An epic landmark in the gaming world. This title still holds the magic it did years ago. With an art style that still blows me away considering it's era and the unique feeling of revisiting an old friend, this is still a title not to be overlooked by new gamers or the old school fan. Brilliant proof of the power of artistic creation breaking the barrier of time and generations. Highly suggested!

Jordan Mechner, Steve Meretzky, Roberta Williams...Eric Chahi.

If you don't know who Eric Chahi is, or why I breathe his name with a palpable aura of reverence, buy this game immediately. This is an enduring piece of computer game history that remains as beautiful, stark, striking and unique today as it was when it burst onto the scene in 1991. This is a landmark computer game.

So what, you say? So was Doom, and very few of us are still playing it today. So was DONKEY.BAS, the famous early IBM game with the racecar switching lanes to avoid burros in the road. So was the Crowther and Woods Adventure. The history of computer games is littered with significant milestones, making for a very cluttered highway to the past. Right. I understand. But when you find one that's still fresh and avant-garde exactly as it is, today? You could drop Another World into the indie game market anew, and it'd still turn heads and inspire conversations. The adjective "timeless" is overused, but this game is truly timeless.

It's an action adventure game. There are no instructions. You're meant to jump in, blind, and interact with the world around you as a mystery. There's no inventory, and precious few 'save points.' You used to be a scientist working with a particle accelerator, driving a Ferrari, then...well, something happened, and you ended up Somewhere Else. Somewhere bleak, hostile, cold and inhospitable to its denizens, let alone to an outsider. What does it all mean? You will never be told. You'll never receive an explanation, never encounter a single creature who speaks or understands your language. You will interact with many objects, and figure out what they are and how they work on your own. Good luck! You'll need it.

This is Eric Chahi. This, right here, is what this man does so very, very well. The immersive simple-controls action adventure game, set in a bleakly alien other world. Chahi is Bill Watterson's noir doppelganger -- the stylized clifftops and mesas of Spaceman Spiff cartoons become bleak obelisks in a desolate and hostile natural wasteland. His ecosystems are shadowy and predatory, but tantalizing. Exploration into a very nasty and hostile Mother Nature's parlor has never been so deliciously tempting.

When we played the original Broderbund Karateka, Mechner's freshman masterpiece, there was always a bit of dread wonder as to what would come down the pike, what would be waiting to meet us and attack us. He was the inventor, as far as I know, of the video game cutscene, and Karateka was one of the first games to introduce us to enemies "down the way," seen before they were encountered directly. But while Mechner foreshadowed, Chahi *teased*. His natural "other world" was silent, grinning, waiting for you to get stuck in its deadly web, and it offered you few if any clues as to how to survive it.

If you made it to the second scene of Another World, you felt quite accomplished.

There are few rest points to breathe. The action is breakneck and maddening. You will feel the protagonist Lester's heart pound and his lungs ache from exertion. You will savor the first quiet moment and rest, because you'll need it! This game is short not only because it's an older game, but because the player couldn't endure hours and hours of it on end. If trial and error in realtime isn't your thing, if repeating the same scenes over and over to get them just right frustrates you, if you want the game to work with you as opposed to standing over you silently and smirking...this may not be your action-adventure game. If you want the game to end with all questions answered and all mysteries put to rest, this is definitely not your game. What you learn about this amazing and very thoroughly developed alien world, you will have to infer from your breakneck trip through it, unguided. You will be left with many, many questions.

The game "Limbo" could never have happened without Chahi's work in its cultural DNA.

It really doesn't matter if this game is "for you" or not -- it's a legend, and a work of art that every gamer ought to engage, at least once in his or her life. Love or hate the White Album, you have to have listened to it to call yourself a fan of rock music. This is the Mona Lisa of action-survival games of the 16-bit Renaissance, and the fact that it stands as a great game twenty years later, with only minor updates to address the huge resolution jump in modern displays, is telling. Check this out. Even if it's not your thing, it's a game you should know about, and that everyone should own.

