"Yes, it's Odd, but the focus should be more on it being ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT"

I have no idea where to start with this review.

A good majority of people here wouldn't know about this game. Chances are you're baffled by the mere title of the game, right? The title pretty much explains a lot. It's Oddworld, an entire fictional planet created for a series of videogames. This one, Abe's Odyssey, was the first, released in 1997 for the Playstation. And yes, it is Odd. Very, very odd. But also very, very brilliant.

In Abe's Odyssey, you're Abe, strikingly enough. Abe is a Mudokon, a little, skinny, tall, athletic green guy. You work, with 99 others of your kind, as the slave labour force of Rupture Farms, which is said to be the biggest meat packing plant on the planet. Abe is content with his job. He's won employee of the month several times.

Working late one night, Abe walks past an open door and sees several Glukkons inside. Glukkons are the cash-crazy moguls that run the joint and have enslaved Abe. Curiosity killed the cat is certainly not a phrase familiar to Abe, so he investigates. Inside, he sees that everyone is worried - panicking even - as the big screen reads out their profits, slowly going down.

The animals they hunt to cut up and sell are slowly going extinct, so the Glukkons need something else - something else to cut up. Everyone is quiet, until the head boss - a nasty one called Mullok - speaks up. The screen changes to a picture of a Mudokon's head on a pike, with big red letters: “MUDKON POPS." The Glukkons stop, think, and start laughing.

Caught in the intensity of the moment, Abe screams and gives himself away. Alarms blaze and shots are fired. Abe runs. He has to escape from Rupture Farms.

The story is presented in first class CGI animation. It's beautifully detailed and textured. The voice acting is corny, but it fits the characters. Abe sounds dopey and not quite intelligent. The game is presented in such a way that it engages you right from the start. It takes your interest and holds you.

The game starts with you falling from the ceiling onto a steel floor. It's a flat, 2d view with animated backgrounds. Abe's sprite waves and says “Hello” and the game begins. Oddworld does not feature a scrolling screen, but a series of screens connected side by side. The backgrounds are heavily detailed down to the tiniest touch, with impeccable collision detection layered over them.

So Abe walks around. The first thing to notice is the swift and fluid animation on Abe. He's a highly detailed 3D model rendered into a sprite. He can tiptoe, walk, run, roll, jump, climb, throw things, pull things, press things, hit things, and the most notable thing of all is his magic chant, which can be used to take control of any nearby enemies, notably the resident drones: The Sligs, which are insects loaded up with metal armour and guns.

Abe's Oddysee takes a different approach to gaming and as a result comes off as a rewarding experience. Every new screen is a new challenge and scenario. How do you save that Mudokon? How do you get past that Slig? You truly feel like you've accomplished something when you finish a challenging section of the game.

There is no HUD, just about everything will kill you in one hit. Everything you encounter in the game is better equipped, faster, stronger and outright nastier. But they all have heads full of rocks. The key is to use your brain to outsmart them.

By the end of the game, you'll have died many, many times. You'll be shot, crushed, blown up, cut apart, ripped apart, mauled; eaten, gassed… the list goes on. So the developer thought it would be fair to give you infinite lives. It fits the game well. It's still completely difficult, but now you'll be able to take risks here and there and know you don't have much to lose. The annoying part is that you go back to the start of the section if you die. The most annoying part is that any little odd mistake can get you killed, and some checkpoints can be more than 10 minutes apart. It's one of the few annoying niggles I have with the game.

Many different obstacles and objects will confront you across your journey. Trapdoors, levers, doors, wells, jumps, security bots, flying mines, swinging boulders on a rope, bees… the game is full of traps, tricks and treachery. The developers must have had a ball thinking up all the crazy situations you encounter, and how to solve them.

At points you'll have to sneak around, surveying the environments. In others you'll have to run from enemies. In others you'll have to jump over bombs and dodge falling rocks. There are moments where you have to think fast and make quick decisions. There are moments where you have to take in everything you know before your next move. The balance of scenarios and the impeccable pacing are definitely something to behold. You're never caught off guard by the random appearance of an enemy. It's very, very clever design.

The game engine suits the needs of the nature of the game. It's a, how could you say it? Tile system? Either way, simply tapping left or right will make Abe take one step. You can't stop half-stride. One step. No more, no less. No pixel by pixel movement. It's refined to spaces across the screen. Hard to explain, but the blocky, maybe even archaic nature of this engine once again suits the game's style.

The controls may seem clunky at first, but once again they suit the slower style of game. The running and sneaking and jumping may take some game time to get used to, and Abe might to the Macarena if you panic too much in a tense situation. But generally if you keep a level head he'll do everything you want. The environments are designed to suit the way Abe moves, so in the faster moments of the game where you're being chased by something spawned from hell, you should be okay.

