No offense to Fabien Lecoeuvre, the physical is not everything. Take Abe and his sticky-eyed tadpole head mounted on a dried green bean body. Still there 24 years after their first appearance. Even after New’n’Tasty in 2014, the sewn hero of Oddworld Inhabitants has the right to relive his exodus in a different way and under a new name: Soulstorm. An adventure that comes closer to Lorne Lanning’s original vision and which of course brings aber to love.
He saved her from a life of slavery and from “reincarnation” in an ice cap. After his Odyssey of RuptureFarms, it is time for Abe to lead a prophet to freedom in spite of himself, the Mudokons, whose fate seems to have deviated for no other reason than the perfidy of the Glukkon. A tedious endeavor, to say the least, the hero has to deal with strange evils that affect his people and on a road where a multitude of vicious sligs and traps await him.
Similar to the same?
Soul storm First, take the time to learn the basics of the formula and decide on a 2.5D plot. A mix of platform, puzzles, infiltration and action. Yeah, just a twist, although he’s quiet between your mimines, Abe is not a warrior. Nevertheless, he has many abilities to assert. Agile, he makes double jumps (!) And hangs on the smallest edge. It is even possible for it to curl up to roll through narrow doorways, hide behind a low wall, or discreetly approach a disarmed mine – after a point in time easily remembered. And we can also rely on him to move very discreetly. Little is left to meet the challenge that awaits.
Abe still has one power that makes all the difference: bewitchment. Two uses. Have an enemy nearby by turning your mind on them first, provided one of those damn suppressor modules doesn’t prevent it. As soon as we embody the filthy creature, its weapon belongs to us and certain accesses to the well-hidden switches are open to us. Concentration then opens a portal for birds through which the mudokons who have been rescued on the street can get to a safe place using a basic system of order which, however, allows the individual to be distinguished from the group. It is always our protagonist’s main aim: to help his neighbor get the trunk as we go through the 15 acts – 17 in the case of good “performances”. Until then, it is easy for the connoisseur to believe that the residents of Oddworld were still playing safety and that the story of the “real sequel” was a bluff, apart from a plot that was somewhat rewritten and excellently told by luxury cinema.
Radio Bire Loot
Just like the number of saving Mudokons, which rises from the small 300 in New’n’Tasty to around 1,400 here, the number of interactions is exploding Soul storm. The various options for solving the situations to be crossed, which can be spread over several screens, benefit your wishes and the content of your inventory. Trash cans, lockers and stunned enemies are waiting for you to search them. The traders will call your sorrel, which is harvested by adding empty bottles to the deposit. And if you don’t get the items directly, you can still make them. The craft menu is dusty, cold, and disgusting. But whatever. You have to pull yourself there to arm yourself. Whatever you can achieve with the help of more or less powerful mines, smoke grates, torches, flammable beers, knocking and bouncing candy, explosive soda or even a fire extinguisher, well worth the risks you are taking. The way in which every gigantic painting and every step turns a little more towards the castagne and the reflexes are articulated makes the salt of the experience. Implement the right plan with the feeling of immediate satisfaction at the end of success.
Hairy gameplay, albeit a bit rigid, is Abe, who welcomes our experiments with open arms, in a universe that remains wonderful to roam. Careful aesthetics, solid production, zooms and zooms that emphasize the size of the stages, always very excited in the background, enchanting sound environment (but what a shame that all dialogues in English are not always subtitled) … with an immersion this one too an unjust, ruthless world, in which the masses are conditioned and drained for the benefit of a scruple of unscrupulous leaders, grips us in all kinds of industrial and natural settings. This desire to help all of our fellow human beings to have a quarma of almost 100% and thus to discover the best and most joyful ending of the game lives in us. But this also requires overcoming the mistakes that are difficult enough to endure.
A fun backstory
Soul stormIt’s also Abe who refuses to hold on, Abe who stumbles without knowing why, Abe who may be hidden behind a low wall but is pulverized by a mortar anyway. We let it happen and close our eyes the first time. We arbitrarily miss the chance, telling ourselves that our previous attempts have been uncomfortable. But it is repeated in other places. And while they require you and your followers to hide in lockers, some go uncovered. Despite having them armed and demanding an aggressive stance, they are sprayed up close without moving a toe. And let’s not talk about their response times. Bugs, gunfire, missed collisions, rampaging AI allies: the goal, like balancing certain sections, especially Mama Slig, poses real problems. Like here, where a freelancer forgets to move after the workers are released and has to restart not a section but the entire level.
This brings us to the problem of waypoints and backups. As soon as a checkpoint is reached, we continue this moment. You don’t have to try retouching it in hopes that the digs below will be counted. No, we have to repeat everything. And as long as the sequence is a little tricky … Take, for example, a climb to Mudokons where you have to keep enemies from crouching. Knock back the cabinet doors, take a few things out of the garbage chutes, and refuel the distributors to finally make the tools in good quantities: every time you try. A nightmare for perfectionists who reject even a loss. And even more so if an error occurs for a while. We would have liked a more flexible system so that the frustration doesn’t spoil the pleasure of an almost ideal reunion.