Click here for the full review[cheesetalks.twolofbees.com] (Steam's character limit doesn't allow me to post the full thing here), and if you've played the game, please check out my Another World survey[docs.google.com]!

In 1991 I first played Another World (also known as Outer World and Out of This World in some regions), a game that would have a greater and more lasting impact on me than any other.

On the surface, it seems clear that Another World is a product of its time, and does not align well to some modern dominant design sensibilities. At the time though, it was pushing the envelope with its use of polygons and 'pixigons' and broke with many established motivational paradigms of the era, relying on a desire to explore and drive through the story rather than achieving a score or preserving lives.

In spite of its vintage, there are things that developer Éric Chahi was able to achieve in Another World that I believe are still relevant, enjoyable and worth aspiring to, even twenty one years after its release.


Upon launching the game, the first thing that stands out is its atmosphere. Within the first moments of the intro cinematic, much of the game's tone is set, as the protagonist Lester (who is only named in the credits) is depicted arriving in his Italian sportscar at an isolated lab on a dark and brooding night. Lester immediately comes across as being successful, independent and yet lonely as he is greeted by the lab's AI and seats himself at a solitary workstation. The cinematic's score echoes this, playing an eerie isolated melody leading up to Lester's appearance, which is joined by a purposeful military percussion as he enters his workplace. As the experiment begins, rhythmic tensions builds before suddenly and unexpectedly, Lester and his desk are vapourised, leaving a charred crater with dissipating charge arcing across its surface.

The game itself begins with Lester and his desk materialising beneath the surface of a deep stone pool, a stark contrast to his technically advanced (and air filled) lab. The sense of displacement is real and highlights that Lester is no longer in an environment that he controls.

Another world has very little incidental music, using the intro cinematic to provide an initial sense of tone and pacing before giving way to sound effects. The first several scenes offer a full soundscape, with forlorn wind whistling through a rocky canyon, punctuated by seismic rumbles. All of the game's sound effects feel raw and visceral, adding to the game's air of danger and urgency. As the game progresses, ambient audio becomes more sparse, relying mostly on footfalls and laser fire to fill in the space. As a result of publisher pressure from Interplay[1], the SNES port (and derivatives) feature additional in-game tension music that deviates significantly from the style established in the cinematics. In addition to being out of place, I feel that this also detracts from some of the game's sense of loneliness and isolation.

In contrast to many other games of the era (Civilization, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Lemmings, Street Fighter II and Sonic The Hedgehog, for example) Another World has a comparatively understated 16 colour palette with recurring dominant blue hues that help support its atmosphere of isolation and loneliness. Its muted tones depict an not only an unforgiving and unmoving world (in which Lester with his red hair stands out), but also one that can be eerily beautiful.

The game capitalises on its low-fi presentation, using implied detail over actual detail in a way that allows the player to project and interpret things rather than have them explicitly defined. It's difficult to know how much of this is a happy coincidence due to technical limitation of the time and how much was intentional minimalism, though there are a number of moments where the game gives the player fleeting glimpses of something separated from normal gameplay (using the short city view or black monster cutscenes as an example), enough to only give a sense or impression of what's shown.


Lester is presented for the most part as a "silent protagonist", leaving his character open to player interpretation and projection. Beyond highlighting how out of place he is, the only definition the game gives Lester is when he is shown briefly emoting during his first encounter with members of the alien race (who presumably are indigenous to this planet, leaving Lester the real alien).

There's a degree of history and heritage to the indigenous people depicted within the game, who at once display aspects of technical advancement alongside cultural barbarity, with energy weapons and teleportation providing a stark counterpoint to the apparent slavery and bloodsports.

All three lines of dialogue are delivered in an alien language, two delivered by aggressive guards and one by the companion encountered by the player early in the game. This companion is shown to be amicable, caring and resourceful, and is undoubtedly the most developed character in Another World.

There's a degree of implied co-dependence that Lester and his companion share, and though Lester does not show direct response in game, the manual included with Another World contains a page from Lester's journal expressing concern.

