This is one stranger you should get to know!
Originally released for the Microsoft Xbox in 2005, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath was developer Oddworld Inhabitants' attempt to move away from their platforming roots and into the popular genre of first-person shooter video games.
They still maintained a bit of platforming, however, which is why you can also play this game from a third-person perspective when that is required. And more importantly the signature art style and atmosphere of the previous Oddworld games are still very much what sets Stranger's Wrath apart.
But this time they placed their creation in a setting that is very familiar, yet often unused in games. A setting that is similar to traditional western films and with a main character who might resemble Clint Eastwood in his early spaghetti western years, had he not been devilishly handsome, but rather a grotesque, otherworldy (or 'oddworldly') animal walking on two feet while wearing a cowboy hat.
"Stranger" is the protagonist's name, and he is indeed just that, a stranger, a mysterious outsider, just like Clint. The player spends about half of the game knowing not much else about Stranger than that he is a bounty hunter. And so you go bounty hunting. You do so by using a crossbow that shoots a rather unique assortment of ammo made out of varying kinds of insects and animals, although their function is more like traditional kinds of ammo, be it machine gun-esque or grenade launcher-ish effects.
You'll be spending a lot of time attempting to knock enemies unconcious rather than killing them, because then you can suck them up, Ghostbusters-style, to earn more moolah (the game's currency). This can be a bit annoying and feel a bit too much like work when you just want to shoot the crap out of everyone, knowing that you'll get more out of it if you stop to clean up neatly after every single encounter.
The ultimate goal of Stranger's journey is to collect bounties and obtain enough moolah for an operation that Stranger needs, and without spoiling anything I will say that the game gets much more interesting and much more fast-paced after the bounty-hunting portion of the first half of the game is over. This first half consists of basically the routine pattern "go kill/capture wanted outlaw somewhere, return to town to collect the bounty" repeated ad nauseum.
I think this part of the game should have been considerably shorter, especially because there is not much going on to motivate your progression through it all, neither in terms of interesting characters or story-related events. Instead you are presented with town after town inhabitated by nothing but talking chickens who all look and sound the exact same, in addition to a selection of outlaws who are ultimately forgettable as both characters and boss battles.
However, in the second half the game is much better paced, more action-packed, offers better set-pieces and more interesting locales and scenery. When I first played it in January 2005, just a month or so after I had finished Half-Life 2 for the first time, I actually found myself thinking that this second portion of Stranger's Wrath was veering closer and closer to the quality I had been offered all the way through HL2. This i probably the highest praise I can give Stranger's Wrath. It is not a consistently brilliant game, but it is one that builds up nicely to a satisfying second half and conclsion (apart from the final boss battle, which is actually a bit of a disappointment like every other boss in the game).
So, in conclusion, If you find yourself getting bored before you get halfway through this game, I would certainly recommend that you continue playing. Stranger may not seem like he's much fun at first at first, but it is definitely worth following him to the end of his adventure. It is filled with sights, sound and action that you won't soon forget.
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