this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024

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Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath is one of the most "original Xbox" looking games ever made (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

(For other examples, please see Thief: Deadly Shadows and Deus Ex: Invisible War)

Just started playing this recently and I'm absolutely tickled by how it looks. The only thing that's missing is everything being caked in CHONKY oversaturated low-res bloom so typical of late-era Xbox games. I wouldn't be surprised if it got removed in this later HD rerelease I am playing, but if it did, it's a crime against nature

Stranger's Wrath is a sci-fi Western fps set in the Oddworld universe that asks the question: What if John Marston was a furry that could double jump and run on all fours?

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[+] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

every voice is either pitched up super high or (sometimes) pitched up super low. characters will say a million lines at you all at once because you stepped too close

There's also only one voice actor per species, so all the chicken people in the starting town, for example, speak with the same goofy high-pitched Cletus voice regardless of their gender. I wouldn't be surprised if most of them were also just Lorne Lanning because they all sound very familiar from Abe's Oddysee and Exoddus

that terrible game made by the pickle rick guy aped off of the core conceit of this game, which is that ammo is all live creatures you collect. they growl and stuff when you load them into the crossbow. probably sounds weird and cruel but trust me its a good time + not unsettling at all

I assume the whole live ammo thing was just Oddworld Inhabitants trying to do something offbeat and creative within the confines of an FPS. Without looking into the game's history, I'm assuming the whole reason it's an FPS in the first place was because no one liked Munch's Oddysee so they tried to make something more in keeping with the general Xbox brand, ie. shooty game with badass protagonist, while still staying true to the Oddworld ethos. Sadly I think this game bombed pretty hard too. I feel pretty bad for Oddworld Inhabitants in general, I think they've just been stepping on rake after rake ever since 1998 with their one success being New n Tasty

Speaking of Munch's Oddysee, I guess I should play that at some point, but from the moment I first saw screenshots of it in a gaming magazine circa 2001 I just thought it looked like complete ass and had none of the charm of the PS1 Abe games

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I liked Munch's Oddysee sadness

It does look like ass though, and it's jank as all fuck. Stranger's Wrath is definitely a "better" game

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It was just tough going from the lush pre-rendered backgrounds of Oddysee and Exoddus to those really barren looking open areas in Munch's Oddysee, like so much of the visual identity of the series was lost instantly

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Yep - part of the reason why I'm not the biggest fan of the remakes of Oddysee/Exoddus. The style just isn't quite the same rendered as it is in modern 3d

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ah the "realism is brown" era.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

realism is brown

magic, spirit-world, tech-future, etc are all TEAL

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I played it on my Vita back in the day, absolutely fantastic game. The game also looks insanely good for an original Xbox game, looks more like a 360 game to me honestly

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Graphically it wouldn't be out of place on the 360, at least played in 1080p in this remaster, but the level design, character movement and especially the menus and GUI exude OG Xbox

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

i loved this game so much as a kid

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I wanted to check this game out as an Oddworld fan at the time but me and my siblings just didn't end up buying too many Xbox games. It kinda got relegated into being the 4-player Halo and Dead or Alive box

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

yeah, blockbuster game pass was a lifesaver back then

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Aw man, old crappy xbox western aesthetic was my jam back in the day, i remember having played ALL the Call Of Juarez games, even the weird modern-day one that has the mexican Cartel instead of outlaws for the 360.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Also GUN, that game was both fun to play, but also pretty crappy (and probably problematic I can't remember).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That Call of Juarez game was kinda infamous for not only being shit but horribly racist as well

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

yup, looking back at it is uh....... not particularly pleasing to remember that that's the kinda of slop i chose to spend my time with, but at least shooting cowboys and unveiling ancient curses(???) was kinda fun

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

The first one was clunky but the second game got praised for being legit great. They did one final Call of Juarez game after the third one that was a downloadable, heavily stylised arcade shooter thing that was apparently also good

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Other than cartel being infamously awful. Call of jaurez, bound in blood and gunslinger are all genuinely good games

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

please see Thief: Deadly Shadows and Deus Ex: Invisible War

Incredibly sharp, hard outline stencil ass shadows... come back to me...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Also see Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Doom 3, F.E.A.R, Condemned

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

yea u brought up Jupiter EX..... My beloved...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not sure what happened with FEAR 2 but aside from being crap it had none of the crisp clean visual style of FEAR 1 (stencil shadows included)

I remember Condemned 2 looking really impressive but that game was also a huge mess. Monolith managed to run both of their cool new franchises into the ground in record time

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

yea I will never fucking play Fear 2, seriously what the hell. It was joever for Monolith.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The best thing that can be said about Fear 2 is that at least it was not Fear 3 agony-deep

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

desolate

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's Unreal 2.5 for ya. Honestly such a classic time, and that bump mapping. Has anyone made a game throwing back to this aesthetic?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Perilous Warp kinda?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

(For other examples, please see Thief: Deadly Shadows and Deus Ex: Invisible War)

Thief: Deadly Shadows and Tenchu: Return from Darkness were 100% my shit back in the day lol

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Tenchu

One title that SHOULD have an actually good new game but doesn't yet.

Picture this:

Sekiro combat but with bigger consequences/vulnerability to incentivise the stealth approach.
Proper stealth options.
Hitman-style open world levels.
GADGETS GADGETS GADGETS to make loadouts for levels.

It should have happened already but we're being held out on. FromSoftware even own the rights and they're holding out on us.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I remember when the first Sekiro teaser dropped and everyone was like soypoint-1 OMG NEW TENCHU for a minute.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I had to look up Return from Darkness and it turns out that's just what Wrath of Heaven ended up being called on the Xbox monke-beepboop

We had Wrath of Heaven on the PS2 and played the shit out of the unlockable versus mode (remember random unlockable versus modes???)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The co-op mode slapped, too! I really miss kinda mid stealth games lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Co-op?! Don't remember that at all- was that an Xbox exclusive thing 🤔

Unfortunately a lot of mid niche franchises didn't survive past the Xbox 360/PS3

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Co-op?! Don't remember that at all- was that an Xbox exclusive thing 🤔

It must have been. It was fun as shit and I remember double executions you could pull off on dudes.

Unfortunately a lot of mid niche franchises didn't survive past the Xbox 360/PS3

Some of the bigger indie games sort of fill this niche for me, at least. Not quite the same, but you gotta do what you gotta do!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Another is Metal Arms

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I see your Metal Arms and raise you Brute Force

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Original xbox aesthetic is my favourite. At the time it was like a glimpse into what the next gen would be like so much so that when i got an xbox 360 i was actually kinda disappointed cos I'd seen most of what was to offer in doom 3 and hl2, thief, chaos theory.

Strangers wrath is a very good game its such a shame munch's odyssey fukin sucked balls. I loved odyssey and exodus and their first 3d game felt like a really jank shovelware title just running after collectibles like cmon.

Anyway I'd recommend xbox enjoyers play dinosaur hunting, there's a translated iso floating about. Its monster hunter but with guns.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

This game always looked like a weird game to me, I wonder how it emulates.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

This is what the xemu compatibility list says:

https://xemu.app/titles/4541006d/#Oddworld-Stranger-s-Wrath

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

HD version on PC probably pirateable would be easier than emulating the xbox versuon.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Reading reported issues on the xemu github the situation seems worse than what the compatibility list suggests so yeah, I'd suggest just getting your hands on the HD version

I wish Xbox emulation wasn't so ass still

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

For those of us only mildly aware of the oddworld story, how far in the deep end is this game's story?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I've just started playing it but from what I understand it's a completely standalone game completely unconnected to Abe's story. I don't think this even has any of the species from the other games