Born for Wii: Stranger's Wrath
by Wesley Fenlon 
{ Dec 23rd 2008 at 11:50AM }
After the dreary all-night study benders, frantic cramming, and endless writing that coalesce to produce the torturous period that is college finals, gamers around the country find time to kick back, relax, and play through the dreaded backlog that resulted from the flood of titles released during the holiday season. After playing through the wonderful Mirror's Edge, I set my sights on an older title I'd had sitting around for several months (thanks to the Xbox 360's spotty backwards compatibility). That game was Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath.Released towards the end of the Xbox's life cycle in 2005, Stranger's Wrath was also the last game created by Oddworld Inhabitants before the studio shifted focus to creating cinematic movies. And it's a shame, because Stranger's Wrath succeeds at everything it attempts. It's fun, inventive, and as full of life as every other Oddworld creation. Follow along with Stranger (in both first and third person!) as he tracks down bounties in the Odd version of the Old West in this week's Born for Wii.
Gallery: Born for Wii: Stranger's Wrrath
Every week, Born for Wii digs into gaming's sordid past to unearth a new treasure fit for revival on the Nintendo Wii. Be sure to check out last week's entry in the series, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and for more great titles that deserve your attention, take a look at Virtually Overlooked.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
electric @ Dec 23rd 2008 5:51PM
Stranger's wrath is one of the best games i ve ever played.I am fan of oddworld inhabitands and it's a - for games industry.Unforunately EA games didn't put much effort to promote it and it never had the luck to be a great success which deserve .And yes i agree it could be born for wii.
taotad @ Dec 24th 2008 5:16AM
I concur. An amazingly wacky and beautiful game.
Born for any console.
Nick Todd @ Feb 22nd 2009 12:15AM
I agree Stranger's Wrath is something that would be great to reintroduce to the market, especially one with an audience such as the Wii. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disagree with some of the control layouts for this though, considering how it seems to miss the point entirely of what makes Wii controls great; context.
Point being, there should not be a button for healing, for two reasons. First, in the game, how does stranger heal himself? By shaking the shrapnel off of his body. What would be the most obvious contextual action for the player to follow in this situation? To shake the controller. I would recommend the nunchuck for this instead of the Wiimote, mainly to keep the players aiming hand available and allow them to continue to control the camera, aim, or keep their sense of direction in the world.
I think designating an actual trigger for melee is also a contextual mistake. When the player wants to melee in third person, they shake the wiimote. This seems to make sense and has been proven to work in twilight princess When they want to do a haymaker in first person they thrust the wiimote at the screen or shake the wiimote again, whichever is more practical and efficient.
Also, I think this may be controversial, but I would ditch FPS mode for a few reasons. One reason is because of what that perspective represents, which is "hardcore" gamer without a doubt. Seriously, think about Stranger's Wrath, what is it? It's Zelda design first and foremost, mixed with what the Xbox platform did best, FPS games, or Halo. A more friendly and less disorienting perspective would be that of 3rd, that way the Wii audience would still have a sense of space in the world and not be near as disoriented trying to find where everything is. This mode would also allow Stranger to display more character through animations, hopefully creating a greater bond with the player. The only thing that would need to be adjusted would be the size of the crossbow on his arm in 3rd person. To keep it as intimidating as it is in first, its size along with a couple of new folly effects would need to be applied to make sure it's still just as much of a centerpiece of the action as it was in the original. Ever wonder why Gear's assault rifles and weapons are absolutely massive? Because they're just as much of a character as the avatar wielding them.
Other than that though, I have a feeling no one is every going to respond to anything I just wrote, but I'm pretty passionate about it none the less. The Wii platform is a place to break new grounds, especially from developers. People say nowadays that all games are the same, I'd say that has mostly to do with what they're being developed on. The hardware has always driven the software in terms of development. Mario reinvented itself in 3d, along with GTA 3, and halo reinvented how to do things on a new control interface. The Wii has a lot of potential to do great things, especially in its use of interface. I guess all we're waiting on now is for the next developer to create a "halo" for the machine to show us how to do things properly.