Review: Abe’s Exoddus
Now I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure you have all played Abe’s Oddysee. Maybe you haven’t played Abe’s Exoddus or not, but I’m writing a review for it anyways.
This is a game set in the Oddworld series which is an alien planet filled with many ‘odd’ races that all have conflicting or promoting cultures. There has so for been 3 games in the series, and another game that was set in the same world called Strangers Wrath. Abes Exoddus is the 2nd game, picking up a little while after where Abe’s Oddysee left off (it’s not clear how long). It is a side-scroller puzzle with a few elements of stealth, where you sneak and are invisible in shadow, but it is mostly solving puzzles. You play as a blue-skinned Mudokan named Abe, who saves his buddies from Glukkans, corporate superpowers who enslave Mudakans and hire Sligs, who are the Glukkans security gaurds. Sligs command Slogs, which are similar to dogs except without eyes (in the least gory context possible) and furless, as well as Fleeches, who are good pets until they grow too old and start eating things about 10 times their size in a few bites. Abe armed only with his wits and the powers granted to him by ancient Mudakan rituals, allowing him to possess anything with sufficient intelligence, turn into a Scrab, one of the animals of Oddworld, and unlease lightning into anything that dares cross his path (You need to get a pickup to use that one), and a few others that are aquired throughout the game.
Let me start with some negative things.
There are frequent glitches in the scenery that are somewhat distracting if you are immersed; grabbing onto a ledge about 1 foot too deep, or walking off what suspected was a ledge that would let you drop to instead grab onto an upper ledge. Also, I’m not sure if I’m the only one who thinks this, but one of the enemies, Fleeches, are extremely annoying and I wish they had left them out of the game. It’s not always clear whether you are in a ’shadow’ zone or not, and there are points in the game that if you don’t save at a good point (not often, but a good point) then you may be forced to re-start the entire path (usually about 4-16 rooms in a path, where you go through a room anywhere up to 4 times). Another thing is, in the computer re-make of it, there is a glitch where they changed the ‘pick up rock’ button to the down arrow, which also let’s you drop from a ledge, so if you need to pick up a grenade that is on a ledge, you cannot pick it up. While you can still complete the game like this, admittadly with a bit more skill, you cannot save all 300 Mudakans. It is impossible, and it is implyed that there is a secret ending if you save them all (I’ll look it up later). Speaking of which, some of the secret areas are ridiculous to get to without a guide; for example, I started the game and wanted to get used to the controls, so I pressed the ‘down’ key and dropped from a ledge that was impossible to see because it was behind a conveniently placed pipe and into a secret are that had like 3 Mudakans. I had saved 255 Mudakans at the end, and couldn’t save about 6. Finally, whoever programmed the A.I. for the Mudakans and Sligs, I want to punch in the face. There is another type of Mudokan that is blind, and he follows your voice so you have to tell it to start and stop. It got so bad that I preffered to have them. When you say ‘follow me’, it can take an indeterminant for them to start walking, usually about 1-3 seconds, which is crippling when you are commanding crowds; you’ll always be saying ‘follow me’ ‘wait’ ‘follow me’ ‘work’ ‘hello’ ‘follow me’ just to get everyone on a damn elevator. The Sligs are fine until you start commanding or controlling them, at which point occasionally if you want to nudge them a little they instead go way too far and into a bottomless pit.
For the good things, is that I love the world that it is set in. The concept artists really went to town on this game and brought a lot of really cool scenery. Each set of levels has it’s own unique background and objects and places, and you’ll never get any dejavu. All the screens are hand-drawn from what I can tell, which is really impressive because each one is incredibly detailed. You can really just lose yourself in the backgrounds as they tell a story about where you’re going, and blend seamlessly into each other. The puzzles have a different, less traditional approach and relie more on skill and experience with the game rather than a hugh brain. It has a humourus overtone about it and yet blends this very dark world into it, and at times is purposely over-the-top. The storyline is also just very satisfying to complete; I don’t know what about it in paricular, it’s just fulfilling. Finally, whoever made the final paths for all the sets of levels, I want to high-five. It is like one of those quick-time event games, except it feels like you are actually doing it for real; roll, run, jump, hoist, slide and pull. They also have a very good sense for time limits; either that or they adjust it, because in the end for the 4 minute sprint I jumped through the portal that ended the game with 1 second left on the timer. The timers aren’t scripted, in that most games you have 2 minutes, complete it in 30 seconds and all of a sudden the bomb timer just sort of jumps to 0 for an unknown reason and you manage to jump out of the building just as it explodes; nono, I was running down a corridor with 4 seconds left and there were explosions behind me; not incredibly close, but I was worried enough. It was epic enough to congratulate.
In the end, Abe’s Exoddus is a great game that I thoroughly enjoyed, although at points a little frustrating and may not be a perfect game, like TF2 when I have THE GODDANG FORCE-A-NATURE!
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!
*ehem* Off track. But I’m really glad I finally got that.
Well written! I liked that game, though, as with most games, I was incredibly lame at playing it.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:58 am