Quick Look: Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD

19:20

2012 is going to be a good year for Brad deaths.

Go!

get it

you guys are fast :P

Started playing this yesterday and am really enjoying it. Still holds up!

I did exactly what Brad did 19 mins in haha.

I AM EXPRESSING MYSELF

I remember loving this game when it first came out.

I was wondering what happened to this game. Glad to see it was finally released all HDified. Now I just need to buy it.

Looks good. I may get it on Steam

I remember this game being HARD.

It's strange that Jeff isn't doing this Quick Look, seeing as he did a review for the game back in the Gamespot days. I would've really liked to hear what he thought about the update.

@Moncole: If you're talking about the original version that was released on Steam in the Oddbox a few months ago I would strongly recommend leaving it. The port is buggy as hell, there are constant lock-ups and the U.I still uses the original XBox interface(I checked back up on it about a fortnight ago right before the re-make was released). If you have a PS3 I would go against your better judgement and pay the same price for a single game than the PC pack, they did a terrific job on it, not to mention the story itself is true Oddworld Inhabitant joy.

19:20 . more classic brad quick look skills

I like it when Brad dies in video games :)

Still patiently waiting on the PC version to get this update considering I bought the entire Oddworld pack more than a year ago and haven't been able to play it, seeing as:

A) At first, despite having hardware enough to run games like Crysis and whatnot, I could not run Stranger at a playable framerate (despite being, you know, an Xbox 1 game from 2005).

This was eventually patched to make performance slightly better, but then...

B) After upgrading my hardware later that year, still could not play Stranger as I upgraded to a Radeon GPU and apparently JAW nor ATi/AMD wanted to budge and fix anything so that the game would display properly.

And so, I've waited. And waited.

And waited... 

This is the one Oddworld game I didn't play, adding to wishlist now.

They redid all of the texture, right?

strange

Game is very different from the other Oddworld games, this was the first one I played & went back from there to be slightly disappointed on the previous games. That being said it's highly recommended & aside from a few weak boss fights, the rest of the game is wonderful at the atmosphere/story along with the funky ammo types. Been a while since I've played it so will probably have to pick it up again myself.

That was a pretty good Brad death.

@Cyrisaurus said:

They put this up on the UK PSN Store a week early, and PS+ members got a discount, so I was pretty excited to buy this seeing that I never played the original.

Then it came out on the US PSN Store, but no discount for PS+ members. Real bummer as I can't make myself buy it, because I can't help but feel that the day I do they will give PS+ members a dicount in the next Store update.

The discount will only be a few $, does it really matter? Its worth full price.

it becomes more story driven later on. a cool one at that. i really liked this game its a shame there's no more oddworld

This looks pretty damn good for an HD remake.

I played this a couple of years ago on the original xbox. I loved the previous oddworld games and i loved this story, sometimes it was very hard with bosses taking a lot of damage and especially the last boss. The best thing is all the different characters you get to meet. Definately worth to play, but for it to be more enjoyable I would recommend an easier setting unless they have fixed the difficulty curve.

Glad to see nothing has changed in 2012.. Brad is still kinda bad at games and Vinny still can´t remember stuff about them. Stranger´s Wrath is a hell of a game by the way. Play it, if you´ve missed out so far.

This title was something that was pretty special on the Xbox1. I hope it finds more of an audience now. It's pretty weird (duh), but it's definitely memorable because of it. The story's great, the combat is great - this whole game is pretty awesome. This HD update doesn't look very special though - I know they made new assets and stuff, but it looks pretty similar to the Xbox version. I guess that says more about how good-looking the original game was though...

"It's not like Zelda where you can get away with fowl abuse and nothing comes of it."

Okay, there are two things wrong with that statement...

I actually downloaded this last night. Can't wait to play it.

@vinsanityv22 said:

This title was something that was pretty special on the Xbox1. I hope it finds more of an audience now. It's pretty weird (duh), but it's definitely memorable because of it. The story's great, the combat is great - this whole game is pretty awesome. This HD update doesn't look very special though - I know they made new assets and stuff, but it looks pretty similar to the Xbox version. I guess that says more about how good-looking the original game was though...