I'm yet to see someone play through the game without feeling a sense of connection to this character, empathy which I believe speaks to the success of Lester's "silent protagonist" role.


The pacing of Another World's gameplay is structured so as to heighten the impact of the game's tension centrepieces. The placement of encounters, obstacles and save points gives the sense that flow and pacing were heavily in mind as the game evolved.

As mentioned earlier, the game relies on players using trial and error (often resulting in death) to explore possibility space and discover solutions. For example, most players' first death will occur whilst they are absorbing the shock of Lester's transition from an air filled lab to beneath the surface of a murky pool. Invariably, all first time players I have observed are quickly pulled down into the depths by a mass of tentacles reaching from below. This first death introduces the notion that this new world (and the game itself) is not a friendly one, and that Lester's immediate task is to survive.

In modern context, this death oriented learning would be considered a negative aspect. At the time of release, the popularity of titles like Dragon's Lair and Sierra's line of adventure games, which heavily featured player death, made this much more accessible. To help make death feel less negative, many of these games employed special death animations or cutscenes as a reward. In particular the death messages/puns and animations in Sierra adventure are highly celebrated. Deaths with cutscenes in Another World are short and in line with the survival horror aesthetic, showing a glimpse of tightly framed jaws or claws in a way that implies the violent outcome without directly depicting it. Several types of deaths don't feature cutscenes and tend to be more graphic and bloody, though the zoomed out perspective gives them lesser impact.

Unlike Dragon's Lair however, each death in Another World (with the exception of combat encounters and platforming obstacles) provides a learning opportunity, and as such, technically isn't an end-state. This perspective feels to be an important aspect of finding Another World enjoyable and rewarding.


Two years before Another World's release, Jordan Mechner's Prince of Persia solidified what would be known as the "cinematic platformer", a style of platformer known for relatively realistic movement and more maturely constructed storytelling...

Continued on Cheesetalks[cheesetalks.twolofbees.com]

Another World proves to be one of the best motion capture prince of persia old bits video games of the old era. I remember quite with nostalgia when i used to pass playing games like those on the internet free games around like Steppenwolf X Creatures Project. If you kinda enjoy the old first prince of persia game vibes, you're gonna enjoy this ride through another world!

Another World - 20th Anniversary Edition is a rerelease and upgraded version of the original Another World (also known as Out Of This World) released back in 1991 for the first time and became a landmark for videogames at the time. You take the role of Lester Knight Chaykin, a physicist who gets transported to another world, and once there needs to escape it. I first played this years ago when I was still small, and felt some nostalgia seeing it in the store.

Pros:
-Amazing platforming, which still holds up to today. Use of various environmental objects and placements, to the structure of discovering how to progress is captivating and is exactly what a platformer should be
-The simple, 2D polygonal character and art style is beautiful and ties in well with the entire "another world" feeling
-The narrative of the story is presented well through progression of certain events while playing and the flow to cinematic cutscenes
-This edition contains the soundtrack, concept art and technical drafts, and can be found in the Steam directory in which the game was installed

Cons:
-This can be off-putting to some, but the game is incredibly difficult and does not baby-sit you. You will have to try, die, and try again till you discover what to do. (Or find a full speedrun walkthrough on YouTube, as I did if you don't want to struggle)

Overall, this platformer is brilliant and set the standard for future platformers. Worth buying if you love the game, or love a great platformer.
8/10

Throughout the years, there have been VERY few games that told an enchanting narrative without the use of words. Another World is one of those few and a treasure to experience. The design, gameplay, visuals, and story are all brilliant and worth your time.

I have fond memories of showing folks the opening from the SNES version and even the non-gamers were absolutely gripped.

Well, that took me back to 1991, when I owned an Amiga 500 and an Atari joystick! Its hard to belive that was 23 years ago, and the game is still great. The graphics, animation and ambiance was ahead of its time back then, if your an old fart like me wanting to recapture your youth, or just interested in the classics then I highly recomend this if you have never played it.

