Another World (Out of this World) remade!

Helm · Mon 17/04/2006 20:51:51

Yeah it's a shame Heart of the Alien sucked. That's what happens when someone does a 'franchise' sequel without any influence by the original creator. Eric Chahi made the first game on his own and look what that got him: the product of undiluted vision.

m0ds · Mon 17/04/2006 23:47:40

Quote from: PaulSC on Mon 17/04/2006 20:50:15
I was amazed to discover the existence of Heart Of The Alien last year. I was all ready to call it a lost classic! Then it turned out to be pretty much crap. For all its flaws Another World will forever rule, however.

Hahaha! Well thanks for the warning!!

Razorback · Tue 18/04/2006 04:11:34

I bought the game and minus a few frustrations (damn this game is hard) I'm enjoying it so far.

My problem is that I was continuing a previous game, and in the save menu I clicked on the left and right arrows to see what other save points I had to choose from and for some annoying reason it erased all my checkpoints! I'm not really looking forward to doing the cave water thing again.

Could someone please post the code to the checkpoint that happens right after you comeback from the swiming part. That part where you have to go shoot the energy thing under water.

Much thanks to anyone who helps me out.

Helm · Tue 18/04/2006 08:09:57

No no! For the true Out of this World experience, redo the whole thing! Again and again!

Razorback · Tue 18/04/2006 13:36:41

Quote from: Helm on Tue 18/04/2006 08:09:57
No no! For the true Out of this World experience, redo the whole thing! Again and again!

: (

...so long, sanity.

InCreator · Tue 18/04/2006 18:27:46

I personally don't see much point in this. Did creators try to bring new generations to this old classic? Well, I think they fail here.

Simply because new age needs better graphics, and in means of thousands of polygons, not some overphotoshopped low-res images.
Which actually makes vector graphics stand out more - and look more weird.

And for oldschool lovers (such as myself), this game gets played even without remaking - simply windows port could worked - and they have also tried out most of the console versions aswell...

Well, the new backgrounds look damn good.
But the sound... is it exactly the same? Sounded so...

I liked the idea and the backgrounds, but I wouldn't pay for this.

Razorback · Wed 19/04/2006 03:08:28

So I started from scratch, and now I'm done. Finished it in about 40 mins. : \

Is it just me or was the artwork in the demo about ten times more detailed than the rest of the game? Seriously, some of the latter screens looked atrocious. You could even notice the blur tool on some parts.

So yeah, not really worth 7 euros. I love the artwork on the first 5 screens or so though, but those were the free ones. I was hoping the rest of the game would be like that.

Razorback · Wed 19/04/2006 03:19:41

This is what I was talking about.

A screen from the demo:

Later in the game.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Wed 19/04/2006 07:50:55

Quoteis it just me or did this seem much easier than the original?

No, it's not just you. I think this comes in large part due to the Amiga having sucky controllers and the original game control scheme being somewhat less responsive. I can remember massive lag when I'd hit the kick button before he'd actually respond (even with WinUAE), and in this version you can pound those suckers like Bruce Lee!

If that latter background is representative of the rest of the new artwork than I'm not surprised the demo length was so limited. It almost looks like they got a completely different person to do it.

Oddly enough, I'd never actually heard of Heart of the Alien before and thought it might be the European name for Heart of Darkness until I looked it up...Screens look interesting but the concensus seems to be that the game sucked.

Helm · Wed 19/04/2006 09:59:54

Heart of Darkness was linear like Out of this World but that's really all you can fault it for. If you like the games Eric Chahi makes, you'll like it.

About the art later on, Eric has been very faithful to the volumetrics of the original art. I mean that he reworks skies and stone textures and glass textures and whatnot, but if something was pure black wall in the original, he'll probably still have it be pure black wall in the enhanced graphics. I'm fine with that. The new gfx could have been extremely better, or complete reworkings, but he clearly chose to not go down this path. I can understand how someone would think OotW graphics are atrocious (after all we have Doom 3 awesomeness to weigh everything against now) but it still makes me cry a little

The demo length is the same as the old PC demo that made me want to play the game originally, so I guess it's a nod to the past. And as far as teasers go, it's got a great cliffhanger that makes you want to see what happens next.

I paid for it, played it and enjoyed it very much and am glad I can get to replay this in xp whenever I feel like it.

