RF Generation Message Board

November is shaping up to be a rather Odd month for the Retro Community Playthrough.

Originally meant to be the first part in a "quintology", the Oddworld series currently has only two games considered part of the main pentology, Abe's Oddysee and Munch's Oddysee. So we're going right back to where it started with Oddworld Abe's Oddysee this month! A game that covers a wide range of genres including platforming at it's core, as well as stealth, puzzle, and horror elements.

Abe is a lowly Mudokon janitor at Rupture Farms, the meat packing plant with questionable working conditions and even worse morals. Run by a race of greedy corporate heads known as the Glukkons, in their eyes the profits justify the means. As earnings on Scrab Cakes, Paramite Pies, and Meech Munchies fall off the chart, they decide their only option for production is "New & Tasty", a meat snack made from the very slaves who work for them. Stumbling across a corporate meeting on this, Abe has only one option: RUN! Little does he know that his destiny is more heroic than that. Lead Abe on his Oddysee to victory this November!

Checkpoints for each week will go from Friday to Friday with an extra day for the final checkpoint. Spoiler tags are placed around upcoming weeks so that people who want to stick with the group schedule can without looking ahead, and those who want to skip ahead can do so without needing to ask via PM or post.

Checkpoints:
Week 1 - Get to the start of Scrabania or Paramonia, the choice is up to you.
Week 2 - Finish your week 1 path choice and get to the start of the next path (Scrabania or Paramonia).
Week 3 - Finish your week 2 path choice and get to the screen with a sign saying 'Get back to Rupture Farms'
Week 4 - Finish the game.

Achievement - Points:
Pass Scrabania Initiation (final segment) without dying more than 4 times - 22
Pass Paramonia Initiation (final segment) without dying more than 3 times - 20
Don't set off the alarms in Stockyard Return (except those that are required) - 15
Rescue all the Mudokons in Rupture Farms (28) - 15
Rescue all the Mudokons in Stockyard Escape (12) - 5
Rescue all the Mudokons in Paramonia Temple (3) - 5
Rescue all the Mudokons in Scrabania Temple (6) - 5
Rescue all the Mudokons in Rupture Farms II (50) - 20
Rescue all Mudokons (99 total) - 25
Finish game with bad ending (<50 Mukodons rescued) - 25
Finish game with good ending (>50 Mudokons rescued) - 40
Finish game with special ending (all 99 Mudokons rescued) - 50

We're in for a real challenge on this one so good luck and have fun!

Platforms:
Playstation
Playstation Network
Microsoft Windows (PC)

Participants:
Techwizard
Singlebanana
Retrorage
Dezorian
russlyman
shoes23
Crabmaster2000

Never heard of *Reserved*.  I hope it's a fun game.  What system is it on?

Wonderboy in Monster World or bust

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2GmGSNvaM

on the SES (Seinfeld Entertainment System) ;)

Is it Abadox?! HUH?! IS IT?!?!

Or maybe Smash TV?

what could it be??? I hope I own it ha

Ys Chronicles!

Phantasy Star 1 or 2 no PSP versions? ESwat? Aerobiz Supersonic??

Streets of Rage II or Revenge of Shinobi. Bring on some SEGA love.

Burning Rangers! Ranger X? Rent a hero no 1?

http://www.rfgeneration.com/news/community-playthrough/RFGen-November-2013-Community-Playthroughs-2632.php

the games have been announced officially! i updated the title of the topic, i'll add the post itself tomorrow afternoon.

That Seinfeld skit is one of my favourites. Happy to know there people on here with good taste in TV shows.

Bring it. Count me in!


Yes, we have been talking about Sega titles for the upcoming playthroughs. Please PM me any suggestions for Genesis up to Saturn. I'm not sure that enough people own an SMS (though we would consider an SMS if there was enough interest) and Sega CD titles may be a tough sell as well. Again, please PM me suggestions, since we would like to keep this thread on-topic as much as possible. Thanks.

post updated!

Streets of Rage 2 in december!!!

Abe's Odyssey. . Gotta find a copy

The people have spoken....Ha!  We already have something in the works for December, but we could possibly put it on the calendar for another month.

january is looking like our best bet for sega month :)

January should be perfect for Sega. Give me some time to acquire some core titles.

so who all has plans to join in on the november playthrough? i'll start adding names to a participants list :)

G4 Icons for anyone who hasn't seen it yet:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnh6mbJ9FeQ

cool! i hadn't seen that yet

Never played it, but I'll keep my eyes open on eBay.

