Review: Oddworld Stranger's Wrath

Oddworld Stranger's Wrath (Oddworld Inhabitants, 2005) is an alien western.

Gameplay
The controls in the game aren't very good. Movement is floaty. The camera moves slowly. And I found the amount of controls cumbersome, especially when you add in buttons that work differently in first and third person.

In addition to managing the controls, you have a bunch of different types of ammo to manage. There's a crossbow which can hold two types of ammo at a time. The ammo is small animals, which must be captured. But for the most part it doesn't matter. None of them are fun to use.

I guess what it boils down to is that everything in the game is slow. Everything feels like a slog. I'm guessing that in an effort to make the game as long as people wanted, the developer removed all the fun. I'm glad that Portal and Call of Duty 4 are encouraging observant publishers and developers not to let their games drag on. I'm hoping we'll actually get to a point where designers are constantly asking why a section of a game needs to be included, instead of just trying to put busy work in front of the player. Poorly placed save points also made the game longer, making me replay sections I'd already cleared.

I actually cheated to finish the last fight in the game. There was nothing rewarding about the gameplay, so why master something dull? It's also worth mentioning that the game took all of my stuff at a certain point, some of which it never gave back, further emphasizing the pointlessness of trying to play well.

Theatrics
Uh... yeah. Oddworld games always think they're delivering some sort of environmental message, even going so far as to include a quote from a Sioux chief at the end of the final cinematic. It's pretentious and makes all of their games that I've played depressing in tone. It also doesn't help that there are no characters to speak of. Every character of a particular race (males and females) are voiced by the same person. The acting is bad, to the extent it's even present. There are a few funny lines from some of the townspeople and one type of ammo that insulted me while sitting on my crossbow.

Aesthetics
As one of the last Xbox games to come out (before Microsoft dumped the machine like a bad habit to try and push it's lead with the 360), OSW looks good. As with most consoles, there are some issues with blurry, low res textures, but for the most part the visuals do the job.

The audio is good, but not great. For the most part it works. Footstep sounds, gun shots, and other environmental sounds work. But a lot of the dialog, especially from the townspeople, sounds like 8-bit samples (the way PC games sounded in the early 90s).

Final Score
2 of 5