First of all I have to say that this review is talking about this version of the game, not the game itself. The original game is a classic and way ahead of it's time. It has those old school moments where most people will have to look at a guide, but that is Ok, most games from that time are hard and I appreciate that.
The thing that is very frustrating is the port of the game that is on sale on steam. The menus look like a cheap android game. There are almost no settings available, especially for audio and the game is quite loud. The controls are very buggy and sometimes unresponsive. The game uses the same button for shooting and sprinting, so a lot of the times you will start sprinting like a moron to the enemy instead of shooting them. I also encountered controls getting stuck, so the character would keep moving in a direction without me pressing anything. I understand that this was the original control scheme for the Amiga port, but you can still bring some quality of life improvements to a modern rerelease. Secondly the game runs at very low framerate, I'm talking single digits to 15FPS most of the time. I'm guessing the original games speed was tied to the cpu, and the developers couldn't be bothered to fix it for today. That's what makes some of the gunfights unresponsive.

SPOILER: A massive problem is that if you advance further than you were supposed to, and forgot to do something before, the game already has made checkpoints, you can't delete them and start fresh. At the middle part of the game, there is a level where you need to shoot a lantern and hit an enemy below to kill it. If you miss and continue forward, you eventually meet this enemy and can't progress. But because the game made checkpoints already, and if you load an earlier checkpoint the game still uses the already made ones, you can't progress. I had to disable steam cloud and delete my local save game, start the game all over again from the beginning get to that area again and made sure I killed the enemy with the lantern before progressing further.

Overall the game is amazing, very difficult and requires patience and trial and error, but this release of the game is terrible and I don't recommend it.

I am going to keep this short.

This is a port of an old game from an era where there was no such thing as "Helpful UI", "Hints" and "Guidance". You will find nothing in this game explained to you or intuitive to use or play.

That being said, the game is really fun once you figure out each puzzle and what to do. It's just very... very punishing. I think I clocked in more than 300 or so deaths trying to get through the game.

If you want to see if you'd be up for the torture and torment, you can check out the series I did on it here, just for laughs:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAtiOxHKVLhbqVFdaVkg1zRPbRIOEpPNo

Good luck to you should you decide to go for it.

Seriously. Good luck.
-Sonoket

GAME TYPE :
Game is old school 2D "actions adventure" style game.

ABOUT GAME :
BACK TO THE "FUTURE" :D ... I WAS PLAYING THIS GAME WHEN I WAS KID ... LIKE 20 YEARS AGO (On P4 MMX 44MHz). OLD TIMES, OLD SCHOOL, OLD GAMES.

Red hair guy was sucked to the "another world" and he need to "get out". Game has strong story and gameplay is one of the best (maybe ever) from 90's games. Guys that owns MMX processors knows what is this game all about, this was our childhood.

PLAY STYLE :
Old school 2D "side-running" platformer. With puzzles (pretty hard since its old school game).

EVOLVE / DLCs :
no ... no ... nothing like this (back then there was just games, no addons).

ACCOUNT :
no ... no need.

GAME TIME :
well I think ... since I remember game was pretty long and hard ... so play time will be at least 8h+ (more like 20h+)

---
+
---

+ OLD SCHOOL (game 20th anniversary)
++ Sound (at the era)
++ Graphics (at the era)
++ Game time
++ Idea
+++ Difficulty
+++ Story
+++ Puzzles
+++++ MEMORIES

---
-
---

- OLD SCHOOL
-- Sound (now)
-- Graphics (now)
-- Game time
--- Difficulty (n00bs beware, better to skip this one, cause for you it is unbeatable)

-----------------------------
GRAPHICS: 10/10
LEVEL DETAIL: 10/10
SOUND/MUSIC: 10/10
VIDEO: 06/10
CAMERA: 04/10
SPECIAL EFFECTS: 02/10
STORY: 11/10
CHARACTERS: 08/10
MECHANICS: 11/10
PS3 CONVERTING: 00/10
IDEA: 11/10
ADDICTION: 11/10
MUST PLAY: 11/10
RPG ELEMENTS: 00/10
ADDONS/DLCs: 00/10

-----------------------------
VERDICT: 11/10