Great video. Who wouldn't want to play this now? :)

awesome! added you and retrorage to the list of participants, hopefully you can find a copy! they usually go fairly cheap, around $15 or less a lot of the time.

I think I may still have an extra copy at home to send to someone. I'll have to check one of these nights.

sign me up. I haven't played this since probably 1998. lol  I love going ,"Hey come here"(fart sound*laughing)  ha

If anyone is interested in the PC version, it sells on GOG.com for $5.99.  You can sign me up too, I have both the PC and PSX versions, I'll be playing to PC version.  I don't know if you guys try to play on the same platform for games released on multiple systems, so I hope you don't make me rummage through boxes to find the PSX version. 

right, that's what i forgot to add to the first post! which platforms it can be played on. also a short note on wikipedia points out that later versions of the games had visual changes to tone down on some aspects of it. i'm not sure if that means just the sequels, or if things like the greatest hits version of the ps1 game and other re-releases would include them, they might. just something to think about, but as far as i can tell it's only some visual changes like this:

[img width=480 height=240]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5a/Mudokonpops2.jpg[/img]

I'm eyeballing a copy on eBay.   I'll see if I can't find a local copy somewhere.

Everyone excited to get started on this? Hopefully some of you already have a copy to start right away but if you don't then no worries, it's not too long a game to catch up on especially if you only miss a checkpoint or two.

checkpoints and achievements added to the first post!

so do we have any first impressions yet from those who already have a copy?

I've only had about 20 minutes so far to sit down and play.  I have attempted this game several times since it was released and never gotten very far into it (I'm not even sure if I ever escaped Rupture Farms).  I'm not going to be going for the special ending I can tell you that, too much trial and error to make sure none of the Mudokons get killed.  The windows version lets me save at any time (I don't remember how saving is handled in the PSX version), so the extremely technical sections are made a little easier by not having to replay earlier sections. 

First impressions:

- The pre-rendered backgrounds actually look just as good or better than the FMV sequences, which frankly was amazing when it came out and still looks great today.

- I've always had a fondness for the 'cinematic platformer' (i.e. Prince of Persia, Flashback, Lester the Unlikely), and this game falls within the same style, but with a great sense of imagination and humor.

We had discussed earlier about Oddworld Inhabitants changing some of the graphics for the Japanese audience here are a few more articles explaining why:

From the Oddworld wiki:

A version of the game was also released in Japan. While the story line remained unaltered, the packaging of the game and the designs of the characters differed from the original version. One of the main changes of the character designs was the removal of a finger from four to three fingers; certain Japanese pressure groups were offended by the Mudokons having four fingers, due to a historic Japanese subclass of meat packers who were looked down upon in society. Four fingers, or showing four fingers to another person, came to insinuate the other was a member of the subclass, because it had become symbolic of the meat packers who frequently had work-related accidents.

And why they changed the image of the impaled Mudokon head:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_child_murders

I still haven't picked up a copy yet.  I have to wait until payday this Tuesday.   Everyone enjoying it?

I've started the game as well. Still trying to get the controls down. I'd like to get the good ending if I can. So far, the storyline is intriguing.

@shoes, that's the same article i had read on it and somewhere in there it mentioned that all other regions' later revisions got the same version as the japanese original release. like it says there's not much changed beyond a bit of visuals, but it's interesting anyway. as for the pre-rendered backgrounds, i really enjoyed those too. an upcoming area (more or less the third level) has some really amazing looking backgrounds.

@singlebanana the controls are probably the only real negative point i had against the game. they're not terrible but they do tend to be sluggish, which got me killed in a good chunk of spots i felt were only difficult because of the controls. it's not so much the "mechanics" of them, the choice of moves and the execution is pretty good, i think it's just a bit of a delay between releasing or pressing a button and the animation for that action finishing which slows down reactions at times. though i did watch a couple videos of people doing sections much faster than i felt able to, i think once you get the timing down it gets much better.

let me know if anyone wants any tips, there are some nuances to the controls that feel like you should know early but the game doesn't explicitly teach you until a few levels in.

