Game 39: Another World

Another World (Out of this World) is a cinematic platformer released on just about every system back in 1991. Now the phrase, "cinematic platformer" gives me shivers because of its sheer potential of awfulness. When I hear those words I think of terrible gameplay and ugly, "realistic" looking graphics. The games are typically rotoscoped to give them a unique graphical style, which usually doesn't bother me, it's more the style of gameplay that makes me experience nasty flashes of nostalgia. If you've ever played the original Prince of Persia games, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Another World is known as Out of this World in the United States. Much like Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit, the game is renamed for some stupid reason that leaves people confused and wondering whether the stone is the sorcerer's or the philosopher's. Either way, the game supposedly influenced Fumito Ueda, who went on to create Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. So at least this game was good for something, but let's check out the first hour of Out of this World to see if it can properly defend itself and (in my opinion) the thankfully lacking genre known as the cinematic platformer.

I'll be playing the 15th Anniversary Edition for the PC released in 2006. The game features higher resolution graphics and more detailed backgrounds.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I select New Game and the first hour of Another World begins. We're looking at a lonely building under the night sky. Suddenly a car screeches to a halt in front of it. A man gets out of the vehicle and enters the building. An elevator door opens and our orange haired driver steps out.
01 - He types in a code on a keypad and gets scanned. All his vitals match and the computer types out, "Good evening professor." It even knows what car I drove here from the key I'm holding.

02 - The professor is sitting at a workstation now and enters CDOS. He types in the command, "Run Project 23."

03 - He's running a particle acceleration experiment.
04 - Once that is complete he starts a practical trial, pops a soda and watches the fireworks. Literally! A storm outside shot a bolt of lightning into the cyclotron, opening up a portal on the professor! Him and his entire desk is gone!

06 - Woah, the professor landed in a deep pool of water and it was almost too late before I realized I had to swim him up and out of the water! At the last moment it looked like tentacles were reaching out to me. As I crawl out of the pool, a strange creature runs away.

07 - Well, for better or worse I now have total control. I walk right, kicking slugs along the way. One falls on me and stings me! I fall dead! Wow, that was fast!
08 - I crawl out of the pool again... a moment later I'm dead from another slug!

09 - Well what the frak? (Battlestar Galactica is back by the way!) The giant monster that was watching me climb out of the pool just pounced on me and killed me! How was I supposed to fend that guy off?

10 - Stupid slugs.

11 - Well, I figured out how to run so this time I run from the monster, but when I enter that screen again I immediately get killed. This is going to take a lot of trial and error I believe. Man, I wish I could just run over these slugs.
12 - Okay, the monster follows me from screen to screen, looks like I'll have to run and jump over the slugs and get back to the pool? No idea.

13 - Ugh, I got away and the monster tripped, so I became lazy and stopped. Bad idea, I was dead a moment later.

15 - WOW! Epic! I ran all the way to the left from the monster, jumped off a cliff, swung from a vine to the other side of the brute, ran all the way back to the right, and then the beast got blown away by some guys cloaked in black! Then they shot at me! Now I'm hanging in a tiny cage with some ugly looking dude.
16 - I actually have control so I start swinging the cage back and forth using my momentum. Ha, owned! We land the cage on a guard's head and take off running.

18 - Whoops, I got shot. Now I have to do the cage sequence again. This time I notice that the guard dropped his gun and I grab it. Awesome!

19 - Ugh, I got shot in the back. No idea where that guard came from. Cage sequence again.

21 - You can make a shield with your gun. And that's exactly what an enemy just did. This is tough!
23 - I finally make it past the shooting sequence and we hop on a lift and head down... Oh, by the way, the guy who I was in the cage with is chilling out with me. Luckily I can't shoot him!

25 - Dang, I get shot. This time I head up on the lift, nope. Dead end. We head all the way to the bottom of the lift and I shoot a guard in the back. Nice. There's some flashy thing on the wall so I shoot it, I think it shorted something out.

27 - Man, this game is brutal with replaying sequences!

28 - Odd, I just fell down a hole and now I'm rolling around. Geez, I keep dying brutal deaths in here, nasty! Falling too far isn't a big deal for most video game heroes! I think I keep getting killed by water rushing down on me. This is really weird.
31 - Well, I finally made it out and into some force field room. As I enter the force field my hair stands on end and I get zapped! I didn't die though so it must have triggered something...

32 - As I head outside and kill a guard, my buddy runs by in the foreground and is being chased by three guards! Cool! Hahaha! I just got impaled by a spike when I failed to jump a ledge!

