Grim Fandango

*note* Review was written on 8/11/2002

Grim Fandango is a beautiful game. Despite lacking in any fighting or racing, any scoring system or lives, health meters, status screens and what have you, Grim Fandango is just a great adventure. Developed by Lucas Arts, Grim Fandango represents the very reasons that the adventure genre exists, and shows that even without any of the aforementioned standard game play elements, a game can be every bit as engrossing and entertaining as any of your over-complicated epics of today.

Grim Fandango puts you in the ever cynical, yet comedic wit-filled shoes of a Mr. Manuel Calavera (we'll just call him Manny, though), stout travel agent of the Department of the Dead (DoD). Manny isn't your average lively guy though, because, well, he's dead. And so is everyone else in Fandango's world; the Land of the Dead. The aptly named Land of the Dead is where you go after you die, and where you will be greeted by a travel agent like Manny, who's job is to direct you to the proper after life-that you deserve.

But something is amiss in the Land of the Dead, as Manny, once-prominent agent in the DoD seems to be getting the unfair shaft in clients of late, while fellow agent Domino seems to have gotten a sharp upturn in clientele recently. Now Manny faces being fired if he doesn't pick up business, but Manny is not one to just take things sitting down though, and so he sets out to right the wrongs that have been done. Through out the adventure you'll uncover conspiracies, take down corrupt businesses, and take part in a hilarious, jazzy, and very dead, gangster movie-like experience.

Fandango's magic really shows through in the characters and settings. All of the characters are brilliant in their own way, from Manny, to his over-grown, over-excited and orange side-kick Glottis, to the conniving, arrogant Domino. Every single character (and there are plenty!) is unique in their own way, how they look, act, walk, and talk. And speaking of talking, Grim Fandango packs probably the best voice acting I've ever heard in a game, and is easily one of Grim's best features, and that's not often in a game when you can say the voice acting is among it's best features, but in GF it is. It's that good. Every character is given so much life with the voice acting, each with their own quirks and accents (and many Spanish references, that strangely fit really well, despite not knowing a word of Spanish), each with their own tones and moods.

And perhaps what makes all of the characters especially interesting, is the very fact that they're dead. This really gives the game a unique look, and the art style in the game does wonders with the theme, using the dead-ness of the characters to both cosmetic and comedic effect. It's hard not to at least crack a smile just looking at the characters in this game, in all of their skeletal glory. The graphic engine also works really well with this game, combining pre-rendered backgrounds with fully 3D character models, though the game could use some aliasing, and some backgrounds are a bit blurry.

Sadly though, once you take a look at the actual game play, you'll realize the game does have it's flaws. The control is the first issue you'll notice, as Grim has very much the same 'controlling a tank' feel as many other adventure titles of a few years back. In that, I mean that you control the character one axis at a time, for instance, if you want to turn around and run back the way you came, you would have to turn around 180 first, and then press up to run. It makes things quite tedious, but it's workable at least. Moving on, the other of the game's main problems is the terrible collision detection. Every single wall and door way will make it a personal goal to get in your way when you run around, and though you do get the hang of it (well, mostly), like the control, it's definitely very tedious in practice.

Now problems aside, GF's game play is mostly puzzle-based. You play by walking around, and when Manny's head stares at an object or person, you can then talk to, examine, or interact/pick it up, and you'll use these items for various puzzles. Now when I said there was no inventory a while back, I wasn't telling the full truth. Manny's inventory is (cleverly, yet practically) whatever is in his jacket, shuffling between items to find what you need at the time (and make no mistake, he can fit everything from balloon animals to power drills in there!). The puzzles in GF aren't slouches either, many of them can be really mind-bending (in that many of them really aren't very practical), but you always get a nice feeling of accomplishment after overcoming one. Don't be surprised if you trick yourself into looking at a guide for this one though ;)

All in all though, game play faults aside, Grim Fandango is a wonderful game. It's short, it's easy (puzzles not withstanding), but it sure is a magical ride. The characters, the story, the settings, this game is dripping with personality and is deserved of any self respecting gamer's time, fan of the genre regardless. This is one of those games that nostalgia will bring you back to time and time again, a true classic.

