Retro Review - The Ooze

Today's Retro Review is about: The Ooze.

The story of this game and the origin of this particular character is something that can be deduced almost as soon as you see the design of the character and is that everything is due to science. The story focuses on Doctor Caine, which is a scientist who created a very lethal toxic gas, however, his coworkers plan to use this toxic gas against humanity and use the antidote to counteract the effects of this gas to sell it to people and thus become millionaires through the suffering of people. Doctor Caine learns of this situation and goes to the laboratory in search of evidence to stop the plan of his companions, however he is discovered and is thrown into a pile of chemicals, believing that this way Doctor Caine would die, but on the contrary, instead of dying, Doctor Caine mutated into a slimy green creature that is now called "The Ooze".

Now with this new form, the now named The Ooze goes on a quest for revenge against his companions and will also go on a quest to regain his human form.

One of the things that most caught my attention of this game is its main character, as its design escapes from the conventional in terms of "protagonist design" in video games, due to its strange and grotesque form of giant jelly or living mass, I was quite curious to see how this character would move on the stage and in the end after playing it I could realize that The Ooze is a character that moves quite fluently through the scenarios, taking into account the age of this game, I found quite good set of movements of this character, with very fluid movements on many occasions and varied, they manage to represent very well this green gelatinous mass of large size that has the ability to move.

And although in general terms, graphically it is not a game that stands out too much, I have to say that its artistic level is not bad at all, with their respective details and decorations in each scenario in which we go, it is a very decent game graphically, artistic and decorative level.

The sound is a bit more "simple", that is to say, The Ooze has music that is adequate for a game with moments of action, tension and even humor, but although it is a very decent soundtrack, there is nothing that makes it stand out greatly, as it is made to fulfill its main purpose which is to set scenarios, create situations and serve as a companion in this adventure. On the other hand, as far as the sound aspect is concerned, the sound effects are much better done, sometimes they are quite realistic, as when our protagonist devours an enemy or any other sound effect that The Ooze can perform, thus giving enough personality to this charismatic and strange character.

The gameplay of this game is quite particular, because despite being in the line of many action and exploration games, it is due to this very rare and strange protagonist that makes it a quite different game, since the way it performs the attacks towards the enemies can be a double-edged sword if we do not do it correctly. The Ooze can attack the enemy using his own mass, that is, he can throw parts of his own body to attack the enemy, however, when doing this, our body loses... mass, so we are more likely to die more easily, but to counteract this when we eliminate an enemy, we can devour his body and thus gain mass.

Despite how strange it may seem to control our character, it is not really difficult, it is quite easy to learn to control The Ooze and it is very intuitive, however this is a game with a difficulty curve that I consider quite high, it becomes quite difficult is many occasions, so we will die quite a lot throughout this adventure. To counteract this difficulty a bit, this game has quite useful items such as one that increases the speed of our character, as well as another item that makes the mass of The Ooze increase automatically. It should be noted that the more mass our character has, the more likely he is to receive enemy attacks, since we are a bigger target to hit, so maintaining an adequate size is very useful in those moments when we need to flee or dodge an attack.

The Ooze has a fairly high exploration factor, so it is of great importance to explore every corner in the scenario where we find ourselves, since being a game that has many puzzles, it is necessary to explore to find the solutions to them. In general terms it is a game that offers much more in terms of mechanics and gameplay, which is worth discovering for yourself while you are playing.

The Oooze is a very good game, quite strange in many ways, but still quite entertaining, which I think is a little gem of video games that deserves to be played by many more people.