Ah, O.D.T. Escape or Die Trying, I bet this game gives you a lot of nostalgia from when you were younger.  Actually, probably not because the game has a rarity of 7/10.  This game came out on the PlayStation and PC only.  A N64 port was made but never actually released, however it recently got leaked.  I first saw this game a few weeks ago when I accidentally stumbled onto it while browsing through games.  It's one of those games that no one ever talks about, lying lost and forgotten in time.  But is that where it should be or is it one of those hidden gems?  Let's find out.

     This is a hard game to give really pin down.  It's a 3rd person shooter, platformer, with RPG elements and a touch of Metroid and questionably a dash of horror.  This game has 3 ways of fighting, loads of power ups and skills, interesting level design and lot's of secret areas to find.  It has 8 levels each of which feel unique.

     Graphics (8):  This game looks pretty good, not as good as the PlayStation version, but that's to be expected.  The character models look pretty good and the objects in the game look well made too.  There are several objects in the game like barrels crates and vases where several of them are explosive.  This game, instead of having all explosives be red has minor details changed instead.  Like explosive barrels have a larger center.  This is an interesting touch I feel.  The models all help build a unusual atmosphere.  A thing minor complaint is that the cutscenes in the PlayStation version are actually animated, as opposed to this version where you get a bunch of pictures.

     Sound (7):  This is hard to place, the music in the beginning of the game isn't that good but gets better later on into the game.  The music might get a little annoying to you, but it's not terrible.  I do feel that the music played during the final boss was a little disappointing (much like the boss but that's another thing) because it feels like normal and rather tame music for a final boss.  The music's OK, but honestly I think that Mirai Nikki's first opening theme works a lot better, weird.  Also for several of the levels the music really reminds me of Gex's music.

     Addictiveness (8):  The gameplay is rather fun in places though a bit rough around the edges, See Controls, Combat, Bosses, and Platforming to see the details.

     Controls (8):  The game controls rather well, the only thing I have to question is who makes Z attack.  Another minor gripe is that to open your inventory you press L but while you're going though your inventory time is still going on.  This is also the screen you go to upgrade so it means you have to be in a safe place before using it.

     Combat (6):  The games combat system is nice, but has several quirks in it.  The melee combat feels very wonky, and you have to question the enemies AI when they look around while your attacking them non stop.  The melee attacks really are the weakest part of fighting and I don't just meant they do the least amount of damage.

    The 2nd part of combat is your gun.  You have 4 kinds of ammo, each of which has it's own unique attack.  Light fires basic projectiles at your enemies, Fire shoots a stream of fire forward doing higher damage the closer the enemy is.  Ionic fires lighting that can chain off of enemies.  Finally you have fusion which creates a trail of energy spires that rise from the ground.  As you upgrade your elemental powers the attacks get upgraded as well not just making them stronger but gives them new features.  You also have a sort of auto lock on, if you shoot in the general direction of an enemy you will automatically aim for the enemy.  You also have a sort of first person aim, which is useful for dealing with explosive objects.  This mode however is a little unwieldy because you aim higher then it looks like you should hit.  It's easy to compensate with a little practice but it's hard to use at first, especially in the heart of combat.  Also if you get hit while in this mode you exit the mode then enter it again and have to re-aim again.  This mode's rather useless for attacking from up close, so just use the lock on, it's far better.

     Finally you have magic which is the most useful late game.  Magic has various useful powers that also get improved over time, but since I never used much magic while playing I have the least to say about it.  When you select magic you stop moving and do a one second chant that changes with which character you're using and then the spell takes effect.  It might take a second or two before it actually does anything, but as long as the chant isn't interrupted the spell will go through.  If you're hit while chanting the spell is canceled and you have to try again.   I can however say the thing that the magic system would be better if when you unlocked the abilities the game would tell you what they did.  This really makes using the abilities a guessing game until you find out how to use them properly.  Another thing is you have to change your spells in the menu in the spell zone, which doesn't stop time so if you find your skills aren't working then you'll have to run away, try and change your skills and hope you can do it before the enemy catches you.  Also sometimes it looks like a spell should have done damage but nothing happens, why is hard to tell.  Does the enemy resist that spell?  Did it miss?  is it a glitch?  There's no real way to tell.

     You also have several dodges, like roles, back-flips and strafing; though these skills will not help you with most magic.  I can't really talk much about how they work because I never used them, I found they took too long to use or didn't help much so I just tanked damage and spammed attack.  I did this with the character with the least defense and didn't have that much trouble so I'll leave you to draw the conclusion.  The evasion would probably be a lot better if it had a lock on like Legend of Zelda's.

