[PC] Oddworld Strangers Wrath and Munch's Odyssey; Munch being HD'd!

[CeeKay]

they're in the process of converting them now.  I'm grabbing SW as soon as it hits Steam 

[Hrothgar]

That's good news.  Though I wonder how they'll deal with the platforming elements.  Poorly implemented controls could turn people off an otherwise great game.

[greeneggsnham]

Very cool. Will be a day one purchase for me

[CeeKay]

this oddworld collection is still supposed to be coming some time this year, although the new Oddworld idea they were working on has been shelved.

[CeeKay]

looks like they're having trouble converting Stranger's Wrath:

We have Munch near finished (in final gold now) and we're still working on Stranger. Stranger has proven much more difficult as we really pushed some rendering aspects on the Xbox and bringing that over to DirectX is a bit of voodoo. So it's taken far longer than expected to convert Stranger than we had initially anticipated. We're still aiming for 2010 but do not have a set month for release.

it does sound like they are taking the time to get it right though.

[CeeKay]

WOOOHOOOOOO!!!!! 

(these are due by the end of the year)

[Caine]

WOOOHOOOOOO!!!!! 

(these are due by the end of the year)

hoping for a steam xmas sale on this one otherwise i'll wait.  not that it's too rich for my blood or anything, but that knowing me, it will just sit in the backlog for a while. 

i can't wait to revisit the world though. 

[Vinda-Lou]

Best gaming news of the season! 

There is a great art book for fans of the series.  I'm not a rabid fan at all (I've played all the games, but never finished one!), but I almost bought this last year.  Might be time to scrounge some money and pick it up!

[greeneggsnham]

Coming to Steam on 12/20 with 50% off MSRP of 24.99 on the first day.

[Vinda-Lou]

Any word on this yet?  As soon as I get home I plan on getting this!  Hoping the Stranger controls well!

[Gratch]

Any word on this yet?  As soon as I get home I plan on getting this!  Hoping the Stranger controls well!

How about $12.49 for all 4 games?

[MonkeyFinger]

That would be great except for the fact that there seem to be issues galore. The Oddworld Series forum on Steam is ablaze with indignation. Me, all I've tried so far is Stranger's Wrath and I can't get past the new game 'Loading' screen. [sigh]

They've noted on the official site that "We had these games extensively tested and they both came back clean, so this has come as quite the shock to us. We ARE working on solving these problems THIS VERY SECOND, and hope to have a patch out to nail all these problems in record time."

[CeeKay]

I fired up Strangers Wrath and played through the tutorial.  Water textures look screwed up, and there is no resolution options other than full screen (stretchy) or windowed (looks better), but it seems to be running OK so far.

[Purge]

You can buy it by itself for 7.49ish, rather than the bundle.

[Crawley]

I fired up Strangers Wrath and played through the tutorial.  Water textures look screwed up, and there is no resolution options other than full screen (stretchy) or windowed (looks better), but it seems to be running OK so far.

You can modify the config file to put in the resolution you want:
width=1650
height=1080
fullscreen
resolution=custom

The textures still look pretty horrible in spots and gameplay is not smooth at all. Hopefully they can fix Stranger's and Munch's to a playable state. Really want to play Munch since I missed that one.

[CeeKay]

I fired up Strangers Wrath and played through the tutorial.  Water textures look screwed up, and there is no resolution options other than full screen (stretchy) or windowed (looks better), but it seems to be running OK so far.

You can modify the config file to put in the resolution you want:
width=1650
height=1080
fullscreen
resolution=custom

The textures still look pretty horrible in spots and gameplay is not smooth at all. Hopefully they can fix Stranger's and Munch's to a playable state. Really want to play Munch since I missed that one.

thanks!  tried changing it though and man did the performance take a hit, so I'm going to stick with the windowed mode at the default resolution for now.

[MonkeyFinger]

Yah, the launcher lets you set the rez to "Low, Medium, High or Ultra" from what I recall and what each equates to is listed somewhere... or you can go the custom route. Keep in mind that it's all 4:3 so any flavor of widescreen will be a little off. And that's the other big complaint, the full screen framerate is bad no matter how beefy your machine is, it seems.

[shon]

Really disappointed in the launch of this game.  I can't play with the horrible framerate that I am getting.  Hopefully it will be fixed but with so many complaints its hard to believe they did a lot of testing.

[CeeKay]

PS3 HD Update may come to the PC for free.

[Crawley]

Something to look forward. I was so disappointed in how poorly Munch and Stranger played I deleted them both as they aren't worth playing in their current forms. This or a patch fixing current issues would get me to reinstall.

Really was looking forward to playing Munch as I always regretted not picking that up in stores when I had the chance.

[Caine]

Something to look forward. I was so disappointed in how poorly Munch and Stranger played I deleted them both as they aren't worth playing in their current forms. This or a patch fixing current issues would get me to reinstall.

Really was looking forward to playing Munch as I always regretted not picking that up in stores when I had the chance.

i played SW up past the first town and quit.  it is too jittery to play for long stretches. 

[shon]

Strangers Wrath

A new patch came out today for the game and it fixed all the stuttering issues so it works pretty well.  I have an ATI card so there are a few graphical issues but they
don't effect game play.  I did have to edit the config file so that my 360 controller would work since it got mapped incorrectly somehow but now that works and I've played
about 30 minutes without problems.