Yeah the controls are initially frustrating here too.  I found that when running I have to release the left/right arrow key and then push 'jump' otherwise Abe just continues running.  It is counter-intuitive, but after a little practice I'm getting used to it.

you're playing on the PC version right? i wonder if the controls react differently, that sounds different than the PSX version. how does running work on PC? on PSX, you have to hold R1 while pressing the D-Pad direction, and you just let go of both to stop running. by the way for the PSX players, one thing i noticed is that the running jumps into the bird portals don't always work unless you let go of R1 immediately after jumping. it felt like a glitch so it's not spoiling any learning curve by telling that one ;) once you realize that it makes getting into the portals much easier.

Shift runs, arrow keys move, and space bar jumps.  It does have gamepad support though, so I may end trying to configure it that way with my Wireless 360 controller.  What I was saying before though was for running jumps I can't be holding right or left and then press spacebar to jump...Abe just keeps running.  It may be  a problem with registering multiple keystrokes simultaneously. 

oh, that's definitely not right, you should be able to run and jump without letting go of anything. i only suggested letting go of R1 because sometimes you won't actually enter the portal while holding run, only if you let go of it first. but you should be able to run and jump simultaneously. does it have keybindings in the menu? maybe redo them (or reset to defaults) and see if that does anything to help. otherwise try the 360 controller, but if that doesn't work you might want to try finding a PSX copy...there are some parts that would be nearly impossible without a proper running jump.

My only beef with this game so far is the control introduction at the beginning of the game. Though the scrolling instructions do help with some basic gameplay controls, there is no mention of the mind-control, communicating with other Mudokons, or instructions re: how to use the portals. I was a bit disappointed that I had to go to the instruction book to figure out these controls and if I had not watched an intro video on YouTube, I would not even have known that rescuing them was an option. I understand that reading the instructions before playing the game is essential, but if a game has a teaching tool in it, then it needs to see the gameplay instructions through completely. Hopefully, anyone who has the game has the instructions for the controls, but if you don't let me know and I will post them on here for the PSX.

You all just made me realize I don't have this game.  I rented it a few times back in the day, but never bought a copy.   Time to fix that! lol

ya the in-game tutorials are a bit lacking, like i said some things that feel essential aren't taught until later (it does teach you about chanting and talking to mudokons, but not until way beyond when you could have started using it). it also has all the communication controls right above the begin button on the main menu, Gamespeak.

any luck with the controls shoes23?

@banana, what you described is more or less why i restarted my file after an hour when i first played it. i felt like that was my tutorial and i wanted a fresh start after knowing how to play properly.

to everyone currently playing, how's the progress looking on week 1's checkpoint? week 2 will be revealed this friday morning :)

Abe popped up in the store so I might give this a go before selling it. Sounds interesting and I've never played any games in the series.

awesome! added you to the first post

week 2's checkpoint is revealed! for those that have finished the first checkpoint, what do you think so far? by now most of the tutorial stuff is over and it's well into the challenging areas for week 2. what path are you all taking?

been pretty quiet in here, week 3 checkpoint will be going up in a couple hours. how's everyone doing with week 2?

week 3 checkpoint is live!

week 4 checkpoint is up (was anyone really surprised about what it would be? :P). i hope the game hasn't been too frustrating for everyone, i find it difficult but not impossible...either way it seems like this one might have been a flop judging by the activity in here.

Put forth a solid effort on it last night and made it through the factory. The controls are a little frustrating and it seems to have a moderately high difficulty from the beginning. It would help if my card was saving and I didn't feel the need to save every factory worker.......doh! I'll keep plugging away.

I'm sorry I never grabbed a copy for this month's play through.   I kept pushing it off and before I knew it it was November 20th :(

Hope everyone is enjoying the game

i know how you feel, the same thing happened with max payne for me sort of, i did find a copy but still haven't gotten around to starting yet...i might start late anyway but we'll see, i'll probably want to find the first 2 games before that.

Well, 5 minutes until December if you're on the west coast of North America, anywhere else and the December Community Playthrough has already started. I hope everyone enjoyed the game despite its flaws, I know I enjoyed it (when I wasn't throwing the controller in frustration ;) ). Glad to be a part of the Community Playthrough crew and am excited for the upcoming games we'll be playing!