You want weird? Look no further than Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. Mild-mannered factory worker Abe has discovered that his employers at Rupture Farms are planning to use his fellow Mudokons as the main ingredient in their latest product, Mudokon Pops. Like any decent Mudokon, Abe aims to rescue his peers. He also is determined to seek justice in his battle to bring down the corrupt Rupture Farms. You help Abe carry out his heroic duties by possessing enemies, participating in action sequences worthy of an Indiana Jones flick, and talking to fellow Mudokons using the game's impressive "gamespeak" feature, which allows multiple characters to communicate with each other using your control pad.
The graphics in Abe's Oddyssee convey a unique personality, which is often lacking in platform action games. Still, a few pretty game environments will not distract you from the devious puzzles scattered throughout the game. Fortunately, you never run out of lives in Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. Instead, Abe rematerializes immediately after you "die" and the game continues from the last checkpoint you reached. This approach encourages exploration, which you'll want to do anyway since this is one of the most beautiful 2-D games we've seen. --T. Byrl Baker
Pros:

Gorgeous graphics and cut-scenes
Challenging puzzles
Entertaining story Cons:
Many puzzles require perfect timing, which can be difficult to master

In a world run by ruthless meat barons your entire race is about to become pie filling...Unless you can escape RuptureFarms and make it through the most inexplicably challenging gameplay in the known universe. Sound Odd? Welcome to Oddworld. A new kind of game and a brave new world of interaction. Communicate with real characters. Possess and blow away your enemies. Solve wicked situations. ODDWORLD: ABE'S ODDYSEE takes every game genre you've ever seen and blends them into a smorgasbord of pure gaming delight. So trust in Odd and you'll never be hungry again!

If there ever was a cookie-cutter genre in gaming, it was the platform game back in the heyday of 16-bit console systems. Every company had a "cute" or "hot-licensed" character it wanted to plug into a 2D side scroller. It really didn't matter if the titles were any good - and more often than not, they weren't. Gameplay frustrations such as blind jumps and opponents that would fire projectiles at players from off-screen quickly became commonplace, and people walked away from the whole mess scared and scarred. Consequently, gamers believed that games had to be 3D to be any good. Now, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee has arrived, proving people wrong on both regards. Abe's is not only a platform game for people who are tired of platform games - it's one for people who never liked them to begin with.
In Oddworld, you play a slave called Abe, who works at the meat-processing plant Rupture Farms. Abe's a Mudokon, hardly your typical cute platform hero, but a gangly, orange-eyed, green-skinned creature with a samurai's tuft of hair and the posture of an ape. The story's premise is that the factory's owners have found a tasty new treat to whip into production since they ran their last "dish" into extinction. The problem is, it's you. Or more precisely, the Mudokons. When an eavesdropping Abe finds this out, he starts ham-stepping stage left, right quick, proving that curiosity can save the cat, too. Your goal, as Abe, is to escape Rupture Farms, liberating as many fellow Mudokons as possible, and find a way to bring down the entire plant. But playing a Christ figure isn't as easy as we'd all like to think. Using a limited vocabulary set, Abe must convince the Mudokons to follow him to safety, all the while racing through the factory flipping switches, avoiding obstacles, evading heavily armed guards, and staying alive.
While other games promise a variety of enemies and enemy AI, Abe's delivers, with creatures such as the Sligs (the heavily armed guards of Rupture Farms who are basically slugs with guns on stilts), Paramites (Giger face-hugger-like creatures), Scrabs (essentially four fast-moving legs with a sharp beak), and Slogs (the Sligs' fleshy-headed "dogs"). Each species has its own unique personality, which has to be understood and adapted to if Abe has any hope of surviving. For example, the Paramites get quite vicious if cornered or found in groups, but can be distracted if you throw them chunks of meat; the Scrabs fight like beta fish if you can lead them into the same room; the Sligs can be controlled by Abe's psychic ability, if no mind-control-inhibiting machinery is nearby; and the Slogs, in turn, can be ordered around by possessed Sligs. The game's developers, Oddworld Inhabitants, refer to the creature AI process as A.L.I.V.E. (Alive Lifeforms In a Virtual Environment), and it goes a long way toward making you feel as if you're interacting with an actual world and all its inhabitants.
Other variations from the platform norm include the absence of scoring (the goal is just to stay alive and save your friends, not rack up points), life meters (you'll know when you've expired), or extra lives (after death you simply start back at the beginning of the section you were in). Once you realize these features are gone, you'll probably begin wondering why games ever needed them in the first place. Best yet, unlike any number of platformers, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee requires lots of thinking in solving its puzzles, which are well constructed and challenging, instead of cheap and frustrating. Abe's really is the ideal platformer, balancing its action and puzzle elements perfectly to make the game intelligent, engaging, and, best yet, fun. With about 25 to 30 hours of gameplay, there's a lot of meat for you to chew on, whatever kind it may end up being. --Joe Fielder
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