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It's been a while since we were legitimately excited by an addition to the PSOne Classics storefront -- however, now we're waiting on bated breath for the PSN re-release of two timeless titles: Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee and Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus. The pair of PlayStation platformers will say "hey-lo" to the PlayStation Store this Thursday, where they'll be sold for $9.99 a piece.

We know we should be counting our blessings, but we're hoping the addition of these impossibly Odd titles is just a precursor to more PS1 platformers getting ported to the PSN. In simpler, less alliterative terms, we're gonna need someone to bring Heart of Darkness into the family of PSOne Classics. We're gonna need someone to do that immediately.

It's been a full four years since we last controlled any of Oddworld's strange inhabitants, with the most recent entry in the series dropping on Xbox. We'll get another chance soon, however, as an interview with Bitmob earlier this week with series creator Lorne Lanning announced the inking of a deal with Sony to release "the original Abe games" on PSN "very soon" -- something an ESRB rating at least partially hinted at early last month.

Furthermore, the entire series is getting packaged for digital re-release as The Oddbox (including Munch's Oddysee and Stranger's Wrath, previously console-exclusive games), available digitally "sometime this Winter." When pressed on a new game in the series though, Lanning kept mum, saying "We hope to have an announcement soon, but I've been saying that for a while now so I'll just shut up and hope for the best." Looks like we'll be mirroring Lanning's actions for now, unfortunately.

[Via Big Download]

Steam will be powering some weekend sales to Oddword this weekend, while GoG drops the price on some classic Interplay action titles. Steam has Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus and Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssee for $2.50 apiece, or buy both for $3.75 -- that's less than a gallon of milk (unless it's from Costco, but don't get s-m-r-t).

Over at GoG.com, Interplay's action titles like Earthworm Jim (1,2,3D), both MDKs, Shattered Steel and Messiah are on sale for 25 percent off. Considering all those titles are only $6, that makes each of them $4.50. Just make sure to put in the code "ACTION" at checkout to receive the discount. Happy classic gaming!

[Via Big Download]

Source -- Steam weekend deal
Source -- GoG weekend sale

After the dreary all-night study benders, frantic cramming, and endless writing that coalesce to produce the torturous period that is college finals, gamers around the country find time to kick back, relax, and play through the dreaded backlog that resulted from the flood of titles released during the holiday season. After playing through the wonderful Mirror's Edge, I set my sights on an older title I'd had sitting around for several months (thanks to the Xbox 360's spotty backwards compatibility). That game was Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath.

Released towards the end of the Xbox's life cycle in 2005, Stranger's Wrath was also the last game created by Oddworld Inhabitants before the studio shifted focus to creating cinematic movies. And it's a shame, because Stranger's Wrath succeeds at everything it attempts. It's fun, inventive, and as full of life as every other Oddworld creation. Follow along with Stranger (in both first and third person!) as he tracks down bounties in the Odd version of the Old West in this week's Born for Wii.

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Gallery: Born for Wii: Stranger's Wrrath

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Every week, Born for Wii digs into gaming's sordid past to unearth a new treasure fit for revival on the Nintendo Wii. Be sure to check out last week's entry in the series, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and for more great titles that deserve your attention, take a look at Virtually Overlooked.

Far from the dangers of Brash Entertainment, the battered publisher's former chief creative officer, Larry Shapiro, has found work serving Oddworld Inhabitants. As the studio's new president -- Sherry McKenna will remain CEO -- Shapiro has tasked himself with pushing Oddworld into "new frontiers," reports Variety. "We intend to break the model of where games are today in a unique and entertaining way," he told the site. What we think he means: Oddworld will be getting into episodic gaming a few "years" from now.

At the very least, the Citizen Siege project has finally be cleared from the queue ... and shoveled into a shallow grave. [Update: Actually, Citizen Siege is "still in development," McKenna tells GamesIndustry.biz; just not with Vanguard.] We'd just as soon settle for the old Oddworld games with a lil' spit-shine applied, thank you very much. As for his former post at Brash, Shapiro had this to say: "I wanted to make Brash the Miramax or HBO of video games, but sales marketing and finance wanted it to be Majesco." Oh, BURN!

Recently confirmed by the head of Maxis and now effectively double-confirmed, the new Oddworld game will have involvement from the series' original creator. Previously thought to have left the World of Odd for aspirations in CG movie making, Lanning and his studio, Oddworld Inhabitants, are returning to the universe of their namesake with the next-gen Oddworld. While that game will still be under wraps for some time, it's good to know that the original creators are involved, even if they do have their hands full.