34 - I've been impaled two more times... I am able to jump down to a ledge further down but I have no where to go. Hmm...

37 - This is getting really annoying. I wish I knew what that force field area did. The game keeps returning me right there after I die.
40 - Oh, I was supposed to shoot the wall with my powered up gun. Oh. Wow, the backgrounds in this cave are beautiful!

41 - As I head further right I can hear water running. Geez, it's like a waterfall in here! I try to walk on the platform, and well, that doesn't work.

42 - I head up some stairs out of the cave and am on the other side of that massive jump. All right! Well, another waterfall room. Doesn't look like I'm supposed to be going this way. Deeper into the cave I guess.

43 - Oh man... I'm in the room underneath the pool of water that the waterfall rushes into. I am so tempted to blow away the small piece of rock holding it all up. Okay, I'm going to do it. Haha, I died immediately. But it looks like I might have been able to run away?
45 - Well, you can run away, but I'm not doing a very good job at it. Honestly I don't even know why I would want to do this in the first place?

46 - Okay, that was funny. I made it over a jump and watched the water rush into the pit. Then I just stood there, all of a sudden the whole cave below me must have filled up because the water was rushing up right at me a moment later! Awesome!

50 - I'm starting to wonder if that water sequence was just a red herring as I found another part of the cave where it seems you might be able to proceed differently. But there are a bunch of rocks falling on my head and I keep getting squashed!

51 - I somehow time the rocks amazingly well only to get squished immediately on the next screen.
53 - Phew, I've made it past the falling rocks, but now there are many eating tentacle monsters trying to get me!

54 - Man, these guys are really bastards. You have to time all these lame jumps perfectly well and since this is a "cinematic platformer" you also have to deal with all the crappiness that goes with that!

57 - If I make it past the tentacles I just fall in the pits anyway. Grr...
58 - I'm going to have nightmares of these tentacle monsters eating me.

59 - Finally, I have made it to a room with no tentacles and no pits! Too bad it's empty and there's no where to go.

60 - Yeah, that's a great place to stop. In an empty room.

Now for some scores out of 10.
Story: 6
Another World's story was intentionally left vague, so I kind of have to wrap my own details around what I'm playing. Personally, if I got teleported to an alien world where I was getting shot at, chased around by giant man-eating beasts, and getting devoured by tentacle beings, I would be pretty freaked out. The guy in this game (Lester, can't actually figure that out from the game as far as I can tell) is holding his composure pretty well. I think the most interesting aspect about the game is not Lester being transported to "another world," but his immediate friendship with his fellow cage-mate. I wish the game would have paired us up together a little longer in its first hour, but it redeemed itself about half way through when I saw him running in the foreground. I was reminded that we're both unwelcome in this land and if we're going to get out, it's going to be together.

Graphics and Sound: 7
The 15th Anniversary Edition of Another World brings a remarkable graphical improvement over the game's original release. In my opinion, the game looks so much better and is even pretty passable as a 2D platformer. The backgrounds have evolved the most, and benefit greatly from the higher resolutions, but the characters are also a bit smoother. The animations haven't changed as far as I can tell though, but that's more of a gameplay issue, which I'll get to next. Another World is light on sound effects but the music I heard in its first hour was excellent.

Gameplay: 4
I guess the thing with cinematic platformers is that you either love them, hate them, or have never even imagined such an atrocity of a sub-genre. Because of the way the animations are recorded and rotoscoped, you can't take tiny little baby steps because the game has specific step lengths already programmed in. This is most frustrating when running and jumping, because you really have to plan your jumps far in advance and if you started your running animation at the wrong point, you will probably fail at your jump.

As you can tell, I'm not really fond of these types of games, and I was honestly starting to get into Another World. That is, until I realized the game was obsessed with trial and error and making me replay sequences over and over again. There are plenty of checkpoints, but they're generally placed directly before time-sucking scenes so you waste a lot of time just doing the same thing over and over again. I bet you could beat this game in less than an hour, probably far less than that, but first time gamers will be frustrated. I do think that if you're good at this game you'll have fun and blaze through it in a short afternoon.

Fun Factor: 6
Though I rip on Another World's gameplay pretty harshly, there are some incredibly awesome sequences that when you pull them off, you'll pump your fist in the air and come away with a big smile on your face. Of course, these all come after many attempts and lots of time trying to figure out exactly what to do. It is satisfying moving on from a level knowing you've figured out the game's behind-the-scenes puzzles, but it's not all fun and laughter.

