Blog

Oddworld New ‘n’ Tasty

I downloaded the remake of this game from the PlayStation Store, which I bought on sale for about $3.75. Why did I download it? 

Because I played the hell out of the demo in 1997 before getting the full game later on. It was AWESOME back then and it was just as AWESOME this time around. 

I had played the full game in my teens toward the end of the 1990’s in my older brother’s bedroom through his massive super woofer stereo speakers. 

During a few of the chase sequences, you could feel the floor rumble and there were a few involuntary body jumps when you weren’t expecting the sequences to begin.

It definitely gave the heart muscles an extra workout. I was young then so my heart could take it.

Having remembered that, playing the game this time around, I did expect them. Although a few unexpected rifle rounds from the Sligs gunning me down definitely tested my now older cardiovascular system. 

Before purchasing the game I read that it had been rerendered as part of the remastered edition of the game. I had expected perhaps a little more rounding of the graphics and for it to be not as pixelated, unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

As soon as the opening text hit the screen, my eyes felt like they were suddenly blurred. But then again, it’s almost 30 years old so you can let that go. 

The  cutscenes for its time were insanely good. Seeing them now, I still didn’t think to myself ‘wow, this is old’.

I also remembered that I did finish the game all those years ago but I only saved 49 mudokon slaves which was not enough so I got the not so good ending. You have to save at least 50 to get a good ending.

That was not happening this time around.

I also knew I would be able to do a better job because of the Load/Save option. Back in the day, you needed memory cards to save your game. Obviously, nowadays it saves to the HDD. Most games these days will auto save at different checkpoints but this is a manual Load/Save game. 

With that in mind I knew I would need to save my game regularly so I could correct any mistakes (e.g. getting my fellow mudokons shot, grinded up, eaten, blown up or to fall to their death). 

Did I make many mistakes? Oh yes I did

So you play as Abe, a Mudokon worker at Rupture Farms, a food manufacturer famous for their Paramite Pies and Scarab Cakes. Abe stumbled upon a meeting between the Rupture Farms leader and his superiors about Paramites and Scarabs being in short supply. The replacement? Mudokon Pops!

They’re going to slaughter Abe and his fellow Mudokons in order to keep sales up. Abe made a run for it and made it his mission to escape and help as many of friends to escape too.

I was not off to a good start.

I had played through the first section, rescuing 8 out of the 28 mudokons in Zulag 1 before moving on to ‘The Stockyards’ section of the game. Before I had played the last little sequence of the ‘Rupture Farms’ section, the text that runs at the top of the screen did say that if I escaped, any mudokons left behind would be slaughtered and made into Modokon Pops. I figured I could still rescue them. 

I was wrong. 

When I had arrived at The Stockyards, the ‘scoreboard’ if you like, in the background showed that I had 20 casualties. I was confused because I had rescued all the slaves that I could get to.

There is a map at the beginning that has a very vague cubed layout of the area and shows little green lights that represent your fellow mudokon slaves but I had no idea how to get to them.

In 1997, we didn’t have internet at the house so of course we couldn’t find any information. You had to just try and figure out everything for yourself unless you had mates that were also playing or had played the game who knew about what you were after. So back then, we would just keep playing through. 

Of course, these days are very different. 

So as anyone would do, I jumped onto google. Straight away, I found that there are 5 secret areas, with the first one being at the very beginning!

I was blown away. All this time and I never knew. 

So I started again, entered all the secret areas, saved the 28 Mudokons in the area and moved on to The Stockyards. It was awesome!

The Stockyards section took place at night. 

You encounter a couple of Scarabs (I’ll mention them later), motion sensors, more sligs, bats and slogs (a small vicious fast running 2 legged dog with a head like a T-Rex, which surely their centre of gravity would cause instability).

Throughout this area you see very cool sets of white glowing fireflies. By using Abe’s possessing ability, hint messages are written in the display to help Abe move through the area and advance. There are a few very good chase sequences that see the slogs chase after you and if done correctly you escape their oversized jaws by jumping out of the way and blowing them sky high with rigged explosives. If these sequences are not done correctly, then Abe either gets blown sky high or becomes dinner. 

After escaping the slogs, Abe has a look at the nightly moon and a small wrong step sends him tumbling down the cliff. A spiritual Mudokon visits him and transports him to Monsaic Lines.

Monsaic Lines is a place where Abe’s fellow Mudokons practice their spiritual rituals. This area would remind one of perhaps a primitive tribal village. This area more a less is