My Top 5 Games of All time - Part 3

This is basically a list of my top 5 games that I have played in my entire lifetime that I will be presenting in 5 parts with each part containing each game. Obviously they are my own personal choices but I would urge any avid gamer that hasn't played these games before to give them a go, with that said lets continue.

3. Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (for PlayStation)

Case cover

Now with this one, like part 2, I must admit it may be an obvious choice again for the fact its a generation classic (in my opinion anyway). At heart it was a simple Puzzle/action side scrolling platformer at first glance, but once you picked it up and saw the many features within the game it became clear it was much more than the simple game it so could have easily been, for me anyway.

I loved this game, although I must admit at times it was hard and I got stuck a good few times, but bearing in mind I was fairly young at the time and I think anyone who has played this game would admit the first time playing through it can be tough at times.

But with that said it never makes the game any less enjoyable, if anything it just made me more determined to get through it and keep going. The game was set in Rupture Farms, a massive meat factory, you are a slave and so are 100 people from your race.

Hello there

The side scrolling was very old school but had an amazing mechanic at times which made it feel like it was flowing to another area rather than loading, but not always. Sometimes you'd move out of the box area and the new area would just pop up with you in the next section but other times, and very nicely done at times, the camera would pan round to a new area or even have you moving into the background from the foregrounding letting you move in the distance.Also enemies would be in the background and you would have to get by them in the foreground, all very cool at the time for a simple side scroller.

Ummmm

The game itself had alot of features to take it away from the humdrum of jump move repeat. For starters puzzles are a massive part of the game but no typical push here open that, they were much more lateral and trial and error was very much a friend of mine here. Also there is an absolutely brilliant and very fun mechanic at the very soul of the game which is chanting. Chanting (or channelling if you prefer) lets you control certain enemies within the areas you come across allowing you to dispose of them or use them to get rid of obstacles or other enemies within that area or another.

You wouldn't always have to destroy or kill to progress, other times sneaking or just running because your life literally did depend on it was called for and when you died that was it, no health bar, no continue from the exact spot you died, you would be set to the start of that area at times having to repeat all over again but this was never a chore for me.

Press what now..

Follow me

The chanting wasn't the only thing you could do either, there were many other button prompts from simple emotions to communicating between enemies you had control of to progress or even talking to other prisoners. Also very cleverly there were interactions with objects in the game such as rocks, bombs, to throw to eliminate obstacles or distract enemies, also panels to give information or clues in the game. Want to fart? go right ahead. As I mentioned briefly at the beginning from the description of the game you and 100 of your people are slaves and this was another huge and consequential part of the game itself. You had to rescue as many of them as you could with the number you save ultimately affecting the very ending sequence of the game.

Boom

The story itself was very intriguing. It took you from being a slave in a meat factory to getting out to temples your very ancestors built, sending you on a soul searching quest to gain power ups to help you progress further in the game and go back to the factory with more knowledge and experience to save your own kind from the very cruel fate that yourself was once a part of. You can even ride mounts at times and with much to figure out it and overcome.


To conclude, for me, the game was just so easy to pick up and forget that I had clearly spent a few hours just getting through a few areas slowly but very fun and gratifyingly sure. It was a brilliant game my very being loved to play, it was hauntingly beautiful and the story with its very good humour just all made up a game that I found very hard to put down. All this without going into to too much detail that they made a second to enjoy just as much as the first called Abe's Exoddus and it was just as epic, more of the same with some new small features.

Not only that but it has been confirmed for an HD remake, as of last year, on Xbox live marketplace but no release date yet. One thing I can say for sure though is that when it is finally released I will happily spend my hard earned money to once again play through an outstanding game that I'm almost certain I will have forgotten how to complete and progress through the difficult parts again, but as I struggle and retry once more I will do it with a massive grin all the while.

Two thumbs up