Sequel to Oddysee, is Exoddus. I was trialling the PSN edition when I was reunited with my original PlayStation disk version halfway through, but continued with the former. This is a great game and one I'm glad to have, but some aspects of this instalment genuinely frustrated me.
Continuing the previous title's obvious digs at consumerism, Abe once again finds himself thrust into being the saviour of the Mudokon race. After the destruction of RuptureFarms, the Glukkons are back with SoulStorm Brewery, named after the working-title for the original game. There's something a little different about this brew; it's made from Mudokon bones and tears!
When you see it..
Favoured old aspects remain alongside new additions.
The Gamespeak does not mislead you; Scrabs and Paramites are indeed up for possession! The old whistles are gone, but are replaced with phrases for handling groups of Mudokons at once, although sometimes you don't even need to use them as they'll often all respond to a simple "hello". Farts are now performed via the X button alone, and they get fancier. I'm not so keen on the re-recorded phrases though.
I must commend the QuikSave feature, had it not been available I simply would have abandoned the game through anger. Exoddus never fails to be entertaining, but some of the puzzles were frankly taking the Mudokon (geddit?). Cruel tasks of leading blind slaves through rows of drills and chucking bone chunks at encroaching slogs before everybody gets gnawed-on. And honestly, the Tear Extractor is such a horrible invention. Cannot unsee. I'm not an overly-sensitive person though (aside from, when Pingu cries, I cry). As the game went on I gained more and more respect for Terry Garrett, who completed it blind.
There's plenty of cool new stuff. Getting multiple Mudokons to operate wheels, Mudokon states and emotions, archways you can zap yourself through (which never really came into their own), and doorways that could simply not be anything other than genitalia.
Why oh why did you invent Fleeches? Unnecessary and hampering. Playing as Scrabs and Paramites was quite short-lived and could have been extended, especially considering the ridiculous level of fun. The Glukkon-run FeeCo Depot (faecal deposits?) was interesting and I appreciated the signs alluding to RuptureFarms being out of service, and Vykkers Labs - which feature in the next game - coming soon. The new locations are very interesting and you aren't confined to the Necrum mine for the whole game. You can easily end up staring into the backgrounds.
What's all this about fancier flatulence? SoulStorm is not a very nice brew. Farting after consumption causes thing to blow up, especially, say, those anti-chant security orbs that plagued your fun in Oddysee. So, if you can then chant after farting, what happens?
You can posses them and drive them around! Let's not forget the possession of Glukkons! They sound like joyous xylophones as they shuffle across the screen. I'm not sure how creatures so defenceless and silly came to be in charge of everybody else. The Security Fones for use by only them or Sligs are an interesting feature. "Hey!" "What?!" "DO it!". There are significant opportunities to play as flying Sligs.
I'm somewhat confused by the premise behind the Ghost Traps which feature quite briefly in the game; ancestral spectres can flow through structures and undo locks to aid your escape, but they are incapable of leaving their original containers because somebody slapped a padlock on the front.
Exoddus has surpassed Oddysee's four Zulags with a whopping fourteen, and in honesty it seems that the only purpose of this is to pad-out the game without any significant developments. You enter a doorway and have five or so other doorways to go through, each involving the accomplishment of a task, to then unlock another doorway, which you then enter and have five or so other doorways to go through, each involving the accomplishment of a task, to then unlock another doorway, which you then enter..
There are a whole variety of Mudokons in Exoddus: normal, angry, high on laughing gas, depressed, drunk/ "sick from brew", and blind. Each can impede progress and inadvertently lead to your death, whether it be an angry individual pulling a lever and dropping you through the walkway, or a pair of laughing idiots running around a creepy Greeter. There are dialogue options and actions to deal with all of them, which mainly involve apologising and slapping sense into them. Never snap a depressed Mudokon! They'll slap themselves until they die, likewise slapping angry Mudokons can be problematic. Don't forget to tell the blind guys to wait, or they'll walk right past you into that bone drill!
There are a whopping three-hundred other characters to save this time around. Freeing all of them bags you a special ending, and you need one hundred and fifty to achieve an exit that isn't eye-watering.
You'll notice throughout, that the three-fingered Mudokon model is now the official one.
Halfway through, this happened:
This being the PSN version, I had no disk to insert! I realised I needed to press the PlayStation button and select "Switch Disk". Problem solved.
I must admit I was nostalgic as the credits flicked by and kind of wanted an excuse to play through another Zulag or two. Like its predecessor, Exoddus is beautiful and not to be missed. You're destined to get angry now and then, but the title remains a must-have.
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