The Art of Oddworld.(Portfolio)(new four games from Oddworld Inhabitants)

For more than 10 years now, the digital artists at Oddworld Inhabitants have been making far more than game imagery; they have been creating digital fine art that just happens to appear in interactive environments. That accomplishment has been recognized time and again, from industry awards for the detailed work to international film festivals for the game animations. In addition, the developer's second title, Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, enjoyed a theatrical release in Los Angeles and was in contention for Oscar consideration in 1998. And, more recently, Oddworld's fantastical creatures and backgrounds became the sole focus of a coffee-table book called The Art of Oddworld Inhabitants: The First Ten Years.

Oddworld's four games are somewhat of an oddity in the gaming world in that the quality of the imagery, no matter how "different" the style, is just as important as the gameplay itself. According to company president and creative director Lorne Lanning, the game stories support the imagery rather than the other way around, and that is the key to what makes Oddworld's imagery more "artful" than that of most other games.

"It really isn't that hard to impress people with great graphics these days, but to have art without purpose leaves you with, well, just nice graphics," Lanning says. "Our images aren't always pretty, but there's always a purpose and a story behind every detail ... such as the posture of Abe, the ...