(For other examples, please see Thief: Deadly Shadows and Deus Ex: Invisible War)

Just started playing this recently and I’m absolutely tickled by how it looks. The only thing that’s missing is everything being caked in CHONKY oversaturated low-res bloom so typical of late-era Xbox games. I wouldn’t be surprised if it got removed in this later HD rerelease I am playing, but if it did, it’s a crime against nature

Stranger’s Wrath is a sci-fi Western fps set in the Oddworld universe that asks the question: What if John Marston was a furry that could double jump and run on all fours?

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      every voice is either pitched up super high or (sometimes) pitched up super low. characters will say a million lines at you all at once because you stepped too close

      There’s also only one voice actor per species, so all the chicken people in the starting town, for example, speak with the same goofy high-pitched Cletus voice regardless of their gender. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them were also just Lorne Lanning because they all sound very familiar from Abe’s Oddysee and Exoddus

      that terrible game made by the pickle rick guy aped off of the core conceit of this game, which is that ammo is all live creatures you collect. they growl and stuff when you load them into the crossbow. probably sounds weird and cruel but trust me its a good time + not unsettling at all

      I assume the whole live ammo thing was just Oddworld Inhabitants trying to do something offbeat and creative within the confines of an FPS. Without looking into the game’s history, I’m assuming the whole reason it’s an FPS in the first place was because no one liked Munch’s Oddysee so they tried to make something more in keeping with the general Xbox brand, ie. shooty game with badass protagonist, while still staying true to the Oddworld ethos. Sadly I think this game bombed pretty hard too. I feel pretty bad for Oddworld Inhabitants in general, I think they’ve just been stepping on rake after rake ever since 1998 with their one success being New n Tasty

      Speaking of Munch’s Oddysee, I guess I should play that at some point, but from the moment I first saw screenshots of it in a gaming magazine circa 2001 I just thought it looked like complete ass and had none of the charm of the PS1 Abe games

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      Graphically it wouldn’t be out of place on the 360, at least played in 1080p in this remaster, but the level design, character movement and especially the menus and GUI exude OG Xbox

  • CredibleBattery [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    Aw man, old crappy xbox western aesthetic was my jam back in the day, i remember having played ALL the Call Of Juarez games, even the weird modern-day one that has the mexican Cartel instead of outlaws for the 360.

  • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    (For other examples, please see Thief: Deadly Shadows and Deus Ex: Invisible War)

    Thief: Deadly Shadows and Tenchu: Return from Darkness were 100% my shit back in the day lol

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      Tenchu

      One title that SHOULD have an actually good new game but doesn’t yet.

      Picture this:

      1. Sekiro combat but with bigger consequences/vulnerability to incentivise the stealth approach.

      2. Proper stealth options.

      3. Hitman-style open world levels.

      4. GADGETS GADGETS GADGETS to make loadouts for levels.

      It should have happened already but we’re being held out on. FromSoftware even own the rights and they’re holding out on us.

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      I had to look up Return from Darkness and it turns out that’s just what Wrath of Heaven ended up being called on the Xbox monke-beepboop

      We had Wrath of Heaven on the PS2 and played the shit out of the unlockable versus mode (remember random unlockable versus modes???)

          • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            Co-op?! Don’t remember that at all- was that an Xbox exclusive thing 🤔

            It must have been. It was fun as shit and I remember double executions you could pull off on dudes.

            Unfortunately a lot of mid niche franchises didn’t survive past the Xbox 360/PS3

            Some of the bigger indie games sort of fill this niche for me, at least. Not quite the same, but you gotta do what you gotta do!

  • Gorb [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    Original xbox aesthetic is my favourite. At the time it was like a glimpse into what the next gen would be like so much so that when i got an xbox 360 i was actually kinda disappointed cos I’d seen most of what was to offer in doom 3 and hl2, thief, chaos theory.

    Strangers wrath is a very good game its such a shame munch’s odyssey fukin sucked balls. I loved odyssey and exodus and their first 3d game felt like a really jank shovelware title just running after collectibles like cmon.

    Anyway I’d recommend xbox enjoyers play dinosaur hunting, there’s a translated iso floating about. Its monster hunter but with guns.

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      I’ve just started playing it but from what I understand it’s a completely standalone game completely unconnected to Abe’s story. I don’t think this even has any of the species from the other games