On The Stranger Side Of Oddworld

Thanks to Eurogamer for its transcript of Lorne Lanning's talk on new Oddworld Inhabitants game Stranger, taken from a BitTorrent-ed 95mb video file from an EA press event, and available on the same site. Lanning goes into detail on the previously mentioned Xbox/PS2 game, explaining: "The main thing we wanted to accomplish on this title was the genre merging of first person action with first person shooting [and some third-person play] with a whole new twist, which is live [creatures as] ammo, and the different types of strategy that would offer." He further outlines this odd gameplay concept anchoring this non-Munch related, now EA-published title, explaining: "You get your ammo [which includes chipmunks, skunk, and insects, by] hunting little critters, sometimes they're crawling around."

Comments

Snarks

[Anonymous Coward]

half life had live creatures for ammo 6 years ago.

Re:Snarks

[Jesterboy]

Yeah, but Half-Life sucked; hopefully this won't.

Re:Snarks

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but Half-Life sucked; hopefully this won't.

Holy fuscking shit. Worse blasphemy was never spoken. Expect your entire IP block to be banned from slashdot forever.

First Person Action

[miyako]

I'm not sure why game developers think that First Person Action is a good thing, it's always seemed like a good way to ruin a perfectly good game to me. The first FPA game I remember playing was Turok on Nintendo 64, which wasn't TOO bad because it was mainly a shooter. More recently Metroid Prime tried to be a full action title from a first person perspective, and it was a real pain. The real problem is a First Person perspective doesn't lend itself well to timing jumps and dealing with a lot of other elements common in an action or platformer game.

Re:First Person Action

[Bonewalker]

Have to agree with you on Metroid Prime. I can't count the number of times I played Super Metroid on the SNES. That game just rocked!

Metroid Prime didn't hold my attention for very long, so I never even finished it. But I hadn't thought about why, really, until this article.

Re:First Person Action

[kiddygrinder]

It's not that hard to time jump in first person, it's just practice.

Re:First Person Action

[DarkZero]

The real problem is a First Person perspective doesn't lend itself well to timing jumps and dealing with a lot of other elements common in an action or platformer game.

That's why, once you download the video, you'll see that the game actually allows you to switch between first and third person view modes at all times, both during action sequences and during more mundane "wander the town, talk to some folks, and get a mission" RPG-like sequences. All in all, it's sort of like Metal Gear Solid 2, with third person stealth/platforming action and first person aiming and shooting, but with the switch being performed by pressing a "view switch" button and being able to move around slowly in first person view, rather than having to stand still to shoot like in MGS2.

On a whole it works well, but for the most part, it's nothing really clever or unique. Wander-around-and-talk town sequences are in plenty of action games lately, first-person-shooting-but-third-person-action sequences were already done in MGS2 and plenty of others, and living ammo isn't new, either. Not only did Half-Life give you some very unique living weapons, but Half-Life 2 does it even better by giving you a monster taming weapon that lets you unleash huge-ass monster attacks by figuring out where a monster attack can come from in your environment (like near a skylight, or a hole in the floor, or a flimsy door). And even though the living ammo in this game is pretty amusing and cool-looking, a lot of it is just basic stealth/action weaponry that happens to make cute and/or disgusting noises at you. The various chipmunks, skunks, tribbles, etc. are nothing but stun grenades, gas grenades, land mines, machine guns, and all of the other typical MGS and Splinter Cell weapons dressed up in fur coats.

At least the hero moves like a lightning bolt across the landscape in third person view. That's something I wish a lot more games would have.

Re:First Person Action

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure why game developers think that First Person Action is a good thing

It depends on the type of game. For shooters, the most natural perspective is 1st person because you are aiming a weapon. You are shooting from the character to another object. For games were the movememts are more acrobatic, such as Tomb Raider, you are really handicapped if you cannot see the character you are controlling. For some games it just doesn't matter at all. For example, in Max Payne you can toggle between the two perspectives. Even though this is a first-person shooter, they tweeked the graphics in such a way that there is very little difference between the two perspectives.

Hunt critters for ammo

[johnnliu]

Sounds like me hunting for that bullet crate in Quake 3.

No, I haven't RTFA.

Ha ha ha

[metamatic]

Gosh, Lorne, back on PS2 now are we?

I guess that exclusive deal getting Oddworld purchased by the Glukkons didn't work out as well as you hoped, did it?

Oh, sure, we all told you when you get in bed with Microsoft, you have to make sure you use plenty of lube... but you were sure they'd give you the backing you needed to fulfil your vision. So you agreed to kill off the PS2 version of Munch's Oddysee and hype up the Xbox, piss off most of your series' ardent fans, and ship for Xbox only.

And then the few people who had an Xbox didn't buy the game (too busy with FPSs), and Microsoft dropped you faster than a Windows box blue screening.

Karma's a bitch, eh?

Re:Ha ha ha

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it was EA's decision to put them on the PS2.

Translation

[StocDred]

"The main thing we wanted to accomplish on this title was the genre merging of first person action with first person shooting [and some third-person play] with a whole new twist, which is live [creatures as] ammo, and the different types of strategy that would offer."

The main thing we wanted to accomplish on this title was making money, and we know that any FPS game is instant bank... and since my work was universally rejected on the Xbox and since gamers are tired of my endless moralizing, posturing and fanboyism du jour, I'm ready to appeal to whatever lowest common demoninater I can find. Currently in development, the Oddworld Kart Racer... although we have to work on creating some licensable characters that don't look like walking ballsacks first. Thanks for all the money!

New?

[Cutriss]

"The main thing we wanted to accomplish on this title was the genre merging of first person action with first person shooting [and some third-person play] with a whole new twist, which is live [creatures as] ammo, and the different types of strategy that would offer."

I guess the man has never played a game with Yoshi in it. Specifically, Super Mario World 2 and Yoshi's Story.

Re:New?

[metamatic]

Or "Ratchet and Clank", for that matter.

Re:New?

[Russellkhan]

Or Worms