Second Helpings | Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty! Review

<p>HD remakes are all the rage this year&comma; and even a beloved PlayStation game has gotten the once over&colon; <em>Oddworld&colon; Abe’s Oddysee&comma; <&sol;em>which originally came out in 1997 to both critical and financial acclaim&period;<em> <&sol;em>While it is nice to see some old classics get a new face and shine&comma; sometimes the games are too old to configure controls for the gamer of today&period; Just Add Water did a great job with the transition to high definition&period; They found a way to keep the magic from the original&comma; while wrapping it in a nice high definition bow for today&&num;8217&semi;s gamers&period; The story is the same&comma; your name is Abe and you work at a plant that makes tasty snack treats&period; As you are cleaning the hallway you stumble across a meeting where the board of directors is deciding a new snack treat to make&comma; and they decide to make it out of Abe&&num;8217&semi;s species&period; Abe decides he is done working here and sets off on a journey throughout the plant to save his fellow workers from this gruesome fate&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Oddworld&colon; New &&num;8216&semi;n&&num;8217&semi; Tasty&excl;<&sol;em> is a straight up platformer&comma; which is good if you are into that sort of thing&period; If you&&num;8217&semi;re expecting a huge world to explore and multiple endings&comma; you are looking at the wrong game&period; As Abe you must traverse the plant to save his co-workers&comma; you do this by grabbing their attention&comma; by using the D-pad to say &&num;8220&semi;Hi&&num;8221&semi; and &&num;8220&semi;Follow Me&period;&&num;8221&semi; Once you get them to follow&comma; you must lead them to a circle of birds&comma; there you chant and they are whisked away by the birds to safety&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s not that easy to do most of the time&comma; the further you get into the plant the more obstacles you will encounter that will kill you and your following co-workers&period; You must figure out how to disarm mines&comma; sneak past guards&comma; throw grenades&comma; and kill guards to be successful&period; The game is somewhat unforgiving in this aspect&comma; for the most part how to play can be learnt by dying over and over&period; Most of the time if you look in the background there will be instructions on what to do next&comma; but not where or when to do them&period; You&&num;8217&semi;ll die several times over trying to figure out just how to get that guard to walk into the spinning blades&period; However&comma; the developers were nice to put many&comma; many checkpoints in the game&comma; so even if you do die multiple times&comma; you won&&num;8217&semi;t have to replay too much of the previous level&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;07&sol;05085731&sol;maxresdefault&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-63993" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;07&sol;05085731&sol;maxresdefault&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Oddworld" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Controls&period; Controls are the bread and butter for a platformer&comma; they can make it or they can break it&period; The Mario Brothers would never have been so successful had their controls been sluggish or loose&period; <em>Oddworld<&sol;em>&&num;8216&semi;s controls are okay&comma; they are nothing to write home about&comma; but they don&&num;8217&semi;t break the game so badly that you regret downloading it&period; Jumping and manoeuvring is very important in this game&comma; as you attempt to jump before the guard spots you&comma; otherwise you may get shot&period; Hitting jump isn&&num;8217&semi;t as perfect as it should be and you will find your Jedi patience as you replay parts over and over until you pass them&period; The aiming also is somewhat sub-par&period; To throw a grenade you must use the left stick to aim and R1 to throw&comma; while this seems simple it is anything but&period; The first time I tried to throw a grenade I took too long to aim and it blew me apart&period; Then once I figured it out&comma; it took me five grenades to kill one guy because they kept bouncing away or did not go where intended&period; While all of this makes the game a tad more frustrating than it should be&comma; I had to remember that the original was just as hard&comma; if not harder&period; This is no reason not to buy the game though&comma; when you get to points where you know what you are doing and the controls are on your side&comma; it is a blast&period; The frustrating parts averaged out much less than the fun&comma; but I felt a caveat was needed&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In HD this game is gorgeous&comma; long gone are the pixels&comma; the long load times and the disc swappage&period; I was blown away at the remastered cut scene and knew that I was in store for a visual treat&period; The levels look great&comma; they&&num;8217&semi;re murky&comma; stinky looking and just depress the hell out of you&period; And that&&num;8217&semi;s perfect&comma; if I was trying to escape from a snack cake plant I would expect it to be a depressing place where none would want to tread&period; Abe looks great&comma; they have kept him looking stylish like back in 1997 and the enemy models look great as do the co-workers you are saving from a horrible fate&period; Even though this is a 2D platformer for the most part&comma; the developers made the levels look 3D and you can see things happening in the background that won&&num;8217&semi;t affect Abe&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a very nice touch to add depth to the levels so that the player doesn&&num;8217&semi;t get bored saving people&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;07&sol;05085724&sol;1dadaf&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-63999" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;07&sol;05085724&sol;1dadaf&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Oddworld" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Oddworld&colon; New &&num;8216&semi;n&&num;8217&semi; Tasty&excl;<&sol;em>&comma; while great to look at&comma; does not have a lot of content&period; If you have the gumption&comma; you can finish this game one lazy Thursday afternoon and relive some of your childhood memories&period; I went into the game in the same way I went into last years<em> Ducktales&colon;<&sol;em> thinking that it was made to pull the nostalgia heartstrings&period; It isn&&num;8217&semi;t going to change how you feel about gaming&comma; it isn&&num;8217&semi;t going to open your eyes to platformers but <em>Oddworld&colon; New &&num;8216&semi;n&&num;8217&semi; Tasty<&sol;em> is going to take you back to the 90&&num;8217&semi;s&period; This game is fun&comma; but there are other titles out there to grab right now that will leave you less aggrivated&period; I would wait until this is on a flash sale or when it comes to PS&plus;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;