After Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty remade in 2014's Oddworld: Abe's Oddysey for modern hardware, Oddworld: Soulstorm gives the same treatment to Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus. On the surface, this bright and colorful reimagining is the same but more, an exuberant platformer full of the same chaotic energy that Abe is known for. Unfortunately, looking the part is pretty much all she's good at.
Oddworld: Soulstorm is a buggy, shallow remake that does away with much of the quirkiness that made those early Abe games so memorable. Instead, we've got lavish scale, lots of numbers and collecting, as a way of trying to disguise the nostalgia that just goes through the motions, and hurts at that.
It's no good, and at best it serves as an indictment of the worst habits of big budget video games in the current era.
Oddworld: Soulstorm Review – Revolution By The Numbers
My time with Oddworld: Soulstorm has started well.
A first step is to try to protect hundreds of fleeing Mudokons from the fire of Sligs watching them. You need to possess one of the armed guards and use them to provide covering fire, killing the others in the process. After a few tries, I decided to make peace with the nine Mudokons I had lost and progress without them, vowing to come back later for a perfect score.
It was the tonal boost of this section that took me by surprise. After a few relatively simple puzzles, Soulstorm suddenly placed several dozen lives in my hands. The intro saw Abe learn that the rebellion he started at Rupture Farms was just the beginning and the rest of his people needed him to lead them further. It was the game that told me to take this responsibility seriously. Or, at least, that's what I thought.
But as I progressed, I learned that those moments are rare and the rest is mostly about rummaging through trash cans and lockers, throwing smoke bombs and hoping that the Slig that just s stop did not fall into place. For every slice of satisfaction found in Soulstorm, whether it's successfully getting every Mudokon from an area to a portal or figuring out the exact timing for a gauntlet of enemies, there's hours to work. around unpredictable AI and watching meaningless rewards pile up.
Sections are best when basic. If it's just Abe, an assortment of platforms and obstacles, and a few patrolling Sligs, this is the weird world you remember. Tiptoeing around, finding ways to hide, cursing yourself for running instead of walking, or vice versa. Any mistake is likely to cost you an attempt, and that tension is always a powerful driver.
strong and broken
The people of Oddworld learned a thing or two from Just Add Water's work on New 'n' Tasty. In particular, the controls are better, especially running mapping and stealth to two separate shoulder buttons rather than an analog stick. But this elegance is absent elsewhere.
When encounters pile up, with environmental factors or Mudokons, things go awry fast. One-step mortars are an absolute nuisance. The sound of the bombs put the Sligs on high alert again and again, like they heard Abe, and passing them meant throwing caution to the wind, unless I'm trapped by one that won't calm down enough long for me to sneak.
Then the explosion stuck me at a checkpoint, with the fantasy adventure unwittingly becoming a lukewarm simulation of active shooter warfare.
Things get worse when you have a group of Mudokons behind you. For the portions, you take care of them. For others, you persuade them to throw away their helmets for a better life. Choices are made in the representation of your brothers. They all have the same thick American accent, and telling them to stop gives you a ream of "Why are we stopping?" which the game luckily decides your antagonists never hear.
They're meant to track your movements, meaning they'll sneak if you sneak, run if you run, and jump into available lockers if you jump into one. For one or two it goes without a hitch, for more at least one outlier is regular. I restarted several times due to an ignored command to hide or someone hanging behind the peloton on the other side of a gap.
Saving them all requires patience for more than the obstacles you can see. They can't follow you up ladders and some jumps are too big. I was heartbroken when I was forced to leave three behind because a Slig scared away the birds that spawn their nearest portal. Two alternate jaunts were available, but they just stood in place at the edge of a jump for either one, arbitrarily unable to take advantage of them.
I don't know if that was a problem or not, but it speaks to how Abe's revolution has been commodified. The first two Oddworld games are strange in a way that very much reflects the experimentation that produced them. Oddworld Inhabitants was founded on the burgeoning explosion of 3D games wrought by PlayStation, with co-founder Lorne Lanning coming from a film effects background correctly thinking that was where the game would come from. money for a weird 3D animation.
faded memories
Oddysey and Exoddus are grimy, unforgiving games full of little details and decisions that couldn't be found anywhere else when they were released. For many, their first impression was learning Abe's voice commands from the main menu, his huge round eyes staring at them as they farted him over and over. They guided him from those awkward conversations to commanding everyone freedom.
Every screen had to be meticulously scanned before taking a step, and save points were much less common. Completing these games takes nerves of steel, and in the end, only one thing matters: saving every Mudokon.
In Soulstorm, you get points for almost everything Abe touches. Trash cans, crates, secret areas – hitting square and peeking will almost always give a point towards something. It's not a Ubisoft sandbox, but it's just as full of contrived ways of trying to make you feel like exploration matters. It's useless, because yes, I check every bin, because I need the crafting materials, because I want to save everyone.
That this is not sufficient reward is quite cynical. Ironically, at a time when the overthrow of corporate overlords is more pervasive in the public consciousness than in Abe's early days, he jumps through corporate hoops for a slice of your sentimentality.
Sometimes the more Abe survives, where you have to rely on your wits alone, in caves where there is very little light, you use rocks for defense, and wild dogs sleep. Healing the sick in these mines, then coordinating their journey to safety, is Soulstorm at its most fascinating.
In a desperate plea, I threw myself on the sleeping dogs to make them follow me to the other end of the path to clear the way to the gate. It worked, and it took me a minute to pull myself together. Soulstorm is too concerned with giving platinum medals for scuba diving for that investment to last.
To be honest, it's beautiful. The camera holds Abe through the winding levels, moving in and out of oblique angles to show the size and depth of the world you're trying to get away from. Sometimes the perspective settles on an eyesore, a glorious sight that overtakes Abe's trail. Usually I take a screenshot and revel in the atmosphere. I wish those moments had been surrounded by better acting.
Oddworld: Soulstorm Review – The Bottom Line
Benefits
- Visually pleasing
- Good controls
The inconvenients
- Bad AI
- Lots of bugs
- Unnecessary amount of collectibles
- Not enough tension
As a free PS Plus game, Oddworld: Soulstorm deserves some curiosity, but little beyond that. Regular checkpoints make it easier to play in quick blocks that reduce the likelihood of encountering something glitchy.
Longer sessions tend to be frustrating. It's a shame Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus is only on PS3, for now, as it makes revisiting it appealing. At least these Sligs are less prone to malfunctions.
