Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee

"More fun than you can have with a frog and a tazer! Wait..."

Well, after being unimpressed with the ''Explain the mechanics'' Abe level, I was less than excited with the prospect of adventuring as Munch. I'd heard so many complaints about his movement that I thought about just putting away Oddworld and pulling out my bright, shiny new Halo DVD. (Great game, by the way) I walked around, rescuing fuzzles for a minute. ''This is sorta lame,'' I said to myself. Then, I found the little soda machine. And then I noticed that a good part of the game was spent electrocuting things. Well, that sure made my day. On with the review then.

Graphics: Sweet Jesus... I've been saying for years that the best way to test the graphics on a new system are to look at the water and the fire. If you notice, the entire opening cutscene is filmed underwater. A masterpiece of 3d design, this X-box is.

Sound: All voice-acting, and I'm used to the chirp-while-the-text-scrolls N64, so that was a plus. The words are clear too. The music is unmemorable, but admittedly, I'm not so far into the game.

Plot: It's a little propogandized, in that the overlying theme is that industry is evil, but once you get past that, it's more like slavery is evil, which is a good theme, as opposed to a bad, anti-capitalist theme. It's sorta like what I understand a drug trip to be, in that you're a squidlike thing running around trying to save a frog that walks upright and saves dust bunnies from other squidlike objects that are less bipedal than you. And that whole ''Great Mighty Raisin'' thing.

Control: Can't complain about Abe. He's nice and quick, though a little shaky when you don't have a good angle or it's too dark. (See below) Munch is a little different. His hopping is annoying and, though at first it seems entirely useless, the jump is actually a dive, which comes in handy later, but it thoroughly annoying early on. Luckily, the folks at whichever company makes this game gave him a little wheel chair which makes him as fast as if not faster than Abe.

Camera AnglingLighting: Generally, very good. You can use the non-analog non-joystick dealie on the left to change camera angles, much like every X-box game, and you have pretty much complete control over it, unlike all of those collect-the-important-relic games on N64. You know the type; Donkey Kong 64, Super Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie... all of them had Socialist camera angles that just had to be the same no matter how much you wanted change in the system. The lighting is pretty good outside the Might Raisin's Cave, where you start out and the lighting is absolutely horrible. Much of the game is actually outside with the sun shining, so no real problems.

Fun Factor: Whoo, boy. Lemme just say that there are parts where you drop explosives on things from a crane, parts where you control a killer robot, parts where you control enemies to make them run into water and parts where you drop enemies into pens with killer pig-like dogs. Sadly, both Abe and Munch rely on their buddies to attack while you take control of some minds or do absolutely nothing. Sorta annoying when you have to bring all the mudokons over, kill one enemy, try to run away, but end up with abe dead anyway, revive him, regenerate some spooce and then revive the mudokons, then do that 7 or 8 times. Or maybe I just suck at this game. One of those two.

Overall Rating: 7/10
More high points than low, and the quality of the high points far outweighs the low. A good buy, if you ask me.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/01, Updated 12/28/01