Co-founder of Inhabitants and one of the creators of the Oddworld universe, Lorne Lanning, has confirmed a new Oddworld title to be in development, but remains tight-lipped on any sort of details. the boss of Maxis, Jeff Braun, let this news slip last week in a speech, so it's nice to get a solid confirmation at last. There's not much else to say, really. There's a new game in development with graphics apparently comparable to an animated movie, the two guys are working together on it, but anything else is a complete mystery. We'll keep looking for more info, but until then, discuss what sort of collaboration could result from these two. Sim-Oddworld, perhaps?

Given that Munch's Odyssey was a launch title for the 360, and Stranger's Wrath was quite good, it's been surprising that the franchise has not yet seen a another entry. Until now that is, because a new Oddworld is on the way. Maxis co-founder Jeff Braun is involved with the game, and comments that the team is very talented and that he has faith in their ability to create great content. If the new one took insipration from Stranger and added more quirky humor and fun, we'll be all over this. Too bad Braun confirmed that it's still years away ....

It's been more than three years since we last frolicked about in Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, but according to Maxis co-founder Jeff Braun a new game set in Lorne Lanning's Oddworld universe is currently in the works. According to Wilfrid Laurier University student newspaper The Cord Weekly, Braun confirmed his involvement with developers Oddworld Inhabitants on the project during a presentation at the school earlier this week.

Few details were revealed about the upcoming game, though Braun noted that the title will feature a "revolutionary new 3-D animation system" and "cinematic quality on a '1 to 1 scale' to that of computer-generated motion pictures," adding that the same assets could be used to create both a video game and film version in parallel.

This isn't the first time talk of CG features and Oddworld have been mentioned in the same breath, with Lorne Lanning himself refocusing his company in 2005 to create both games and accompanying CG movies, the first of which was announced a year later as Citizen Siege. However, as that title has yet to see the light of day, it doesn't exactly surprise us that Braun admits that the next Oddworld release could be "years" away from seeing retail shelves, and may even be released in an episodic format when it's all said and done.

DS Fanboy readers have excellent taste, and we all know it. After all, you own the greatest handheld in the world, and hey, you're here. But if that's not enough to convince you, then the winners of the recent most-desired remakes poll should do the trick nicely. DS Fanboy readers chose four very different titles as candidates for the rampant remake craze, and each game has the potential to be a fantastic DS game in its own right. Let's just hope the right people are paying attention.

Out of a field of seventeen titles, all chosen by the readers, Chrono Trigger, Snatcher, Super Smash Bros. and Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee were selected as the best choices for future DS titles. Now we're here to tell you why.

Our celebration of the age of remakes continues as we reveal your choices for games that need to be given the DS treatment. The full poll results are located after the jump, but we probably don't need to tell you that we chose correctly when putting together the boxart mockups above. Chrono Trigger blew everything else out of the water among the mainstream titles, with Super Smash Bros. picking up a distant second. Among our lesser-known titles, things were a lot closer. Snatcher won -- which means all is right with the world -- but the battle for second was decided by a mere four votes. We're always happy to be reminded of just how diverse taste are among our readers!

Check back later in the week for a wealth of coverage on remakes, including the profile of the four winning games and what we would like to see in a DS remake.

Earlier this week, we asked you, our dear readers, to discuss games you'd like to see given a spit and a polish for the DS in this age of remakes, and as usual, you came through in a big way. In fact, you gave us so many fantastic suggestions that we've decided to split our selected list into two polls instead of just doing one. We can't include everything suggested, obviously, but we've prepared a selection of bigger releases and more obscure titles, and we're going to let you vote every day, just in case you want to throw your support behind more than one game. Once you've voted, we will profile the top two results from each poll and examine exactly why they would be well-suited to our favorite handheld. So try to vote for the titles you think are the most suitable, those that would most benefit from the kind of treatment we're seeing with the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy titles ... and hey, vote for the games you'd just like to see in portable form as well.

And if you just can't decide ... well, that's why we're letting you vote more than once! You can vote your heart and your brain, and the cream will rise to the top.

We have faith that one day, the PlayStation Store will be accessible via PSP without the need for a PS3, and will flourish into a glorious realm of classic games, one that will be untouched by the competition. Of course, homebrew users will rip their own games ... but for the rest of us, this is my personal wishlist of PSone games that I'd like to see available for download.

Lorne Lanning has confirmed that work has begun on Citizen Siege, the new project from his Oddworld Inhabitants studio. "Citizen Siege was conceived as a game and film from the very beginning," Lanning told GamesIndustry.biz, revealing that John H. Williams will produce the CG animated feature, and Lanning himself will direct. The game concept is currently being shopped around to publishers.

Lanning is interested in merging the game and film mediums, hoping that Citizen Siege will become a reference point for future ventures. The idea is that both parts are created simultaneously, influencing each other's courses; rather than one providing the basis for the other. While doing so, it will be important for Lanning and has team to create the right distance between the game and movie. If the finished products demand consumers invest in both, Citizen Siege will have lost a huge chunk of its potential demographic; the group that exclusively watches films -- and does not play games.