Oddworld: Abe s Oddysee (Image: Oddworld Inhabitants)
Starting with the original NES and the jumping plumber Mario, consoles have been expected to have mascots. Cartoon characters starred in platform games and served as living avatars for their hardware, just like Sonic made Sega a household name during the 16-bit era. So when the next generation of gaming hit home systems, everybody was trying to come up with something for Sony’s original PlayStation.
Eventually Crash Bandicoot would come to fill that role. But before he debuted, a pair of American computer animators who had never made a game before borrowed millions of dollars and made a game starring an ungainly creature named Abe in a world of meat processing plants, bizarre prophecies, and tricky puzzles. Against all odds, Abe and his odd world became the face of the PS1 for a while. Let’s see how it all went down.