You should go back and look at the original... They've really shined up the visuals, especially on the Stranger and the critter ammo. Also, it sounds like they're fixed up the audio nicely as well. One of the worst parts of the original was how quiet and muddy all the voices sounded and it seems better here. Looks like a solid update to me.

This is on my list of best FPS games, probably because it's not an FPS. I love this game, especially the quasi-open world structure of the progression.

The Thudslugs! Use the Thudslugs! Driving me mad :P

Brad...wait, you mean standing in front of the guy with the chaingun isn't working? Jesus, try something else.

Has there been any word about this coming to XBLA?

I remember buying this game on day one, this was such a great game It made me unbelievably sad that it didn't find a bigger audience. Nothing is more annoying than watching brad die repeatedly on a simple fight.

Quick Look: Pulling a Brad

Oh wow, feels like there hasn't been a great Brad moment like that in ages, bravo sir, bravo. XD

Has there been any word about this coming to XBLA?

Was the game audio super quiet for anyone else? Hope they turn it up for the next quick looks

Wasn't this originally an xbox exclusive? Oh videogame politics!

Yeah, this video is exactly what I remember from this game - it looks great, handles great, has really nice design, but I also remember dying A LOT, especially since I was pretty new to the console shooters thing, and never got to finishing it. Perhaps this time I'll make it. Glad they resampled the audio too, some of it was compressed to hell and back so you couldn't understand a word.

@BlazeHedgehog: I just did a quick search and the most recent info is from last April. Apparently XBLA games need to come under 2GB and Strangers Wrath was too big. Since then Just Add Water have have implemented modern codecs which allowed them to get the game down to a lean 1.95 gigs. Specifically, the codecs chopped the audio from 650 to 465 megs while simultaneously improving the quality of the recordings.

Love this game. Really a bright spot in the Xbox catalogue.

Oddworld Stranger is fantastic and everyone should play it.

I also found the discussion in the beginning of the QL about what the heck kind of creature the Stranger is to be a tad funny, because that's actually a huge plot point and the game's big secret.

I can vaguely remember hearing something about the reason that the voices were done in house was because the creators believed that an outside voice actor could never be as invested in the project/world/story, or something, as the team themselves were.

I also remember [Edit:Incorrectly] hearing that this is not the same universe as the other games. The original idea was to have like five games I think, after Munch' Oddyseé there would be a game called Sqeek's Oddyseé... that never happened.

I loved the 2D games, got the first off of PSN a while back and replayed it. While the rendered 2D graphics are dated the game itself totally holds up. The second one is even better, from what I can remember, with a lot more gimmicks and a very welcome Quicksave option.

I never owned an original Xbox so never got to play any of the games after that, but I'm still kinda sad that this series ended prematurely.

Oh man, really happy to see people in the comments praising this game. I have super, super fond memories of this. It gets really interesting later on; almost Far Cry-ish in setting up traps and ambushing enemies. It also has one of the best endings in a video game, in my opinion. Pick this up if you've never played it!

@RockmanBionics: http://oddworldlibrary.net/toe/FAQ#When_and_where_does_Stranger%27s_Wrath_take_place

Nope. all the Oddworld games take place in the same world and in the same timeline. No alternate universes or different planets.

That boss fight looked INCREDIBLY simple.

Great Jeff parody by Brad after he dies.

@nesagwa: Alright, good to know. A real shame there weren't more of them, even if I never played the Xbox ones. I should play this, now that I have the chance.

@RockmanBionics: Well, this HD remake is supposed to be sort of the funding project to get a new game going. (I really wish they'd update the first two games for PC after this, they're hard locked to fullscreen 640x480)

Gonna join the rest of the people here praising this game. Found it really cheap in a store once, saw the oddworld name so I thought why not.. and it turned out to be my favorite oddworld game of them all ;p