Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath

Game Title: Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
Released: December 20, 2010
Game Length: 14 Hours
Grade: B+

Development

Marketing: Very similar to Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, the creator's new game was going to be released exclusively on the Xbox. This might have been true back in 2005, but the new team Just Add Water made additional plans. They decided to release it gradually starting from 2010 for Windows, Playstation 3, OnLive, Playstation Vita, iOS, Android, Ouya, Mac App Store, and finally Nintendo Switch in 2020. They went out of their way to add a Collector's Edition too. People interested in buying all four of the core games could buy it at a discount through The Oddboxx on Steam.

EA Problems: Considering that this game was well-established and much better from the failures of its predecessor, why did it perform so poorly at launch? Lanning needed to sell 1.6 million copies, not the 600,000 copies that sold by 2012. Well, EA happened. Details aren't spelled out, but it seems like the marketing team didn't do a good enough job letting people know about the game. They had a decent trailer at the time, but leave it up to Nintendo to come up with a better one. At least this time they had Microids publish it.

Gameplay

Perspective: There is something very unique about Stranger's Wrath when comparing it to the other games. We are no longer taking goofy Abe across factories to rescue his friends. Munch isn't present either. Instead, we have a bounty hunter equipped with a crossbow that fires literally live ammo from both junctures for a combination of different effects. Other than the auto-replenishing lightning bug that's used for activating traps (and not leaving you completely helpless), there is a wide-array of noisy, sticky, and death-dealing critters that can cause pandemonium to your enemies. However, this only happens first-person perspective. Moving around, rushing, and climbing are all things that must take place in third-person perspective. The transition between the two can be tough for those that are more acquainted with attacking while sprinting, but that does not mean the controls are clunky. Once you get accustomed to weaving the camera in-and-out, you'll find the motion to be quite smooth.

Enemies: The thing I both love and hate about the game are the different kind of enemies. For the most part, you will encounter your standard grunt, rapid-firer, and sniper. You can lure them, trap them, blow up explosive barrels, or drown them in water. The others have some particular strengths and weaknesses. The armored charger takes two consecutive hits to bring down and cannot be trapped. The dogs cannot be fired upon and must either jump into fire, wrapped, be hit with an explosive, or punched. Any of the ones seen in the later portions are giant health sponges that require a lot of bullets to bring down. The biggest threat are the bosses. Each boss is different, not just from their personality but also their combat-style. I had to use a walkthrough to figure out a few of them, and even then I had to bring them back dead. At least the mine cart segments were fun!

Goal: The odd part about this game is the drastic shift in gameplay two-thirds of the way in the game. I'm going to do this as carefully as possible without spoiling any events. From the narrative, it is true that the main character must seek out "moolah" for a specific operation. You would think that it is imperative to collect and save as much as you can while seeking out bounties on outlaws. This is a fallacy. If you have a chance to spend currency on upgrades, take it. Something huge happens with the story near the end where money no longer matters, your abilities change, and all your ammo morphs into new effects.

Story

Dialogue: I will admit that the dialogue in this game is really spot-on. The enemies and chickens can carry a bunch of fascinating conversations while you are sitting still. I also somewhat admire them for taking the route of filling in funny names full of puns for most of the characters. You can choose to ask the locals for directions or carry out a little monologue with yourself by pressing the X-button whenever you forget your current objective. You can converse with outlaws when they are behind bars or listen to insults when you are approaching enemy footholds. The amount of optional things to listen to astounds me.

Setting: They nailed the setting of the game. You'll be fighting in a long-range of areas from towns, mines, forests, villages, water plants, caverns, and factories. The graphics might not be spectacular to modern standards, but they aged pretty well for an Xbox game. They added places where you get bounties, visit the General Store for goods, and fenced areas for specific points in the story. Because there aren't any blatant arrows pointing you to exactly where you need to go, there are at least giant signs that function just the same in the landscape. If that wasn't enough, you can ask any chicken at any time where to go. The "stranger's attire" and speech plays on the entire wasteland scenario. The game does open up a little more half-way through the game by following along a winding river, but for the most part sets you up on clear paths to your designated target. As an extra incentive, you can choose to watch a short advertisement from the oracle inside the main building to see what's "in store" for you later on in the game.

Notices: The opportunities available to you within landscape doesn't just stop at combat and objectives. There are plenty of nice checks they provide you with when things aren't working as well as you expect. The mini-map radar fading out when there aren't any people around is a nice touch, but I like all the tooltips that come up. The standard ones tell you about your ammo or controls. Yet, they also tell you how a boss functions when you die a few too many times. A hint will display when it is clear you are going the wrong way! These little things add up.

Problems

Interface: I found it very unusual how simplistic the menu interface was. Saving and Quicksaving were easy enough, but I felt the UI to be very underwhelming. This could contribute to the minimalism of being a Bounty Hunter in the Wild Wild West. Instead of collecting bounties off a board, you must talk with the chicken at the front desk and choose one from a list in the standard General Store menu. I also found it odd that the help tooltips were telling me things like "Press JOY1 button" instead of informing me of the X-button on the gamepad.

Miscellaneous: There are a bunch of personal nitpicks that I wished they could have changed. Spinning around like Crash Bandicoot looked silly. The sleg hunt brought out a bunch of 2D creatures. There were a lot of little moments where it was clear the dialogue wasn't polished - it didn't match the subtitles, didn't voice anything at all, didn't take consideration of your choices, repetitive, annoying, or lacked any clear directions on where to go next. At least the volume was appropriate. After dying several times on a boss, the tooltip informed me that his reinforcements were not limitless, but I found this to be false as I wasted every single bullet in my arsenal trying to clear the area. The ending (warning spoilers) could have been a little more clear in the narrative.

Summary

Review: With a lack of knowledge of what Stranger's Wrath was before starting, I had erroneously developed a preconception that the game would wind up an undeveloped mess like its predecessor. What I experienced was a pleasant surprise with balanced gameplay, wonderful dialogue, optional approaches to solutions, good fail-test checks, and additional features that improved the overall story. Although the game was rough in a few places (and I'm not just talking about the Wild West setting), the cheap price and interesting twist that revolutionizes the world around you two-thirds in made it all worth it. Even if there were barely any connections made to the stories of Abe or Munch, the game followed the same general theme and tone with how a corporation influences those around it. I recommend buying this game for those looking for something odd to play.

 

11-12-2021