The most intuitive thing about the game is its Gamespeak engine. Get this: you can talk to your Mudokon friends. Say “hello” and say “follow me” and see what happens. Lead them to bird rings that activate into escape portals when you chant, and watch them go. If you save enough Mudokons, maybe your Mudokon friends will turn out to help you when you're in a sticky spot… just maybe…

But then again, you could be a real shmuck. How about you get them shot? Lead them off a cliff? Sit ‘em under a meat grinder and activate it? Blow them up? Even completely bash them to death. Go ahead, have a ball. Just don't expect them to have
a care in the world when you're… uh… dangling above a meat fan for example.

After escaping Rupture Farms, Abe has to prove himself to the native types, who have only tolerated his existence so far because the lead one - a guy with a big funny mask - believes him to be the Jesus of Mudokons or something. So they send him to the natural habitats of the creatures slowly dying out as a result of Rupture Farms to carry out tests of skill, logic and courage. He has to explore the sacred temples dedicated to the carnivorous, yet sacred beasts that live inside. Not the greatest job in the world.

But first he has to get there, through the harsh mesa-ridden desert of Scrabania and the lush forests of Paramonia, Abe must confront the Sligs that have invaded the area. Along the way, he finds Elum, a big, friendly creature that is ridden like a horse through the varying environments. I make it sound epic, but the game is quite linear. It doesn't take anything away from the experience, it's thoroughly enjoyable. I just wish there was a bit more to discover. Am I being too selfish?

Inside the temples in these places, you'll find the two most unpleasant species in the game. In Scrabania you'll find Scrabs. They're fiercely territorial and have gone mad holed up inside the temple. If they see you, they will charge at you and kill you. If they see another Scrab, they will charge at them and kill them. The puzzles involved by drawing two Scrabs to eachother so you can have enough time to, say, pull that lever right in the middle of one of their nests, are ingenious.

In Paramonia, you'll find the Paramites, who are shy, and unconfident… when they're alone, that is. A lone Paramite will follow you, but not attack you unless you back it against a wall. The thing is, if you come up against more than one, you'll have to run pretty fast. Once again the puzzles involved in separating gangs of them are very well done.

Two of the most brilliant parts of the game are the final trails of each temple. You are thrown right into the nesting grounds of the creatures. On one side is you. The other the reward of your test. You'll have to jump, run, weave, roll, and make some very quick decisions as creatures lunge at you from every angle. It's an adrenaline rush.

So after kicking some ass, Abe finds himself with the Shrykull power, the power of the Mudokon gods. He is now told to return to Rupture Farms, save his bretherin and and destroy the place once and for all. And thus ass was kicked.

The visuals are very nice. The backgrounds are detailed and animated down to the last touch. The sprites and set pieces move fluently. The enviroments all look really nice, with the metal rails and machinery of Rupture Farms, the massive dome sheltering the Mudokon Refuge, the webs and nests of the paramite hives. Everything is polished and easy to see.

The music earned it's Moolah too. It's not a sweeping epic score, but is full of ambient music that plays quietly to suit the mood. An omnipresent bass line drives on incessantly as you sneak through Rupture Farms, but as a Slig wakes up and chases you, the line is joined by a driving drum beat. The music works well in defining the pace of the moment and how you should feel in the situation.

Oddworld isn't a long game, but it's a gem. Every second of it is a joy to play. First time around would take between 5 and 10 hours, depending on how many Mudokons you go out of your way to save.

You need to note that there's nothing quite as unique as Abe's Odyssey. The sequel, Abe's Exodus is even better - smoothing out some of the niggles of the original and presenting a more refined experience - but this is where it all started. The amount of effort that has gone into this game is something of a wonder. The creator, Lorne Lanning, has created an entire world of Science Fiction full of varied and interesting characters. It's full of political commentary on Capitalism and Commericalism and has a lot of sharp wit and humor, some shallow, some deep.

This is an amazing achievement from such a small and independent development group. I rank Oddworld up there in the top tier of platform games with the likes of Mario, Sonic and Prince of Persia. It's really a game you have to play to believe.

Sadly, EA games caught wind of the fact that someone was making good games, and bought out and subsequently shut down Oddworld Inhabitants back in 2005. Long live Madden 20XX.

But if an independent group of 30 or so individuals can create something so engrossing, addictive, compelling, inspiring and downright CREATIVE, why can't big development studios with multi-million dollar budgets do so? There is no excuse.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/17/07

Game Release: Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (EU, September 1997)