Even though it lived under the radar when it first came out, FPS/third-person hybrid Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrathmanaged to win a loyal cult following in the years since its 2005 release. So, news of a remastered HD edition was met by joyous surprise by those who loved the Western-inflected shooter from Oddworld Inhabitants.
Stranger’s Wrath HD is being handled by Just Add Water and they’re showing off the work done so far in a new post on the official PlayStation Blog, accompanied by news that the game’s going to be available for download on December 27 for $US14.99.
Along with the redone character work shown above, studio CEO Stewart Gilray details the following sorts of changes:
Characters
• All 84 character models have been updated with increased polygon counts and higher resolution textures.
• Wolvark Sloghandlers now release Slogs instead of Slegs.
• Professor Dimble now has glasses and an academic tome.
• New female voices have been recorded for two characters.
• Made Blisterz Booty unkillable.Audio
• All game audio (voice, sound effects and music) have been upgraded to 16-bit 44KHz from 8-bit 11KHz or less!
• Support for 5.1, Dolby Digitial and DTS.Display
• Everything now runs at 720p, 60 FPS, and in widescreen.
• All menus have been updated with a new design based on original unused concepts.
• New posters now occupy the inventory menu when no bounty is accepted.Difficulty
• All armour upgrades now actually increase Stranger’s health.
• Added difficulty levels to the game: Easy, Medium and Hard.
• In Easy mode:
• Stranger has twice the health
• Enemies have half the health and stamina
• Enemies’ stamina recovers half as fast
• In Normal Mode:
• Stranger’s health and armour for later in the game have been re-balanced.
• In Hard mode:
• Stranger has a third less health.
• Enemies stamina recovers a third quicker.Unlockables
• 37 Trophies: 23 bronze, 8 silver, 5 gold, 1 platinum
• 37 pieces of unlockable concept art
• Five unlockable movies
That’s a lot of elbow grease to go into a game that’s more than five years old. We’ll get to see how it feels when Stranger’s Wrath HD hits PSN in three weeks.
Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD Comes to PSN December 27th [PlayStation Blog]
D.C.
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 8:05 AMI was going to buy the regular version on GOG on the weekend, man I would’ve been pissed. haha.
Thom
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 9:16 AMI am a little, though I bought the entire series on Steam for $3.75 a few weeks ago. That’s not even a happy meal. Hard to complain.
GoodOleTones
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 8:31 AMNever got to play this on release, but it looks great. I’ll be giving this a try for sure
ba!
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 8:36 AMyeah great! this game was very cool.
McGarnical
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 8:42 AMMicrosoft, get off your butts and allow this on Xbox.
bazuden
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 9:12 AMAny word on the HD version making it to PC?
The Insufferable Señor Steengo
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 10:28 AMStuart Gilray has said it would in the past, but I wouldn’t be so quick to believe him. He’s had some very conflicting views on the PC community in the past.
MrBS
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 10:49 AMIndeed. The PC treatment of the game has been poor to say the least.
Cerzel
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 6:39 PMPC version will be updated to the HD release when (or shortly after) it’s out.
jimgun
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 10:35 AMAwesome!
So bummed I missed out on this game cause I didnt have an Xbox. Love the oddworld series and never played this one.
Werent they also rereleasing Oddesy and Exodus in hd?
Brimm
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 12:53 AMAGH! No 360 version? WTF?