Minutes to Action: 6

Overall: 6
In my opinion, Another World's first hour suffers most from the genre it was developed for. Cinematic platformers probably sound great on paper as you get realistic looking animations, but the gameplay usually suffers from being unnatural and just not fluid. I've personally never played one that I really enjoyed, but I think I might actually continue on with Another World. The story is intriguing enough and I think I can put up with the frustrating gameplay to finish it, I'm pretty sure the game isn't too long. I guess that's a good feeling to have when coming out of playing the first hour of a video game. Undoubtedly the most important. To have the will to finish it.

The game's creator, Eric Chahi, has a great site detailing Another World's development from start to finish. I highly recommend it.

Game 28: The Lost Vikings

The Lost Vikings was released in 1992 and was one of Silicon & Synapse's first games. Never heard of them? They are now known as Blizzard Entertainment, the developer of many, many good games that end in Craft. Anyways, The Lost Vikings was released on the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and various other systems throughout the years, and gives gamers nowadays a really interesting look at the early history of Blizzard. The game itself can be described as a puzzle platformer, where you have to use the different abilities of three Vikings to solve puzzles, defeat enemies, and progress through the game's levels. My minute-by-minute update should help describe the game better. I will be playing just the first hour of the Super Nintendo version of The Lost Vikings, so let's get right to it.

In case you're a World of Warcraft veteran, you may recognize the three Vikings: Erik the Swift, Olaf the Stout, and Baleog the Fierce. They all make a cameo appearance in Uldaman, an ancient dwarven complex that serves as a mid-level dungeon. If you play as a Horde character you can even kill them for some unique items!

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I select New Game and the first hour of The Lost Vikings begins. Quick note, what's up with this hip-hop soundtrack? A small, snow-covered village appears and Erik the Swift introduces himself, he can run like the wind and jump high. He's gotta go meet his friends Baleog and Olaf for some hunting.

01 - Erik says goodbye to his Viking wife and kids and runs off. Olaf the Stout comes out of his house, he can block anything with his shield.
02 - And finally Baleog the Fierce appears, he is the toughest of them all.

03 - Our hairy friends run around and show off their skills. It's kind of like a tutorial that I can't play.

04 - After running far enough right, the Vikings arrive back at their village. Small world. Erik foreshadows a bit saying he hopes he never has to leave his village...

05 - Later that night... Oh geez! Our heroes are getting sucked out of their homes by a giant spacecraft! That didn't take long. At least they didn't destroy the village.
06 - I now have control of Erik on the ship. Time to find my friends.

08 - Well that was a simple enough level, the L and R buttons allow me to take control of a different Viking and guide them to the exit. Hey, a password... GR8T.

09 - In the next level I approach a friendly alien who tells me I need to destroy the ship's computer. Erik doesn't believe this is a ship.

11 - Baleog seems the most useful, being able to kill enemies and all. I find some bombs with him and have to locate the place to plant them.

13 - I take an elevator downstairs and plant the bombs, kaboom!
14 - I guide all three Vikings into a gravity lift and shoot the switch, up we go! Ouch, Baleog gets shot twice in the back by a laser, I need to use Olaf to block the shots.

16 - Wow, a lot longer level than I thought, but since you basically have to go through it three times, it seems longer than it is. Password TLPT.

17 - I use Erik's hard noggin to knock out a wall.

18 - I send all three Vikings through a teleporter, these guys are definitely out of their element here. Hey, a door with a red keyhole, I wonder what color key I'll need to open it.
19 - Another alien tells me that someone brought us here to display like animals in a zoo. Creepy, but kind of makes sense.

21 - The next puzzle has me using Erik to jump on Olaf's shield to reach higher heights.

22 - Along with a yellow key I pick up a device that kills every bad guy in the area. The only problem is that I used it way too early... the next area has three laser toting nasties. Whoops. Olaf's shield plus Baleog's bow and arrow should be enough though.

23 - Another level finished, another password: GRND.
25 - Erik's long jump finally comes in handy as I leap over some spinning spikes!

26 - Oh crap, Olaf just got killed! He got thrown from a gravity lift into some nasty electrical current! What if I need him? Oh man, Baleog just died too. And Erik... tough spot.

27 - The game over screen features a Viking ship on fire, pretty sweet actually. I continue and our heroes are sent back to earth via lightning bolts.
30 - I'm replaying the level and back where I was before.

32 - Phew, I made it this time. I had to grab some special anti-gravity boots (or magnetized) and I was able to get past the gravity lifts then with Erik. Turning them off was a snap and then I took our trio into some kind of portal. Hey, is that the Spore logo?

