Short And Sweet Review: Oddworld Stranger's Wrath HD

First off, I've never played the original Oddworld game on the Xbox, and I never payed any attention to it.  The PS3 remake was a great way to get my hands on the game, and with the HD treatment, its the best version to play.  During the holiday season, there are many cool new PSN games to try out.  So Strangers Wrath was an obvious choice to receive my holiday money.


Presentation/Story:
Since I never saw how the original looked, only by videos and screenshots, I can make little comparisons with each of the versions. The HD visuals look great, and nice graphical enhancements like lens flare that captures the beautifully rendered world that you explore. The cartoony aesthetic also fits the humorous and witty writing perfectly making a great and winning formula. The world is well developed, deep with lore and life. Towns you visit feel like actual places in a bigger universe, with unique characters that help bring the game to life. The audio is pretty good all around, with a solid soundtrack and great voice acting. Although, Stranger himself, sounds a little drab at times but he doesn't bring down the experience. The general story in the game is simple , Stranger is a bounty hunter, who tracks Oddworld criminals in an attempt to raise money for an unexplained surgery that he "needs to survive." Its pretty vague at first, then develops into a engaging story.  With a smooth and locked 60 fps frame rate, the presentation is top-notch.

Core Gameplay:

The core gameplay in the Stranger's Wrath is a mix between a FPS game, and a third person action shooter. Shooting feels really good and solid, but at times it can go out of whack and become a bit floaty. Platforming is a little wonky and clunky most of time, but you won't be spending most of your time jumping around so thats not a big problem. The overall combat is what keeps me coming back for more action, each of his ammo types has different abilities, and gives you an array of options to tackle each enemy encounter. There are traps you can set up for a different way of defeating enemies. You can combine this with the stealth component of the game to lure enemies into those traps. So theres many ways to tackle different encounters.

As you do bounty after bounty it starts to feel very repetitive, with the scarce amount of enemies making for some pretty predictable encounters.  It pretty much follows the same pattern with each bounty, explore the area, and fight off enemies, then capture or defeat the enemy.  Difficulty will ramp up on you from time to time and will frustrate you at times but never detracts from the overall experience of the game.

Final Thoughts:

This new remake of Strangers Wrath is a great one indeed and a welcome addition to the many games that have received the HD treatment.   It may drag a bit at times and the platforming may be weak, the shooting and combat makes up for it perfectly.  Its a very unique game, I've never played this one before and I'm now glad I did.  Its $14.99 guys and gals, its a great game for that price.  Go on and spend your holiday money on this awesome  PSN title.

Final Score = 8/10