be is back. The reluctant savior of the 1997 side-scrolling adventure Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee--who previously had to save 99 Mudokons from RuptureFarms--has unfinished tasks. The brutal Glukkons, who oppress Abe's fellows by enslaving them and eating them, are exploiting the hapless, harmless creatures in new and more foul ways. Once again, Abe must not only free as many as he can, but also must meet his destiny as the bumbling savior of all Mudokon-kind.
Abe's Oddysee was rich in characters, environments, action and humor, but Abe's Exoddus does it even richer. There are more ways to communicate with Abe's kin (farting can induce recalcitrant Mudokons to step aside) and there are more powers at Abe's command (invisibility--cool--and he can possess his farts and blow things up--uncool, but useful). And if Abe's repertoire is broader, so is that of his Mudokon brethren. They now have bonafide emotions--anger, sadness, sickness--forcing Abe to use care and a bit of caution when dealing with them. Some Mudokons have physical impairments as well: blind Mudokons need special guidance so that they don't walk over cliffs or into other dangers.
The fauna in Abe's Exoddus is also more varied. All the unctuous favorites are back--the martinet Sligs, the tentacle-nosed Paramites, the crab-legged Scrabs--but new critters thrive here as well. Flying Sligs (something like heli-Sligs) and Fleeches--larvae-like sacs with four-foot-long tongues--make things more interesting, albeit more lethal.
Of course, Abe starts out in the bowels of the Glukkon factory, but he also has to make a pilgrimage into the hallowed jungle canopies where the spirits of his ancestors rustle uneasily. They will not have rest as long as their bones are being ground and distilled into products for Glukkon pleasure.
Flatulence, yes, but a message as well
The creators of Abe's Exoddus have taken an excellent game and expanded on its great bits while improving the poor ones. Hands down, the modification worthy of the greatest applause is the "quick save" feature. This stores a player's progress at any point, which can thereafter be recalled whenever desired. (Users can also make a more permanent save, of course, with the memory card.) In Oddysee, gamers could only save their progress at predetermined spots. This was unfortunate, for if Abe met an untimely death (as he so often does), it meant going all the way back to the beginning of that gamepath and redoing everything. Bless thee, programmers, and thanks too for keeping the infinite lives.
The hallmark Oddworld humor is here as well: quixotic, eccentric voices and vocabularies for most Oddworld inhabitants, and weapons and tools that effect not only success, but laughter. Take the mine car (please). If Abe can get to it, he can slip inside and then drive around in his personal tank, impervious to Slig fire. Since Abe's not much of a warrior and not of strong constitution, gamers may feel a weird flush when experiencing invulnerability for the first time.
Also, to its credit, Oddworld is a universe with satire as well as humor. Glukkons, Sligs and Mudokons are enjoyable by themselves, but the game designers quite definitely wished to provoke thought about how humans are using (and abusing) the resources of Earth. But, have no fear, there's no preaching, just wry visual commentary.
In fact, there's not much negative to say about this game. It's going to please those visiting Oddworld for the first time as well as those already familiar with this milieu. Perhaps a comment, rather than a criticism, may be posited about the new wealth of options in Abe's Exoddus. There are just enough new additions to possibly make controlling Abe confusing for a while, but, once mastered, they are appreciated. And this series has a long life span. The makers envision it as a quintology, of which the previous game, Oddysee, was the first installment. Every installment will have a bonus game (in this case, Exoddus), so there will be 10 games in total. That might actually work out to a year's worth of a player's life.