A somewhat off-topic bit. I collect Prince of Persia-esque games, and this is my current list for anyone that has the same fixation with what I've come to affectionally dub 'step platformers':

Karateka (apple II, pc, c64)
Prince of Persia (PC)
Out of this World (Amiga, PC)
Prince of Persia 2 (PC)
Flashback (Amiga, PC, Genesis, SNES)
Blackthorne (PC, Blackhawk SNES)
Out of this World 2: Heart of the Alien (Sega CD)
Bermuda Syndrome (PC)
4d Prince (PoP hack for more difficult levels, PC)
Zorro (PoP clone mostly, PC)
Death By Dark Shadows (PoP engine hack, PC)
Generations Lost (Genesis)
Nosferatu (SNES)
Heart of Darkness(PC)
Abe's Oddyssey games (marginally, PSX, PC)

roughly chronological too

If you know of any other games that play like step games, do tell me, I love the genre and study it.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Wed 19/04/2006 11:19:17

That's a nice list, Helm, and I was actually referring to the reviews saying Heart of the Alien was sucky. I actually have Heart of Darkness. One you might try off the top of my head that's quite similar to Nosferatu is Warlock for the SNES. If I'm guessing right, by 'step games' you mean platformers that use puzzles to further the action? If so I would say that Castlevania: SotN and Super Metroid qualify as they often have you do something or get a certain power before you can go to a new area. There are many others I can think of, but I'll wait until you clarify.

Anym · Wed 19/04/2006 12:02:52

Quote from: Helm on Wed 19/04/2006 09:59:54If you know of any other games that play like step games, do tell me, I love the genre and study it.

Bermuda Syndrome (PC, 1995) springs to mind.

Helm · Wed 19/04/2006 12:28:46

Oh yeah forgot about that. Amended list. Thanks Anym. And to think I bought it original back in the day. Sadly not very good, prerendered characters...

Step, progz as in in most of these games, when you walk once, you take a step to the next tile, as in, movement is restricted. There's variations, for example, PoP allowed pretty much per-pixel movement, but when you ran, or fell, or climbed, it 'nudged' you back or forth to the closer tile section so as to preserve engine mechanics. Flashback is by far the most rigid step platformer in this list, with Abe coming in close. I used to think it would be very difficult to program something like this, but actually nowdays when I think about it it's so rigid, the number of collision and state checks you have to do is far smaller than your free-moving platform game. I don't mean 'rigid' in a bad way, of course. In fact, Flashback is the one with the most athetic stunts and movement variations from the lot, and it's the one being the most rigid. You can actually lower yourself on a ledge, and then press the opposite direction from the one you're facing, and little Heart will let go of the ledge and turn in midair 180 degrees and catch on to any opposite facing ledges. A move that's probably physically impossible to do in the first place

Flashback is full of such little neat gameplay tricks that make it much more fun than say Blackthorne.

ah yes http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/death-by-dark-shadows Death By Dark Shadows. That's the PoP voodoo hack

InCreator · Wed 19/04/2006 15:58:20

QuoteYou can actually lower yourself on a ledge, and then press the opposite direction from the one you're facing, and little Heart will let go of the ledge and turn in midair 180 degrees and catch on to any opposite facing ledges.

It's possible in... Flashback?

I've played through this game like 7-8 times... and didn't know?

Anym · Wed 19/04/2006 15:58:46

Two more:
Hunter Hunted
1213

Helm · Wed 19/04/2006 16:57:49

Increator: I really love Flashback

Anym: Hunter Hunted I never played. Does it have ledge grabbing? Ledge grabbing pretty much is the bare minimum to make it to my list, heh

1213 indeed tries.

GarageGothic · Wed 19/04/2006 17:05:28

Does Another World have ledge grabbing?

Edit: Sorry yeah, just remembered a couple of areas that must have it to get onward. But most of the time you just use those teleporter thingies to zoom up to the next platform.

Krysis · Wed 19/04/2006 17:14:56

Could a 3d game be a step game? If so, I think the first Soul Reaver was one.

Helm · Wed 19/04/2006 17:17:44

Quote from: GarageGothic on Wed 19/04/2006 17:05:28
Does Another World have ledge grabbing?

Edit: Sorry yeah, just remembered a couple of areas that must have it to get onward. But most of the time you just use those teleporter thingies to zoom up to the next platform.

Yeah I just had the same discussion with Adam in irc... I guess there's no ledge grabbing in all of Out of this World! And it is, strictly speaking, one of the less 'step'ish in my list, but I think the parallel from Prince of Persia to this is pretty certain, especially if you consider both being able to walk, and to run, stationary forward jumps, running start jumps etc. This is pretty much nitpicking.

And Krysis, I dunno, by somebody else's definition perhaps. By mine no. 2d platform games only.

Darth Mandarb · Wed 19/04/2006 18:24:25

about the remake ...
I remember being floored by the graphics of the original version of OotW way back in the day. It's neat to see how he didn't completely modernize it ... just some parts.

about "step" games ...
I'm not sure if it qualifies ... but Rolling Thunder for the NES (which always reminds me of PoP and the like) is one of my favorite old-time games.

Though I must admit, having played it recently on an emulator, it's not quite as glorious as I remember.

My brother and I were toying with the idea of remaking it in Flash with much improved visuals. That, or Bionic Commando.

Another World (Out of this World) remade!

m0ds