You start with a nice zoo.

The comment spam started again, but this time we’re going to win. Read the main page for more info. Oh yeah, and play games.

Give me some sugar baby.

One more game eats the bomb. Everything or Nothing is finally finished thanks to some encouragement by Jeff.

The last level was annoying. It was way too long with a really unsatisfying final boss fight at the end. The ending was pathetic and failed to tie up any loose ends. It seemed like the developers began to lose interest in the game towards the end. The last few missions lacked the invention and variety of the beginning. They were standard 3rd person shooter type levels with wave after wave of Russian bad guys.

Overall it’s a good game with excellent production values. While the hand to hand combat is awesome, the weapon targeting system is buggy and the mechanical spiders suck ass. Many levels begin with you having to navigate the wobbly spiders through mini obstacle courses to open doors or obtain Bond moments. Some levels even have TWO such “spider missions” at the top so if you keep dying you have these annoying, nit picky spider quests to do before getting back into the action. This is precisely why I put the game away for a while.

Still, missions like the one where you chase down a semi full of explosives on your motorcycle or catch up to a speeding train with your Porsche will have me revisiting the game from time to time. If only they could have maintained that intensity through to the end and given us an ending worth all the early excitement.

Okay, no more posts this week I promise. The next game I have to finish is Star Wars: KOTOR so it’ll be a while…

I know I’m monopolizing EMB, but it’s my week off so I feel I should get it all out now…

After beating Oddworld:Stranger’s Wrath, I took another look at Munch’s Oddysee, the first Xbox game I bought. It had started out well with amazing cutscenes, quirky characters, and these cute-ass furballs called Fuzzies that get really hellish when aggravated. I had quit playing it a while back having gotten bored with the increasingly tedious levels, but I recently realized that I was only two levels from the end so being the completist that I am, I decided to finish the game.

Boy would I like to have that time back! Not only were the last two levels some of the most tedious and frustrating gaming I’ve ever endured, but then because I had saved enough Mudokens, Fuzzies and Eggs, I was “treated” to two more “bonus” missions. The word bonus is in quotes because these “bonus” missions were even worse than the previous two! But I had to finish them in order to see the ending!

Why were these levels so bad? Well, how about this for fun? Using a mechanical arm to pick up crates of eggs and drop them into a portal. DOZENS OF CRATES OF EGGS! They did this several times; rooms with 15 to 27 crates of eggs that needed to be loaded one at a time into a transporter. Couple this with some bad platforming and room after room where the puzzle was solved by possessing a bad guy and shooting everybody else and you’ll understand why there are piles of my own hair next to my chair.

Here’s a shot of the most boring time in recent memory that I’ve ever had playing a video game:

The most insidious part of all this is that I meticulously loaded every single crate because I didn’t want to end up with bad “quarma” and get a bad ending. I swear this game (and to a lesser extent the other Oddworld games) was created by and for people with Obsessive Compusive Disorder.

And now I know I have a problem.

The ending was indeed awesome. It was really funny and really touching, but was it worth it? Well considering I got a DVD containing all of the Oddworld movies when I pre-ordered Stranger, no it wasn’t. I’m not left with a sense of satisfaction and closure, I’m left with a befeebled brain and a newly found fear that I have a mental disorder that needs medical attention.

For shame Abe, for shame.

Secret Satan victim cards have been sent. When you receive your victim’s name, don’t tell them; let them find out when the horrible game you found for them arrives in the mail. The official players are Jeff, Mike, Chris, Steve, Jason, Dan, Ryan, and myself.

Try to send the games out before March. Let the pain scavenging commence! Mwa-Ha-Ha!!!

I’ll get you Stranger. Next time… NEXT TIME!!!!!!

It’s been five intense days of gaming, but Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath has eaten the bomb. By the end of it I’ve started looking like Stranger: mangy hair, mangy beard, even my mange has mange.

It’s tough to post screenshots of this because halfway through the game the plot, objectives, gameplay and even Stranger’s appearance change. I don’t want to ruin the surprise for anyone who hasn’t chugalugged the game yet.

This is the best Xbox game I’ve ever played. It’s a masterful combination of adventure, stealth, 1st person shooter and 3rd person action all wrapped up with Oddworld’s trademark aesthetic and humor. The smooth 1st to 3rd person system is going to be copied by many many games to come. It also boasts innovations in health and ammo. The live ammo of course is the best feature. Not only is it fun to hunt the ammo, but the things the ammo do are unlike anything you’ve seen before. The skunk upgrade for example produces an odor so pungent that it creates a vacuum; sucking your enemies to it. This is a handy way to get baddies off of walls and bridges, suck them into hazards like giant fans, or suck multiple enemies to one spot so you can kill them with one boombat.

This is also the first shooter I’ve played that didn’t get repetitive. I never felt like I was plodding through any of the levels just to finish the game. There are so many different ways to capture or kill the enemy. The action ranges from hiding in the brush and stalking a single outlaw to D-Day sized mayhem with explosions and carnage everywhere and you almost always have a choice between being stealthy or aggressive.

Each boss fight is vastly different and capturing them alive can be a real challenge. Some of them are puzzle type fights where you need to disable some shield or contraption in order to get to the boss, others are wide open gunfights that have you running around town evading and chasing down your target.

And then there’s the story. Despite Oddworld’s penchant for new age preachiness (nature is good, industry is bad…blah, blah, blah), the story is rich, engaging and full of surprises. The cutscenes are technically outstanding with amazing graphics, sound, music, and acting. They develop the character of the Stranger from the gruff loner at the beginning of the game into a deep romantic figure you care about.

I think a true hallmark of a great game is when you want to play it again as soon as it ends. Stranger is the perfect length; longer than you expect, but leaving you wanting more. As soon as it ended, I found myself revisiting old saves and fighting bosses again. Lucky for me the ending hints at a sequel and considering the rave reviews it’s been getting, I expect another installment in the future. Can they possibly make a second Stranger game feel this fresh and innovative? Probably not, but who expected they could make this one so good in the first place?