Due to boredom caused by having to stay home over my extended weekend, I went digging through some crap and found my old copies of [B]Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee[/B] and its sequel, [B]Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus[/B] for the PS1. I remember not being all that impressed with them as a kid, but it had been years since I played either, so I put 'em in to kill some time. My God, I had forgotten how wonderful both of these were! They're some of the best PS1 games ever, IMO. The graphics are stil good today, simply for the fact that, while they use 3D models against rendered background, the 3D models are kept at a fair distance from the screen at all times, and the actual gameplay is 2D. The models have a really stop-motion feel to them.

The gameplay is fun and challenging, and the music is absolutely jaw-dropping, and very fitting for every area.

Another great thing is the atmosphere. There's some very dark humor here. I still remember the anxiousness I felt in the first area of 'Oddysee' back when I first played it in 1998 or so - running over blood-smeared floors of a dark factory, with a scraping, haunting industrial tune plays, with a gun-toting, gas-masked cyborg.... thingy hot on my heels, making a loud, robotic noise while running. I just didn't appreciate it until now.

They were followed by the deeply disappointing [B]Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee[/B] on the X-Box, and [B]Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath[/B], a much more action-oriented game that, from what I've heard, more than redeems the franchise. There were plans for many more games to continue to story, but, unfortunately, that's not gonna happen due to some stupid stuff with the company that made them.