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Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty (PS4) Review
Remember those late years of the 90’s? When PlayStation was King? We were introduced to a lovable floor waxer by the name of Abe. We were first introduced to Oddworld in 1997 with Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee. It was an amazing game, and later there were future installments in the Oddworld franchise that not only continued with the adventures of Abe but many other lovable farting, burping and well pun characters. However this is not just an HD remastered version of Abe’s first adventure. New ‘n’ Tasty is a totally rebuilt version of the game with updated smoother graphics, physics and some tighter controls.
No this is not a cutscene this is actual game engine scenes. The graphics are amazingly cleaned up from the original.
New ‘n’ Tasty is the retelling of the first game in the Oddworld series, you play as Abe, a farting bumbling Mudokon. Sure you’re a slave but you’ve made Employee of the Year! Then you find out that soon they are going to turn your fellow Mudokons into Meat Popsicles! Finding this out you have to escape from Rupture farms a factory where him and his fellow Mudokons are enslaved. There are two objectives in this game. Your first main objective of New ‘n’ Tasty is escape. As Abe you are defenseless and weak. So in this game you will be doing a lot of hazard avoiding, sneaking around and avoiding enemies. This is not to much of an easy task in this side-scrolling adventure. There are a lot of things that can and will kill, between electrified fences, security hardware, landmines, bombs, meat grinders, and these are just the hazards! To add more you got these gun totting half cthulhu half machine things known as ‘Sligs” and other various monsters that just want to kick your defenseless blue ass. Part of the game is that you can possess these Sligs by chanting (Holding the L2 & R2 Buttons) and have them do some of your dirty work then blow their minds all over the place, Literally. If this wasn’t enough hard work for poor Abe your second objective is you “should” help save your fellow enslaved Mudokons. I’ll give an explanation on the “should” part later. To save your fellow Mudokons you quickly grab their attention and then tell them to follow you leading them hopefully to safety and chanting to create a portal to safety.
Luckily there are a lot of new feature with New ‘n’ Tasty. Since sneaking around and avoiding enemies and saving slaves, one feature to easy the frustration is called “Quiksave” where if your playing on the PS4 you touch the Dual Shock 4’s touchpad and instantly save your progress, and just as easily reload by holding it down. This doesn’t really make the challenges of the game any easier because trust me you will die quite often. But luckily you can save your progress before trying something to difficult. If you remember the original Oddworld leading your Mudokon brothers to safety was a pain, but another new feature with the game is you can easily command groups of them to follow you so you can have them sneak, run, or hide at once. The controls are a little more responsive where now you can aim objects with the right analog stick and throw object using the R1 button, coupled with an endless supply of bottles caps that you can toss to distract enemies.
Your other objective, save your fellow Mudokons
Remember earlier in this review where I said you “should” save your fellow Mudokons? Well here is the explanation behind that, you see if anyone who has played Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee will already know that you have an option to save the Mudokons, Kill them or pretty much just leave them to rot as slaves eventually being turned into Meat Popsicle. Depending on which path you choose affects the ending that you will be presented. So as it said in Abe’s Exodus don’t be a schmuck and save those Muddokons!
This game all in all looks amazing! Everything from more animated backgrounds to the helpful signs posted throughout the backgrounds have been redrawn and re-animated giving it that fresh new look. It is also accompanied with new recordings for everyone not just Abe. With the new additions such as the controls and animation New ‘N’ Tasty is a brilliant remake of a wonderful classic from one of our more silver age of gaming.
Avoid Sligs and Traps