So I just got my Platinum Trophy in Stranger's Wrath HD, a PSN game. It was a very fun game to play, with its easy to use 1st person/ 3rd person hybrid perspective, really great character design, interesting story, and well done combat scenarios. It has a few problems here and there, and some strange game design choices, but overall it is a really great game.
You play as Stranger, a cowboy dog-man (or something) who is bounty hunting in order to pay for a mysterious surgery that he needs in a wild west world (where all the normal people are chicken-men and all the outlaws are lizard-men). The Stranger (like every other character and creature in the game) is very well designed. If you've played any other Oddworld games you will recognize the crazy and unique creature design and the “feel” of the whole scenario. The characters and situations are an odd mix of goofy, funny, depressing, disturbing, and bizarre. For example, the grubs are a funny looking race of lizard people who talk funny, but their lives are portrayed as kind of hopeless. It's a bizarre motif, and it takes a little while to get used to, but it is excellently executed and lends a very unique flavor to the game.
The game has a general flow to it. You come into a town, head to the bounty store, take on a mission to bounty an outlaw, and then head to their hideout to take on their gang and finally the big outlaw his or herself in a boss fight. You then head back to town to “get peid” and then take on another bounty. Once the town is out of outlaws, you'll be heading out to the next town and the next set of bounties, all in pursuit of enough moolah to pay for your surgery. Let's take a look at the controls of the game.
When in 3rd person mode, cross is jump and double jump, square is used to bounty an incapacitated or dead enemy (sucking them up into Stranger's bag for transport back to town), and triangle is used to “shake-off” damage (an interesting take on the regenerating health bar. When you are holding still, you can press triangle to recharge your health bar while draining your stamina bar, which will then slowly recharge). The left analog stick controls your movement, and the right the camera. L1 makes Stranger perform a spinning punch, and R1 makes him headbutt. In 3rd person mode, Stranger will run on all fours if you get his speed up by running for a while or running downhill, something he can't do in 1st person mode. Pressing R3 switches you over to 1st person mode. The face buttons all do the same thing in this mode, except that circle is now used to manually reload and bounty-ing a foe will force you back into 3rd person mode. The left and right analog sticks now function like a traditional FPS, with the left controlling where you walk and the right controlling where you look. R1 now fires the ammo you have loaded in the right slot of your crossbow, and L1 fires the ammo in your left slot. R2 and L2 both make you punch. Pressing L3 in 1st person mode allows you to use your binoculars to look at far away objects and fire your sniping ammo. Pressing the arrow buttons in either mode pauses the game and allows you to select the ammo you want to equip to the right and left sides of the crossbow by moving a cursor over the ammo type and pressing either left or right to equip it. This control scheme sounds a little odd at first, forcing you to constantly switch between the more maneuverable 3rd person mode and the 1st person mode where you will be doing all of your shooting, but it is executed beautifully.
A while after it came out, Stranger got a patch that enabled Playstation Move control. I just recently tried it over a year after writing the original version of this review. When using move, the button controls are generally the same for jumping, melee, shaking-off, etc. The big difference is that in 3rd person-mode you constantly control a reticle with the motion controller that moves the camera while you move Stranger with the thumbstick on the navigation controller. This is a little awkward, as it can be hard to hold the camera still. And then, of course, when in 1st person-mode, you aim with the motion controller. I only played the game this way for about a ½ hour to test out the controls, and my 1st impression is that the controls aren't as tight with Move. Aiming would definitely take some getting used to, but I think it would work quite well if you stuck with it. Movement is affected negatively, however, as Stranger doesn't start moving his body until you aim to the left or right quite a bit. This makes his movement feel awkward to me. It may be something that you would get used to if you played the game this way for a few hours, but the game is so smooth on a traditional controller, it's hard to imagine playing the whole thing on move. But, take all that with a grain of salt because I only very briefly tried out the Move controls before deciding I didn't want to keep going. Also, I found that right when I started using Move, my older save data seems to be corrupted. Hopefully this is a coincidence and not some kind of glitch in the patch that added Move support. Luckily, I already have my platinum and don't care about my save files.
