The Oddworld franchise, at least the first two that starred Abe, are some of my most favorite games of all time. Back in the day I found themThe Oddworld franchise, at least the first two that starred Abe, are some of my most favorite games of all time. Back in the day I found them to be as moving and beautiful (not to mention really smart, entertaining, and challenging) as any game I'd ever played up to that point. For the most part, my views haven't really changed, except for the part about me thinking the original first two are beautiful. They still are, but they have to be remembered in the context of what all video games looked like 15 to 20 years ago. With this in mind, one can probably imagine how excited I was to find out they were recreating at least the first one with up-to-date graphics. I will say that this is still a fantastic game, and I really appreciate that they've even added to it a little bit. I also hope they keep remaking these. For all the negatives I'm about to throw down, I'd still buy an updated Abe's Exoddus. But when I first started playing New N' Tasty, almost immediately I noticed something was different. For all that they added, they seemed to take quite a bit away from it as well, which changes the soul of the game in a subtle and not-always-appreciated way. Maybe it's the fact that they've gone somewhat away from its 2D sideview to give it slightly more visual depth and perspective (which I don't particularly care for). Maybe it's that the controller layout is somewhat different for this iteration (which I also don't really like). But one thing that REALLY stands out right away is that while the graphics are many, many times better than the original, the sound effects are substantially lacking compared to 17 years ago(!?!). The deep, almost didgeridoo-like sound underneath Abe's chanting is quite a bit less noticeable. The machine guns carried by the sligs sound like little cap guns now, where as in the original they had some beef to their pops (also, I don't think you can shoot across open chasms from a distant catwalk to one in the foreground anymore, which is a huge bummer because I always enjoyed picking off sligs up close). Basically, I was hoping this would be just a visually updated version of the original, but sadly, it is not (at least not enough to my liking). The strength of my grade for this game is based on my love of the original. I can't say this New N' Tasty really succeeded in giving me the warm fuzzies. It came close though.… Expand