Nice review there Andy.

I really dig how you give the reader (me, who is pretty much the lowest common denomator when it comes to this sort of thing) a great idea of what the game looks like.

I thought Grim Fandango was a Mexican Wrestler...

seriously though - good review and I agree entirely about both the humor in the game and the damnable controls. The presentation made it all very worthwhile though. LucasArts' finest moments were with games like this.

I think GF would have benefited with the Myst point & click gameplay though.

ºTracer

That would actually be interesting. And thanks :)

My Review, written on the spot:

This game, from 1998, was designed by Tim Shafer, who also designed the brilliant Full Throttle. Grim Fandango is blessed with the same sort of great character design, moody story, and amazing writing as that game.

Of course its an adventure game, so expect it to play like pretty much any standard adventure game (the type of genre that is functionally dead nowadays). Talk to people solve puzzles etc. If you hate this type of game... you should still play Grim Fandango, because its so fucking good. Clarification will come later.

The writing is amazing, amazingly funny and sharp and witty. Its good enough to be a book. How many games can we say that about in this world, full of "Thanks for the facial, pinhead", "You Spoony Bard", "I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE you", and "Women have more hiding places than men"? Its truly wonderful to play a game with sharp English dialogue, and it is a good case for Western development (for all you tools who think Japanese games are more worthy than American ones). The storyline is brilliant and epic and immaculately told without none of the garbage pretension that clogged up its contemporaries (MGS, FF7).

The voices are the best I have ever heard, ever. Fuck Metal Gear Solid, and fuck MGS2! Fuck GTA3! They can't measure up to this game! The voices are amazing in this game, delivered perfectly. Its really a beautiful game to hear. It always hits the right tone and its just beautiful and, once again, its something gamers can really appreciate in a world full of "Here's a lockpick. You the master of unlocking can use it" voice acting.

The control in Grim Fandango is kinda funky because it controls like Resident Evil. But, at the time this was being developed, everybody was spraying their shorts over RE so you could see why Lucasarts did it like this. Yea, it sucks, but you just gotta deal with it. Its well worth the trouble.

Finally, the graphics are amazing. The character designs are pitch-perfect and the art is really tremendous and stylish. This is some of the best, most original, and most brilliant character design ever seen in videogames. All graphics ultimately should do are enhance the game, and they do here and give it the proper atmosphere. This is a really nice looking game. Ditto with the music, though I think the music is better than graphics. .

Here's the thing with GF: some people will not like it because it plays like a standard adventure game and that may not be their cup of tea. In fact, they may hate it. BUT THAT DOESNT FUCKING MATTER. This is a masterpiece. It needs to be played by everybody. Play it with the strategy guide right next to you if you have to, just so you can see how beautiful the writing is and how amazing the storyline is and how great the voice acting is and how brilliant the characters look. That way, I dont have to read a lot of fucking idiotic posts on message boards about how great GTA3's or MGS2's storylines are. Because in reality those games have crap storylines. This is a fucking amazing game that is so far ahead 99% of games (everything but Ultima pretty much) in terms of storylines that it really does shame everybody else making games today.

Sure, maybe some dont like Grim Fandango. To those boneheads I say - this is the first game!

Awesome review there.

the second scenario was much better than the rest of the game unfortunately. It's a shame that was the middle of the game. I wish the whole deal took place in the city, or was of that quality anyways.

Also didn't get to really know any of the characters. =\ Shame too, as many of them were cool as hell.


As always with these types of games, I would have been much happier if it was a game where you had a series of battles for clients with Domino or something, as opposed to the whole story you had to go through =\

"Run you pigeons, it's Robert Frost!"

Greatest. Line. Ever.

I liked GF but my biggest problem was that it had no good way of telling if I was lined up right so when I tried something and it didn't work I didn't know if it was because that wasn't the right thing to do, I just fucked it up. Drove me nuts. The engine worked much better in Escape from Monkey Island.

if you don't own this...BB had copies for $1.99 in the bargin section...you just have to search a little...