A while after it came out, Stranger got a patch that enabled Playstation Move control. I just recently tried it over a year after writing the original version of this review. When using move, the button controls are generally the same for jumping, melee, shaking-off, etc. The big difference is that in 3rd person-mode you constantly control a reticle with the motion controller that moves the camera while you move Stranger with the thumbstick on the navigation controller. This is a little awkward, as it can be hard to hold the camera still. And then, of course, when in 1st person-mode, you aim with the motion controller. I only played the game this way for about a ½ hour to test out the controls, and my 1st impression is that the controls aren't as tight with Move. Aiming would definitely take some getting used to, but I think it would work quite well if you stuck with it. Movement is affected negatively, however, as Stranger doesn't start moving his body until you aim to the left or right quite a bit. This makes his movement feel awkward to me. It may be something that you would get used to if you played the game this way for a few hours, but the game is so smooth on a traditional controller, it's hard to imagine playing the whole thing on move. But, take all that with a grain of salt because I only very briefly tried out the Move controls before deciding I didn't want to keep going. Also, I found that right when I started using Move, my older save data seems to be corrupted. Hopefully this is a coincidence and not some kind of glitch in the patch that added Move support. Luckily, I already have my platinum and don't care about my save files.
Your only weapon in the game is the crossbow, but there are several types of ammo for it, and they are all unique. Bounty-ing a dead outlaw (regular or boss) gets you much less money when you cash them in back in town, so the game has a great balance of situations where you try to incapacitate foes without killing them and situations where you need to quickly kill enemies in order to survive. The ammo types reflect this, as there are several lethal varieties, and several non-lethal varieties. For example, there are spiders that you shoot at enemies to wrap them up in webs, and skunks you fire to make enemies puke, allowing you to bounty them without killing them. And then there are exploding bats and stinging bees you can fire at enemies that will kill them. Combine this lethal/ non-lethal mechanic with the “shake-off” damage system mentioned earlier, and you get some intense firefights. You'll be trying to find a way to incapacitate an enemy to get more money all the while also trying to find some cover to hide behind and shake off your damage. You'll be forced to kill enemies instead of incapacitating them sometimes just so you can survive, and other times you will find clever ways to knock them out one by one so that you can get more money. Other ammo types have different effects. The chipmunk ammo lures enemies to the spot it was fired at (and makes wisecracks at you while it sits on the crossbow, waiting to be fired). There is also a furry and mad creature that can be shot at the ground or a wall and will attack enemies that walk by. Most of the ammo types have an upgraded form, which changes their appearance (some hilariously) and their effect. Since all of the ammo types are living creatures, you can catch most of them in the wild. Everywhere you go you will see them flying or crawling around and can shoot them to stun them and then collect them. The ammo types are all balanced and greatly effective when used in the right situations, and you will find yourself using every single one many times and in many combinations to get the job done. The fact that you can equip two different types at once and fire them independently gives you great versatility. It's the icing on the cake to the really dynamic and standout ammo types.
I also wanted to mentioned the super-fun environment kills you can pull off in the game. There is a lot of deadly stuff laying around in the world, and you can use it to your advantage. There are many explosive barrels to be shot that will blow enemies up. They are placed really well and really add to the experience. There are also many machines you can activate with your electric bug ammo, such as cranes that will drop the rocks they are holding or mills that will crush downward when activated. Using the chipmunk to lure enemies under a crane and then activating it and seeing their bloody gibs fly everywhere is hilarious. You can also punch enemies off high structures and drown them by having a fuzzle trap pull them into the water. Late in the game you get an ammo upgrade that forcibly pulls enemies to where you fire it, allowing you to pull enemies into water to drown or near short-circuiting consoles to get electrocuted. It's a blast, and it really adds to the gameplay. When you approach a group of enemies, you usually try to get some kills using one of these methods before they notice you and a fight breaks out, and during the fight, it's a great thrill to see the enemies walk under a crane or near an explosive barrel and to quickly take them out.
Sniping is also done really well. You can only hold a few sniper rounds, and they are hard to find, but they are really effective at a really long distance. You almost always hit your target and one-hit-kill them. I thought I'd mention it because I love how the sniping is almost 100% effective but ammo is scarce. It just feels great to almost never miss your sniping shots.
After a firefight, take a look around you. There will be stingers that the enemies have shot at you everywhere. It's really cool to see the other side of a rock you have been hiding behind and see just how many stingers the enemy has been firing at you. If you get hit by stingers or knives, you will see them stuck in Stranger. Shake the damage off, and the stingers go flying, sticking into objects in the environment. Take out a big boss and go look at their body. There are all the bee stingers you shot at them littering their body. It's the little touches that help make an already great game even greater, and this game has a lot of those little touches. Like previous entries in the series, this game wants you to feel like you are in Oddworld, and you will feel that way.