33 - Woah, Mode 7 graphics! Next password is LLM0. Our friends are now in some sort of prehistoric land...
34 - I guess Vikings can't swim... Erik is dead and I can't proceed. I suicide Olaf and Baleog. The enemies here are stronger, take two hits to go down instead of one!

38 - The game is requiring a lot more preparation to fight enemies, basically setting up Olaf to block projectiles, getting Erik out of the way, and shooting them down with Baleog.

40 - After every level the Vikings talk a bit about what just happened, nice little bit of writing to flesh out some shallow characters there. New password is FL0T.

42 - Geez, now instead of dealing with deadly water I have to deal with deadly lava. There's a particularly nasty portion right now where I have to blindly fall and dodge platforms of lava. Evil! Luckily I only have to do it once with Erik.
43 - Next challenge is a rolling blue monster, Olaf to the rescue!

47 - I'm starting to realize that The Lost Vikings is much more of a puzzle game than a platformer. It's definitely requiring more and more strategy as the game progresses.

48 - Next level's password is TRSS.

51 - The next level is pretty big, full of trees and lots of water. This is a predicament considering Erik is the only one that can jump... but I use this to my advantage and have him explore the whole level, including finding the exits. Too bad I need to get all the Vikings there to win.
53 - I find the blue key in the upper right corner and use that on the bridge. I haven't even used Olaf or Baleog yet.

54 - Erik gets killed by a rogue snail shooting spit. You got to be kidding me!

56 - Long, tough level, but we make it. The Vikings even make a joke saying they need one of those waterfalls that float in mid-air back at home! The next password is PRHS.

60 - Well, in the last minute I discover the secret of the purple cave level: you have to shoot spikes with Baleog's arrow onto the deadly lava so you can guide Olaf and Baleog over it! Nice! But that's it for The Lost Vikings' first hour.
Story: 4
Not much of an actual story present in The Lost Vikings, but I do like its quirkiness. Too much of a story for a game like this would be a bad thing so Blizzard made the right decision to introduce the three characters with a few lines and then move on. Besides our three heroes, about the only other thing going on is Tomator, the leader of the Croutonian empire. He's captured our trio to represent the human race in his inter-galactic zoo, a noble cause if you ask me.
Graphics and Sound: 6
The Lost Vikings uses relatively simple sprites but the animations are well drawn and add to the game's uniqueness. I found it kind of odd though that both Olaf and Baleog wear green, it would seem to make more sense to maybe draw one in blue so they're more distinctive and easier to pick out on the fly. I think Blizzard made some excellent color palette choices too, and some scenes like the Game Over scene are really beautiful.
Gameplay: 7
It took me about 45 minutes to realize that The Lost Vikings is much more of a puzzle game than anything else, and I think this game really requires that mentality. Often I would find myself thinking that I can just take Erik and jump over all the enemies and pits and reach the exit quickly, but the goal is to also navigate Olaf and Baleog there too, typically a much more difficult task. The game throws a wide variety of challenges at you within the first hour and expects you to adapt and learn quickly. I think the game suffers from some odd quirks though like if you jump (or fall from) too high you take damage, this makes sense usually, but the fall distance is not very forgiving. Also, most of the enemies I encountered would quickly defeat me if I didn't have Olaf around to block their path or projectiles. This is a puzzle game that takes a lot of preparation and experimentation, kind of similar to Lemmings but with more direct control.
Fun Factor: 6
The Lost Vikings was pretty fun, until you started dying. I'm pretty sure you need all three Vikings to beat a level, so if one dies, for any reason, you're screwed. Since the game does take a lot of experimenting, I died quite a bit and restarting a level can take about a minute, not to mention the time it will take to get back to where you were before. I think the game has a lot of great ideas but they're executed in a way that can be frustrating at times. Completing a level though makes you feel like you really accomplished something, especially the later ones I played where the stages seemed HUGE!
Minutes to Action: 6
Overall: 6
The Lost Vikings is kind of a hybrid puzzle game, similar to Portal in where you don't realize you're playing a puzzle game until you stop and think about it. That is definitely a good thing and both of these games are examples that developers should look at. The Lost Vikings' first hour is not necessarily tough, but it punishes you harshly for small mistakes made or chances taken. Your Vikings dying is an unfortunate reminder that you are playing a puzzle game in a platformer environment; you still have to deal with lava and deadly water and nasty electricity when trying to work out which Viking to control. I believe the first hour would have been better if Blizzard would have focused more on the puzzles early on and less on the platforming aspects. All around though, a decent first hour and a promising experience ahead. Blizzard's pre-Warcraft era is really quite interesting.

Art by David Dupuis - used with permission.