Everybody loves rotoscoping: Let's Play Out of this World!

On the SNES, but it's nicely done. Lots of foreboding piano-bonging and pluse-racing stuff that only shows up at opportune times.

First few minutes of the SNES game, with music.

I also like the sound of the Beast's roar a lot better on the SNES. It sounds more alien-y.

They should hand out copies of this game to anyone moving to Australia.

I never played this game, but this LP makes me want to.

Badly.

Small world, that disturbed me as well when I rented it on SNES, and Nadia's post summed up why it freaked me out.

It's all in the great SNES music. That tense piece when the slug stung was what freaked the living shit out of me, and combined with the tentacles pulling me back into the water and the cat monster mauling me, killed my timid desires to progress through the game back then.

Also see: Shadowgate's Grim Reaper theme, deaths in Flashback, that screenshot of a decapitated guy holding a bloody knife and his own head I saw in a Nintendo Power from the Japanese Famicom Uninvited port, etc.

OOTW is how Half Life's Xen sections should have felt.

Considering that the game is a) free and b) about 3 hours long, I think you should!

Something about the slower FMV scenes on the SNES also added to the tension. When the slug stings you, you're left looking at the bleeding wound for a few seconds (accompanied by said tense music piece), and then Lester keels over. When I first played the game and got bit, I could almost feel the poison blasting through my own leg. "3, 2, 1, fuck I'm dead."

3 hours long if you know what you're doing. Otherwise, "You're here FOREVER!"

It's fun to see the changes across the different versions of this game.

Oh look, the game's creator has a version differences page.

Are you guys ready to play some more Out of this World? 'Cause I know I sure am.


Angus awakens to find himself in a prison cell alongside what appears to be a member of the Bristol rugby club.


Out of this World is all about details, which is what made it so impressive back when it first came out. Here we see that not only are Angus' eyes gradually opening as he comes to, but his pupils are changing size as he attempts to focus on his companion.


Making ol' leatherhead come into focus was also a pretty nifty trick to pull off back in 1992.


As Angus awakens, it becomes clear that he is actually suspended in a cage. Down below, the black-cloaked figure who saved him in the last update removes his outerwear and takes up a patrol underneath the cage. In the background, more of these blocky-headed humanoids are toiling away with pickaxes and such.


Mucking around with the directional buttons provides an interesting result, as Angus can make the cage start swinging back and forth. The guard doesn't notice at first, but if you get a good enough swing on, he comes to investigate.


He fires a warning shot into the air...


...attracting the attention of one of his cohorts, who shows up in the background to investigate.


Say, we're getting some pretty good momentum, here.


CRUNCH. Note that the dark shape you see on the right side of the screen is actually a chunk of the cage that flies into the foreground as it breaks open. Details!

With that, Angus and his strapping buddy (hereafter: Buddy) are freed!


Buddy taps him on the shoulder, points to the right and takes off. What do we do now, folks?

Search the guard's remains for his blaster. Can't hurt to have one, given our hero's terrible luck so far.

Something I love about this game is how simple but distinct the character designs are. The "beasts," for instance, are a barely-defined black mass--but the claws, teeth and tiny red eyes are emphasised, which is all that's necessary.

> get gun
> shoot Buddy

Can you even shoot him? I can't remember.

Years later, Eric Chahi would found Amazing Studio, help create the game Heart of Darkness, which featured a young boy dying in multiple, extremely graphic and terrifying ways, effectively creating a game that made Out of this World look like a visit to grandma's.

It was of course, rated E for everyone.

- Eddie

That doesn't sound like a bad idea at all.


Let's find out - take this, you ghoulish freak of nature!


Hmm, nope, it looks like Buddy is impervious to Gus' laser blasts. Oh well, consider how hard it is to tell him apart from the other block headed, white-skinned aliens* that you'll run across in this game, it's probably best that you can't kill him by accident. Guess we'll just have to follow him...for now.


Coming into the next screen we find ourselves face to face with an enemy. Yes, that's an enemy, Buddy doesn't wear a red sash. Time to put our recently acquired firearm to use!


For a particle physicist, Angus is a stone-cold badass. Shooting the enemy once turns them into a charred skeleton, which will then explode if you wait long enough (or shoot it again). Nasty! Also note that there are people running around in the foreground, which is a pretty awesome trick for an early-90s game.


