*
WARNING* This wu contains a few
spoilers (about
X-COM, not Odium) which have been deemed unhealthy by the
Ministry of
Delightful Surprise. Read at own risk.
A
computer game released in
1999, produced by
Monolith and distributed by
Interplay.
While perusing the
clearance titles the other day at
Software Etc. I noticed Odium. The game had caught my
eye when it first came out, but I usually like to wait until they mark games down these days before I buy them, since they're usually not worth fifty
bucks anymore.
I didn't expect anything
special, but hey, it was
five dollars!
When I
installed the game and loaded it up, I had a
wonderful surpise. Odium is
fantastic.
Back in the day, I was a big fan of
X-COM: UFO Hunter, an
essential for anyone who likes
strategy/
simulation games. Ever since I finished it, pulping the
alien queen thing with those
nifty guided
missiles that look like
footballs, I've been yearning for a
turn-based combat game that could measure up. Alas. The X-COM sequals didn't
rise to the occasion and I was left with a woody for a game that didn't
exist.
Odium gave me that feeling all over again. Any
veteran of UFO Hunter should be right at
home with the very similar combat
interface. The
playing areas are laid out in squares and, since the
characters are rendered in 3D you get different,
cinematic camera angles, which adds to the already
palpable creepy feel of the game.
You won't get the
resource management and base-building experience of
X-COM, however. Odium is intentionally written more like a
cheesy B Movie with all the events in the game rolling out in a single
night. When you're not in a combat scene, you're in an
adventure mode much like that of the later
Final Fantasy games. But don't worry about having to kill the same, randomly appearing
monsters over and over again, because every encounter is a part of the storyline, and only happens once.
The story line is fairly
simple. Some
experiments at an old
Soviet lab have gone
horribly wrong. You are part of a three man
special forces team sent in to investigate the
disappearance of some of
NATO's top scientists. While the
dialogue is
pointedly corny (and
funny) there is some interesting
character interaction throughout the course of the game. And don't worry about getting lonely, you'll have other members join your
party and leave it as you make your way through the creepy
ghost town above the lab.
In addition, the
game has an
XP system and you can choose which characteristics to
raise each time one of your people
levels.
There are plenty of different
enemies to
splatter. The designers got extremely
creative with it, and the art is gorgeous, especially if you're into
mutated,
twisted,
creature things
wot come in the night and
nibble on your
toenails. The
animation is
fluid,
realistic, and
incredibly detailed, as well.
If you're going to be bashing some skulls, you need
weapons, of course. Although you can use your
fists, you get a lot more to choose from, including a nice selection of melee weapons, such as a
baseball bat, a
rusty axe and a
crowbar. (At times, to save precious
ammo I would surround a creature with my party and have them hack at it with different
melee weapons. It resembled a crazy
lynch mob.) You also get a few special weapons throughout the game that you can call down anywhere, like
satellite missile attacks and
lightning. Like
grenades? In addition to your garden variety ones, you also get
gas grenades,
stun grenades.
Pyromania? Use the
flamethrower or simply toss a
molotov cocktail. You can even lob a bottle of
vodka at an
enemy and light them on fire with matches, provided
gratis in your
inventory at the
beginning of the game.
The sound is very nice, complete with a
spooky,
ambient score. The
creatures make a variety of noises from squishes to roars, and the gun effects are
crisp and neat.
The only thing that really
disappointed me about Odium was that it took me about as much
real time, one
night, as there was
game time. It left me
thirsting for more mutated
blood. I understand that they probably had to make the thing short simply because they poured so much
effort into the
atmosphere,
realism, and
freshness of each
encounter, which is quite
admirable, in my opinion, since many
games will leave you killing the same 6, 7, or 8 types of
enemies over and over again right up to the end, and it's oh so much
filler.
So Odium is a
filet mignon, small but exceedingly
good,
quality over
quantity, against which many games are
hamburger. The
visceral,
no negotiation feel of this game makes
meat metaphors quite
apt. Hey,
five bucks isn't bad for
filet mignon, take it from
a guy who waits tables in a steakhouse.