The story and dialogue are both good. The dialogue is generally well done and funny, but some of the lines aren't quite as clever as they think they are. But you will laugh plenty during the game. I can't really talk about the story without spoiling it, so either play it for yourself or check out my comments in the spoiler section below for a few additional hints. The talking system is a little bit of good and a little bit of bad. There is a ton of spoken dialogue in the game, from the cutscenes to the random conversations you overhear as you walk around. As you progress through the game, it will seem like there is an unending stream of things you can make Stranger say and overhear people talking about. Pressing square will make Stranger talk. If you aren't around anyone, he will just say what he has to do next. If you are next to someone, he will ask them about his next objective. These conversations are often quite amusing, as are the things you will overhear people talking about. Unfortunately there is a weird problem with talking to people. If someone else starts talking, the person who is currently speaking will stop speaking. So if someone is about to tell you what you need to know and someone else walks up to talk to you and starts talking, the first person will stop talking. This can happen multiple times in a row, meaning you'll have to keep asking people about stuff until you get an uninterrupted answer. This is really annoying, and even cuts off random conversations you are overhearing. The random stuff people say is really funny, and you'll want to hear it, but unfortunately you won't always get to because of this bug. The talking system is cool, and reminiscent of the first Oddworld's, but this problem mars it pretty badly.
The game certainly has its difficult moments. Some of the boss fights are very hard as you will be facing an army of henchman along with the boss. These lengthy fights can take many tries to complete, but fortunately they are just shy of frustrating. I played the game on normal difficulty and then on hard. It is worth playing again on hard mode. All your mistakes are punished more severely on hard mode, but not to a frustrating extent. It will provide a challenge, but isn't really all that hard if you've already played through the game and are experienced with its systems. I got all of the game's trophies in 2 ½ playthroughs. Most of the trophies aren't really that interesting, with the exception of one that I will talk about in the spoiler section. My rough estimate is that each playthrough took me around 10 hours, but I'm just guessing.
The music and sound effects are all in the good to passable range, but nothing really stands out. The voice acting is above average across the board (although I could do without the small pauses Stranger sometimes takes between words. His acting is good otherwise, but the pause or stutter is a little off at times). Kudos to the voice actor who plays the chipmunk ammo; well done, it's hilarious. There are a few sound effects that are a little grating, such as the blaring neon sound that gets really loud when you are next to some neon signs, and especially the sound of some catapults and missiles, which constantly drone on in the background during a few sequences.
The HD graphics look really good in this game. Some of the outdoor areas like the Mongo Wilds are really stunning. There are a few graphical hitches, such as some digitized shadows that appear in some views and shadows that are visible through floors and walls, but in general, this is a beautiful game. The game will occasionally hiccup while you are traveling through a tunnel or canyon to a new area, but once you get there it runs perfectly.
Overall, this is a great game. It has a few flaws, but its solid and well designed combat really make it a great experience. Oddworld is a great franchise, and I hope it continues with a new game (or an HD Munch's Odyssey!) sometime in the near future. It is a Tier 2 Great Game.
Spoiler Section – DO NOT READ!
Spoiler Section – DO NOT READ!
Spoiler Section – DO NOT READ!
There are a few things I wanted to mention that involve some spoilers for the game. Namely, about halfway through the game the entire tone of the game changes in dramatic fashion. In the first half of the game, you are trying to get money. In the second half of the game, you are out for revenge, and all your money is gone. The theme of the game takes on the more traditional Oddworld theme of nature vs. industry. I spent the first half of the game trying to balance saving money against buying upgrades, only to find out that I did not need any money to complete the game. The game makes you think that you are going to need $20,000 to complete it, but really, you don't. I can't really knock the game for this because the second half of the game is done really well, but its just odd that it throws the whole wild west get-money theme out the window out of nowhere and sets you off on a revenge quest. It would have been cool if you really did need to keep doing bounties until you got all the money you needed. But as I said, the second half of the game is just as well done as the first, so this change in tone is easy to overlook. Also, the one trophy that was pretty cool is the “More Moolah” trophy, which you get for collecting $20,000 before the game's second act. It's a trophy that you get for playing the game the way the game tells you to play it, even though you really don't need to play it that way.
End Spoilers.
End Spoilers.
End Spoilers.
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