Coming into the next area, we see three locked doors. Buddy sets to work decoding them, so it's up to Gus to hold the fort while he works. This is a perfect opportunity to find out about the two alternate fire modes of the blaster. If you hold the button down for a short while, a small sphere of energy appears at the end of the barrel:


Releasing the trigger sends the ball forward a short distance, where it creates a shield in front of Angus that will block enemy laser blasts. Handy! Enemies often announce their presence by sending sphere balls onto the screen before stepping into view themselves. These shields will disappear after taking enough damage, or after a set amount of time.


Taking cover behind his shield, Angus tries out the third fire mode on the blaster. Holding the button down for a longer amount of time creates a larger sphere of energy at the end of the barrel. And what should happen if we were to release the trigger?


Phoom! A super charged shot like this will take out an enemy shield in one blast, leaving them open for a quick followup shot. They can also be used to destroy doors, much like the ones we're waiting behind right now. So why don't we just blast our way out? It seems like the blaster that Angus picked up wasn't fully charged - in this first section, it's entirely possible to run out of energy and find yourself completely helpless. We certainly don't have enough energy to destroy all three of these doors, so the only option for now is to fight off the guards and hope that Gus can hold them off until Buddy figures out how to unlock these doors.


Oops. On the bright side, we have now confirmed that Buddy can indeed be vaporized, just not by your own shots.


And then their skeletons exploded.


This time, things went a little better. Buddy unlocks the door and we book it into the next room.


Hey, it's an elevator! Let's go see what's upstairs.


Oh hey, a scenic viewpoint. Let's have a quick look outside.


Well would you look at that. Hey, I can see my house from up here!


*Yes, I know, technically speaking the only alien anywhere to be seen is Angus. Makes you think.

The world would be a better place if more games could be described thus.

yup that view from the roof... That is as far as I ever got. I also ran out of gun juice too soon and got shot up often...

Now, I'm really looking forward to seeign what happens next

Well then, let's do!

While the view upstairs is lovely, it's not getting us out of this alien prison. Let's head down instead.


It's not immediately obvious from the screenshots, but there are actually two levels below the one where we escaped from our cage. We'll call the B1 (left) and B2 (right). Let's check out B1 first. The first thing we see is a locked door. Angus has a long-standing vendetta against locked doors, so he charges up his gun and blows it to smithereens.



Hearing the sounds of door destruction, the guard down below sets up shop by opening the doors he was behind and putting up some shields. Angus has been practicing his guard-shootin', so this guy shouldn't pose much of a problem - let's go take care of him.



Ooh, that didn't go so well. In case it isn't clear from the pictures, that hole connecting the two levels is actually a teleporter. Standing on it and pressing up or down sends Angus zipping Mega Man style to the other level. Fast as this mode of transport may be, it isn't fast enough for Gus to get the drop on the guard. Guess we'll hoof it back to B2.


This floor has a short little deadend populated by a lone guard. Angus brandishes his blaster and calls for pistols at dawn:


Buddy arrives just in time to see the tragic, yet dramatic, outcome of this confrontation. Let's try it again, only with better reflexes!



Much better. With the guard out of the way, the only thing left in the room is a little glowing button. Most curious. When faced with the unknown, Angus does the same thing that any physicist would do: he destroys it!



Normally at this point, Gus would start looking through the debris for some kind of scientific insight. Since he's a little lacking in forensic equipment right now, he merely notes that the energy in the conduit leading upstairs seems to have stopped moving. What could that mean?

Out of options, we head back to B1 to see if things go any differently. Also, to show off this screen capture of the totally sweet door-vaporizing animation:



AWESOME.

As before, the guard notices the sound and takes action. This time, however, the set of three locked doors doesn't open automatically, forcing him to blast his way through. Angus and Buddy hoof it to the next screen while the guard is charging.

The next area has a similar teleporter. With the guard nipping at their heels, our heroes waste no time in putting some vertical space between him and them.



As soon as they show up, a guard arrives on the other side of the left door. Buddy, apparently having x-ray vision, senses the danger and opens up a hatchway for Angus to escape down.



Angus, of course, is much too honorable to leave his friend to die, so he elects to stay by Buddy's side as the guard unlocks the door.