     The enemies are rather close with a unique feature, like some are immune to all but magic, some can regenerate from death, some can stun you or poison you.  Overall the enemies are interesting however they really don't pose much of a challenge.  Do you know how many times I died because of a regular enemy?  Compared to platforming fails, very little, most of the time they kill me is if they knock me off a bottomless cliff.  The enemies might be annoying at times but that's about it.

     Overall the combat is fun but the poor melee controls, less then useful dodging, and a slightly buggy magic system dag it down.

     Bosses (6):  Bosses are the opposite of the music, as the game goes on they get less fun.  For the first few bosses the game gives you advice on how to fight when you walk in.  The later bosses let you figure out how to beat them on your own.  However I just got less enjoyment after the game stopped giving hints.  The biggest offender is the final boss.  You start the fight with a square arena with each ammo type on the corners, and you need one of them to get through the first phase.  You might be thinking "Oh, so am I going to have to go through all the different things I learned in this game to beat the final boss?"  No, you only use one of the ammo and it introduces a very annoying mechanic.  And the worst part, the boss has 2 phases, that's it.  After you beat the second phase platforms descend and you can climb up.  And instead of it leading to the next round against the boss, it leads to the exit to the game.  It's a very disappointing fight to an interesting game.

     Platforming (9):  This takes up most of the game, moving from area to area finding items and using them to reach the next level.  The platforming is rather hard, especially because of the abundance of bottomless pits, and instant kill lava and spikes.  Hard as it might be, you always have a sense of what you can and can't reach.  There are also a lot of breakable walls scattered through the game that lead to secrets, so being observant is really useful.  The platforming I think is really solid, and the best made part of the game.

     Story (6):  Story is not this games strong point.  The game starts off with the airship your on is carrying a green pearl (I like to call it the McGuffin) that can cure a disease that's going around.  As your carrying it your airship crashes onto this strange tower and needs repairs.  As you go to find gas canisters monsters capture the captain of the airship and the McGuffin and you have to find it.  Between levels you have a cut-scene showing you things from the captains point of view and it explains the backstory of the tower you're in.  All and all the game isn't really story based.  Something interesting is that the way you get to the next level is you drop down a hole in almost all the levels, much like Alice going down the rabbit hole.

     Depth (9):  There's a lot you can do in this game.  You get experience from beating enemies and you can spend that experience in the item screen in thee categories, Armor, Weapon Skill, and Spirit.  You can collect weapon Power ups that boost the power of certain ammo types.  First you have to collect them and then you have to have enough Weapon Skill in order to use it.  You can collect Spell Crystals that can unlock new spells.  However if you already have that spell you'll upgrade it instead.  In order to use the spell crystals you need enough spirit.
     There are four main characters, however you can unlock 3 more with cheat codes.  Each character has an ammo specialty, as well as a stat balance of Weapon Skill, Spirit, and Armor effecting their starting amount and maximum amount.  They also have a item starter kit unique to that character.  After beating the game you can pick to learn one of 5 cheat codes, however you can just reload the save file and get a new one.
     This game has a lot to do, with 8 levels, lots of upgrades and loads of secret areas.  The problem is the game's a bit too big, it's easy to get lost.  A map would have made this game a lot easier to handle.  A nice addition to this game if there's an special object hidden in the game it will tell you that an object is hidden there.  This feature is however disabled in the Hard difficulty for added challenge.

     Difficultly (7):  This is a little hard to pin down.  The normal enemies don't really pose much of a threat except if they knock you off a platform.  Falling from platforms will be the #1 cause of death for you as the game has a huge amount of instant kills.  The bosses aren't really that hard (Except the final one), and the game gives you a lot of lives.  You also get an extra life if you experience bar reaches max.  Mid to late game you also have essentially infinite health as long as you upgrade your mana spell and health spell.  The mana spell converts health to mana and the Health spell converts mana into health.  At the first level they aren't efficient enough but later levels are strong enough that in a few seconds you can be at full health and mana in no time.

     Overall (8):  This game has a lot of interesting things, from the unique gameplay, to the challenging platforming.  It's hardly perfect, it's rather rough around the edges.  But here's the thing, this game had a lot of great ideas, and a bit of tweaking and reworking it could have been a really good game.  But sadly to my knowledge this game never got a sequel, which is too bad because it had so much potential.

I think the reason why A lot of people haven't heard of the N64 version of this game because it was never officially released for the N64. Although there are PC and PS1 versions that you can play.

I've honestly never played through the game, but it does sound like an interesting concept.

Nice job on the review. There were a few things that could be fixed up, but you did well overall. Keep up the good work!

Jordanv78 :   Actually, I wasn't referring to no one knowing about the N64 version, I was talking about the game in general.

ZanderShadowbane : That's fine. I was just referring to your intro which was kinda misleading. Because you didn't really mention in the review that the version you were reviewing wasn't released.