[EngineNo9]

Cool, glad to know they are fixing it!  I may have to try this one out soon...although it would be nice to know if they are going to patch with the updated PS3 assets.  I may end up waiting until then.

Changelist notes:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Fixes
1. Fixed performance issues.
2. Fixed save game permissions issues. Save games and config file are now saved in "Program Files" to "\Documents\Oddworld\Stranger's Wrath".
3. Fixed controls "sticking" issues.
4. Fixed tutorial text - Camera mode switch button text.
5. Fixed turorial text - Camera reset button text.
7. Fixed broken achievement "Mine your business"
8. Fixed incorrect texts being displayed in controls Layout screens.
9. Fixed 5.1 and 7.1 audio.
10. Fixed Mouse lag.
11. Fixed issue with only 1 of 3 dialogue lines working in Jail house.
12. Fixed first person view on nVidia boards.

Changes
1. Added screen resolution selection to launcher.
2. Added v-sync option to launcher.
3. Added joystick selection to launcher.
4. Added customisable controls (See below).
5. Added support for third party "generic" joypads.
6. Added widescreen suppport.
7. Re-authored Keyboard "layout" screen in options.
8. Removed automatic joypad detection.


Customisable Controls

Inside the config.txt file (located in Documents\Oddworld\Stranger's Wrath) contains various pieces of configuration for Stranger's Wrath.

To alter the controls, change the contents of the " " after each command name...

E.G.
pause="ESCAPE" (Default)
pause="P"

[CeeKay]

just fired it up to test it after the patch and it's definitely smoother.

[shon]

The water is the biggest graphic glitch in the game as it looks low res with lines running through it.  They have a case open with AMD to see whose problem it is and then maybe a fix, it doesn't take away from the
game.  I'm running at 1920x1080 with vsync and haven't noticed any slow down yet.

[Caine]

great.  i can reinstall this now then.

[MonkeyFinger]

Just did and now it actuals runs for me. 

[CeeKay]

Abes Oddysee getting a HD remake.

[Caine]

i wonder if they'll upgrade the copies we already bought on steam.  not likely, but one can hope eh?

[CeeKay]

i wonder if they'll upgrade the copies we already bought on steam.  not likely, but one can hope eh?

if they do charge hopefully it'll be priced as DLC for owners.

[CeeKay]

from the Steam forums, re: Strangers Wrath HD:

Hello everyone,
remember me?

Sorry I've been incredibly tardy for the past few months, but with getting the PS3 HD version done, and getting work on the PC HD update started I've had no time to get on here and say hi, and give you an update, so in short here's a little bit of an update you'll like ...

The PC update will release March/April AFTER a nice round of QA testing, we want to make sure it's MORE than right this time, as a 2nd round of ripping me/us a new one is not what I want...

So what's changed in the HD update ...

1. HD Models, every character model in the game has been up-rezzed and re-textured.

2. Environment detail maps have been increased from 64x64 to 512x512

3. Environment textures smaller than 512x512 have been redone where possible.

4. All foliage textures in the game have been re-done.

5. A lot of the foliage models have been re-done/uprezzed.

6. We've added subtitles for English/French/German/Spanish and Italian.

7. We've improved the audio somewhat, there were some audio bugs that didn't come to light until the PS3 version was done, these have been fixed in the PC version also.

8. We've added MORE achievements (more than the finished PS3 version which has 36).

9. Brand new UI, inline with the original Oddworld UI designs for the game.

10. Added 3 difficulty modes, Easy/Normal and Hard.
Easy:
* Stranger has twice the health.
* Enemies have half the health and stamina.
* Enemies’ stamina recovers half as fast.
Normal:
* Stranger’s health and armour for later in the game have been re-balanced.
Hard:
* Stranger has a third less health.
* Enemies stamina recovers a third quicker.

11. Added more elements to water reflections.

12. Pipes and Barrels are less "hexagonal" now ;-)

13. Added Blisterz Booty’s broken crud gun to the floor by his bola’d body.

14. Sekto’s Office has been changed to more closely resemble than seen in the FMV.

15. Easter Eggs added to the game.

16. The game now uses DirectX instead of OpenGL as a renderer.

The latter one is the one you guys will be most excited about, as it means, ATI and Intel graphics sets will work now ;-)

Again, sorry for taking so long to get back to everyone, we've been busy...

And to re-iterate what's been said before, IF you are an existing owner of Stranger's Wrath PC you will get this update for FREE.

This offer is ONLY available to Steam users.

Cheers, and a Happy New Year to you all...

Stewart

[Crawley]

And to re-iterate what's been said before, IF you are an existing owner of Stranger's Wrath PC you will get this update for FREE.

Well ok then.

[Purge]

Holding off till that's released.

[CeeKay]

the funny thing was that I was going to install the game for a playthrough today, and something at the back of my mind said 'vivisect Caine check the forums'.  so now I'm just holding off on that replay.

[Caine]

now, that wouldn't be nice, would it?  would you kindly let us know when the update is released?  thank you ceekay

[CeeKay]

[Crawley]

That's the one I'm more interested in since I never played it and the PC version was pretty unplaybale.

[metallicorphan]

ooh,that reminds me the update for the PS3 version should of hit by now

[CeeKay]

the HD update for Stranger's Wrath is out on Steam, apparently it was ninja released late yesterday.  damn they did a good job so far.