...on second thought, maybe a little trip into the ventilation system wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. Angus drops down, curled up in the fetal position, and watches as the guard closes in on Buddy's position.



Curiously, once the two pairs of feet are close together, one of them disappears. It's not entirely clear what just happened, but it appears that Buddy may have died a heroic death saving his redheaded friend from skeleton-explosion or imprisonment. Let's have a moment of silence for his noble sacrifice.

...

...

...

Right. With no other options on the table, Angus decides to go explore the ventilation system.



Turns out that it's pretty dark down here, and Gus can only see a few feet ahead of him at any given time. Curled up the way he is, his only option for transport is to roll left or right, a movement that is animated in an irregular style that comes across as quite realistic. Guess we'll start by going left - it's not like there will be any death traps in the ventilation system anyway, right?



Well, crap. It seems that the pipes host the occasional burst of superheated steam, capable of cooking a rolling physicist in less than a second. Maybe we'd be better off going to the right instead.



@#$$!@%!

Out of this World is absolutely not the sort of game where you're expected to get everything right on your first pass. In this way, it resembles old PC adventure games - although at least this game has the decency to never put a continue point in a situation where you're totally screwed.

Right, well then. It seems like the only thing to do at this point is to proceed through the dark slowly, attempting to spot the jets of steam and avoid them all while hopefully not falling down any lengthy shafts.



All right, now we're getting somewhere...



Urgh. Ok, this is getting old, so let's end this update by just assuming thatI got it right on the next try.



Success! What adventures could await our hero down below? Find out next time on OUT OF THIS WORLD!

I was never very clear on what was coming out of those pipes; I kind of figured it for a poisonous gas that...drained all the colour out of Lester's skin.

'Cause it's...you know, poisonous and all.

In other words, steam makes much more sense.

Reading this LP makes me want to play Oddworld again.

I always thought it was deadly air conditioning. Because the password for that area is "CLLD", you see.

You know, I had always taken it for steam, since that's what it looks like, but presumably being cooked by superheated steam would give Gus more of a pinkish color. Unless even water vapor works differently in this crazy, alien land? That or else it's super-cooled steam. Yup. Totally possible.

Maybe he was so badly boiled that his meat turned grey, like an overcooked roast beef.

I'm guessing a variety of horrible deaths.

Most PC adventure games don't even give you a continue point, actually; if you don't save, you're boned. And if it's a Sierra game, odds are good that if you do save, you'll be boned too. Sierra was a company that was thoroughly in love with the idea of punishing the player for arbitrary nonsense. I think I found the most ridiculous the other day in Freddy Pharkas: you can die from taking too long in curing a case of equine flatulence. In other words, you die from smelling too many horse farts.

On an unrelated note, screenshots really can't do this game justice the way video can. The animation is shockingly smooth, quite a feat for a game from the early 90s.

Hey, we're back! Last time, we left Angus as he was dropping out of the ventilation system. Where will he end up this time?


Landing on sturdy physicist knees, Angus brushes himself off and takes in his surroundings. Another one of those funny triple doors bars his exit, so he applies a little technique he picked up in High Energy Physics 476 back in university:

Uh...huh. Looks like ol' Blasty is out of juice. Handily, there's an electrical closet nearby whose door opens at his approach. Going inside couldn't possibly be a bad idea, right?


Well I'll be, it didn't actually kill him. The surge of electricity has two beneficial effects: it recharges the blaster, and it gives Angus a wicked case of bedhead. Now we can take care of those pesky doors:



Hey, that looks like a way out!



Here we see Angus coming face to face with a guard and totally smoking him. Note that he was wearing some sort of fancy headdress during the brief moments before he was vaporized. Not important, but interesting nonetheless!


Suddenly, Buddy comes running across the foreground, accosted by laser blasts. Hey, he's OK!



Buddy seems to have stirred up the hornet's nest something fierce, and is trailed by a bunch of guards who seem to have wandered in off the set of Star Wars.

Eh, I'm sure he'll be fine.

I seem to remember the Genesis version lacking foreground shenanigans. Maybe I remember wrong?

I just realized that I'd really like to see Heart of Darkness on GOG.com - go vote for it! Now!

I got to replay this game... Wonder if I still have my interplay 10th anniversary collection... This was on it.

This is awesome. Never actually played this game, but it looks really interesting. Also, this seems relevant: