Another World - 20th Anniversary Edition Review

Another World comes to PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PS Vita via the 20-year commemorative edition, Another World - 20th Anniversary Edition. Amid the flood of games in the early '90s, Another World, also known as "Out This World" was a groundbreaking release. Betting on a visual style that mixed rotoscoping and vectors, Another World literally fled the standards and sought to place in another world.

Creating another world
Inspired by games like Dragon's Lair, the French programmer and game designer Eric Chahi wanted a game with cutscenes with full versions for consoles and home computers screen. Amazingly, it was difficult to do in the early 90s. Yet, Éric Chahi did not want the game demanded "surreal" six diskettes. Such was the life of programmers in the early '90s.

The solution found by Éric Chahi was so elegant that allowed the Another World to be so for a multitude of platform until it reaches the modern consoles like Playstation 3 and Playstation 4. Instead of using sprites, Eric decided to use vector lines and polygons in very low resolution. For a time, it was something new, since few games used the feature. The trick allowed Eric to reduce the size of the game that was originally released on two floppy disks for the Commodore Amiga computer.

Classic in high definition
Commanding young physicist, Lester Knight Chaykin, we see the protagonist get a seemingly quiet night on the premises of a laboratory. Using his next-generation computer that is connected to a reactor particle, Lester is hit by an electric discharge experiment that combined the reactor, the teleport to another planet.


From hence why the player learns of Another World is so acclaimed. Without any clue, anyone dies literally hundreds of times before finishing the game. Even a simple worm can hurt mortally Lester. In a world so harmful, the player does not get any hint.

Another World is basically a 2D platform game. Its great advantage unlike other games of this genre is that there is no kind of life indicator or screen time. The simplistic handling and initial rough strokes, are soon replaced by running, jumping and shooting lasers. All without any command prepared only using the directional pad and a button.

In celebration of its 20 years, Another World received a nice upgrade to its look. But the game was not completely redone from scratch. Interestingly this graphical upgrade is that it respects the essence of the original game.

The scenarios are recreated as beautiful as the original cover art, created by Eric Chahi himself. The characters and moving objects, have the same amount of polygons that had at the time. The player is given the option to switch between the original graphics and remastered anytime.

Gameplay intact
The gameplay remains the same, but there are some facilities in this remastering. As with the versions for modern PC, Wii U, Android , iOS and other systems. You can choose the difficulty level. Something very welcome for beginners.

Another World is relatively short, its difficulty is based on memorization, where the player must anticipate and learn which are situated all the dangers of the game. There are many puzzles that consist of how to access a new area.

Though not as innovative in terms of mechanical, Another World has promoted some interesting ideas as 2D shooting and the ability to upload a shot and use it to build shells or destroy objects.

A sequence of the game came to be developed for Sega CD. However, with enough differences between Éric Chahi and the staff of Interplay, the game was very different from the view that planned by Chahi not considered an official result.

Conclusion
Another World is the kind of cult game that is hardly forgotten. The great legacy of the game is its innovative and unique art. Developed by Éric Chahi only with the help of composer to sound arrangements, Another World is a classic "indie" was born even before that word has the meaning it has today.

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