Strange pick for a fave game? You're probably right, the reason i LOVE this game and mention it every chance i get is because so few others did. This game should have been huge, it should have spawned countless sequels and been remembered as a classic. It combined elements of Halo, Manhunt and the original oddworld games with a great spaghetti western/dances with wolves style story and a main character that Kicked some serious butt. You can't describe every character as the b**tard child of Clint Eastwood and Chewbacca can you now? Oddworld's first two thirds are a jaunty throgh three townships including Gizzard Gulch and New Yolk where stranger must complete a series of bounties (basically 'dungeons' with a boss at the end of each) to progress to the next and get 'moolah' to spend at the 'general store'. The last third becomes more funelled and action orientated. It has no difficulty levels to choose from, just one and it is Perfect (alot like the 'normal' in the first halo (Herioc in all others lol), challenging but casual enough to be fun), the difficulty curve and gameplay always willing to cut you a little slack when it counts.

The game has the second 'duel wielding' mechanic to be well done in a game. IMO it actually does alot finer a job than the credited Halo 2 with a much better emphaisis on effective combo's (Zappflies and thuddslugs FTW ). Even when you pick your favourites you will still find yourself busting out the others for those tricky situations. None of them seem particularly redundant apart from maybe the machine gun stingbees. The ammo's are also divided into lethal and non-lethal also effecting your choice, though tbh the lethal varieties only come into their own later on. Another unusual mechanic is the 'stealth' in the game. In the first half of the game you will spend alot of the time sneaking. What is great about the game is it is very transparent, if you are in the clearly defined 'tallgrass' you are 'hidden' if you venture outside the tallgrass you are 'not hidden' there is no in between, which i actually think is great. Enemies have great hearing and vision but terrible memories so the stealth never becomes frustrating. With it's stealth it also captures a great 'saboteur'/'Guerilla' feeling, you are only picking off as many as you can before the final bloody assault, the stealth is just a means to even the odds before the fire fight.

Another mechanic that is worth a mention is the beautiful synergy between thirdperson and firstperson. They can be switched by the click of the stick and have clearly defined roles. The first person is for the shooting (obviously) and the thirdperson is for the exploring/platforming between fights. It is not that simple however as the thirdperson has a second role and that is 'get out of jail'. The thirdperson is used when you need to get away fast from a botched encounter, you can throw a few punches but it is a waste of the precious stamina(more on that later), only in thirdperson can you sprint. While we are here the animation especially for the sprinting is fantastic, as Stranger accelerates (the only game i have come across with proper acceleration in movement) his run becomes more bestial, more loping, until whaddya know? he's bounding around on all fours. When on all fours he is a joy to controll, full of inertia and weighty speed. (that last sentence sounds bad haha).

EDIT(forgot to add)
The other clever lift for halo is the use of enemies, the crux of halo is throw in varying waves of clearly defined enemies types. Oddworld stranger is the same, the challenge comes from what enemy types have been put together. The boss fights are also refreshingly good, only a couple rely on pattern recognition, the rest are jjust furious firefights that test the limits of your arsenal. EDIT

The game also has a good recharging health mechanic. You must spend your stamina recharging your health. Healing even looks cool as stranger beats at his chest like a gorilla sending all the bullets flying out of him (all the bullets stay on you till you shake 'em off which is a good touch.)

In My opinion Oddworld stranger has the perfect graphics, games dont need to look any better. It looks stylish and polished and it is easy to tell what everything is. I would also dare to say it is was not until Gears of War that is was surpassed (at least when it comes to being able to see parrallax mapped cobbletsones or the veins in Marcus Fenix's Bicep). It has a decent western soundtrack, a good heartwarming story, often hilarious dialogue and a healthy run time of ~20 hours. Sublime.