Get Me Outta Here! - Abe's Oddysee
This is Rupture Farms. They say it's the most infuriatingly satisfying puzzle environment ever created. I used to play here. Well... I was really a slave. My masters, the fiendish developers at Oddworld Inhabitants refused to let me go until I'd saved them all.
Your mission in Abe's Oddysee is deceptively simple. You've got to get the hell out'ta Rupture Farms before you can be caught, tenderised and consumed, all at the hands of your nefarious, cigar chomping Glukkon ex-bosses and their Slig-goon hit squads. Along the way though, it's clear you're not the only one toiling for the vast corporation. In fact, there's 99 other little blue guys – the Mudokens – to save on the way. You don't have to though. In fact, for the most part you can totally ignore them. Or accidentally leave them under active meat grinders.
The environment for this mad-cap escape-cum-liberation is probably one of my favourites in gaming. It's a stunning synthesis of dirty, corporate cyber-punk industrial hell, and the beautiful, ancient looking wilderness inhabited by the last free species on Oddworld, who are slowly being hunted by Rupture Farms, grinding them into extinction. For the most part, this is presented to you by glorious 2D backdrops. There's the vast mechanical halls of Rupture farms; the beautiful lush pine forests of Paramonia; and the desolate, haunting desert lands of Scrabania. They're stunningly detailed, and are probably the most attractive – and certainly the most utterly unique - 2D environments in the history of gaming until World of Goo took the crown earlier this year. Even better are the cut scenes that interject at key moments, bringing Oddworld and its bizarre races into glorious 3D. They're genuinely funny, and a testament to the film making skills of Oddworld Inhabitants.
Of course, all this would be for nothing if the game mechanics were lacking, and thankfully, Abe's Oddysee doesn't let itself down here. Controls are simple but elegant for the most part; though I've more than once hit the wrong “game speak” key resulting in the death of one of my now rather pulped ex-co-workers. Just as well the game gives you infinite lives then. Fundamentally, it has no discernible interface. It's just you, your green-machine, Abe, and some of the most taxing puzzles ever.
You see, Rupture Farms wouldn't be an evil corporate machine if it abided by employee safety regulations. There's no railings, meat-grinders placed inconveniently in the middle of walkways, and cyborg, gun-totting Sligs and their canine-companions, the Slogs, keeping the workers in line. Each new level is a veritable world of hurt. Just getting to the other side is a challenge in itself. Finding and saving all the Mudokens... well that's another thing entirely. You will get angry and take a break now and then. I know I have every time I've sat down to find all 99. Saving them all though, is a compelling joy. Infinitely rage-fuelling, but compelling none-the-less. And there's very little more satisfying than the chances you get to mind control the hapless Sligs – the only time in the game you'll get control over any kind of weapon besides your wits.
The tale of Abe's fight for the survival of the Mudoken race; and, indeed, all the races of Oddworld from the tendrils of the gluttonous-Glukkon corporate leviathan is brilliantly realised. The desperate, difficult struggle to save all the Mudokens in Rupture farms, combined with corporate slogans on billboards brings an elements of social awareness to the table. Hell, even Abe's name is surely a reference to the great American emancipator. It's intelligent in a way no platform game with fantastic creatures has the right to be, yet pulls it off absolutely magnificently. It's comparable to Bioshock's complex treatment of Libertarian ideology, yet never oppressively forces you to take note of it to enjoy the game.
Abe's Oddysee is possibly the most charming, distinctive, yet teeth grindingly irritating platform game ever created. It's intelligent, elegant, though not without moments where you'll Alt-F4 in disgust. But I guarantee you'll keep going back to it until you've saved all 99...
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