inhabitants had to resort to make it into an FPS-kinda thing. Back then, there were a handful of interesting projects at Oddworld hyped on their quaint old website and fansites. All of these projects got nowhere, I guess for finantial reasons. The 2000s were not a happy time for quirky and/or independent studios, even less so than today. Boring big businesses and their typical FPS franchises (even soaked in muddy and yellow palettes) ruled the game industry firmly by this point. I am happy that at least this thing got released at all!

And how would I rate it now? It is surely a great game of its time, but far from perfect, especially the second half. I got some kicks out of it, but I don't think I will come back.