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GAME REVIEWED: Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus

RELEASED BY: GT Interactive

PRICE: £44.99

REVIEWED BY: Kelly

REVIEW: -

The last time we saw Abe, he'd just rescued his fellow Mudokians from Rupture Farms lone world, he'd also dealt a serious blow to the Glukons of the greedy Magog Cartel. Once an ignorant happy floor-worker, Abe now found himself a hero to his people. You might think Abe had earned a vacation, but that was before he fell on his head and had a vision. Three restless ghosts let Abe in on a shocking secret. Rupturefarms was just one of many slaughterhouses the Glukkons were using to exploit Abe's fellow Mudokons. Even worse is the Soulstorm Brewery where super-addictive Soulstorm Brew is made from the bones of dead Mudokons mined from Necrum, the ancient Mudokon's city of the dead!

Abe, being a fool - uh, hero - set out across the desert with five friends to find Necrum. When the game opens, Abe and his palls have sneaked into the Necrum Mines. Then Abe falls down into the mines, unhurt, and then the game begins.

The mission is to destroy the mines by sabotaging the boilers that power the place. You'll have to find your five friends too, but make sure you keep them away form Soulstorm Brew! One glug of that stuff and they'll get sick and be no use to anyone, unless you can find a way to heal them. And how doyou do that? I bet those three restless ghosts might have an idea. They'll probably be hanging around their tomb. If you find the ghosts maybe you can get them to confirm the rumour that scrabs and paramites are running free in the vaults of Necrum.

Whatever happens after all this is up to you to discover. But if you think you're going to get of with just blowing up the mines, you obviously haven't been paying attention. Hellish train rides, bone-processing factories, a whole barracks full of Sligs, and Soulstorm Brewery itself are in your future. There won't be a dry eye in the house when you discover the secret ingredient of Soulstorm brew. And if you can be bothered, it wouldn't be a bad idea to rescue any other Mudokons you find on your journey to success. You never know when it will come in handy to have a bunch of escaped Mudokons to call on. It sure bailed your fat out of the fire when Molluck had you hanging over the meat grinders back in Rupturefarms, but that's ancient history.

The surroundings of this game are much the same as its prequel with superb detail and well-animated characters and you're introduced to the story via and awesome FMV at the start of the game. The best and most obvious addition to the game is character personality allowing Abe and other Mudokons to express their emotions, for example, Mudokons can be angry, happy or even suicidal plus even more emotions. Abe's able to communicate with his friends again and this time influence their behaviour,this makes all Mudokons seem more alive and realistic. Sometimes Abe needs other Mudokons to help complete tasks.

The game includes the enemies from the first games such as Sligs, Glukons, paramites, and others. There are a few new enemies as well, they include Flying Sligs, Greeters, fleeches and modombies. Also for this game, the GameSpeak giving Abe more phrases for himself and when he possesses his enemies. Exoddus is twice as big as Odyssey which features four huge worlds which are linked by a network of trains allowing easy cross level leapage with eight stages all split into dozens of sub-sections to keep you busy for weeks. The opening mines teach you all the moves, Necrum level is mainly running round pulling levers while avoiding being sucked to death by fleeches, the paramite vaults concentrates mainly on possessing the eponymous creatures and the Feeco Depot is where Abe can actually Fart and then possess the Fart and make it explode by manoeuvring it towards the target, hit the button and boom!

Abe can still possess enemies to get them to trigger pulleys which are inaccessible to Abe or get big enemies to attack little enemies. there are lots of impossible looking jumps, moving platform levels, pulleys that are all wound up in a series of fiendish puzzles with which the Gameplay continually develops introducing new features and themes at regular intervals.

Abe's Exoddus can be forgiven for looking too much like its predecessor because of the amount of detail and thought put into the game and the visual quality o the game is still very impressive with the astonishing graphics and rich gameplay that made Abe's Odyssey absolutely mindblowing. With more enemies and more puzzles to get past and complete the game which will keep you busy for weeks. Even though this is just an in-between game in GTi's quintology it is still a great game and it's better than Abe's Odyssey. If you haven't already bought this game I would suggest that you buy it as soon as possible. Tremendous game.

 

SCORE:

91%

LINKS: www.gtineractive.com


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Last updated: March 12, 1999.