doreiwolf's Full Review: Grim Fandango for Windows
You play the part of Manny Calavera, an employee at the Department of Death (DoD), working off a few debts by being a travel agent to the dead. Things aren't going well for him, however as he's going nowhere fast as he can't seem to get any good client.
He 'chances' upon a good client, and his world, such as it is, is changed forever.
This is a quite beautiful adventure game, with the story told through a 3D interface. The backgrounds are pre-rendered, while the 3D characters walk their way through the landscape.
In control
Being a veteran of graphical adventures with the 'point and click' type interface, I found this new interface a little strange at first. You use the keyboard (or joystick or keypad) to guide Manny around. When he's close to an object that you can use, his head turns towards it. For the most part, this eliminates trying to find a small, easily missed object, which is the bane of many adventure games.
After a while, however, it becomes quite easy to use the interface, and I found myself not even having to think about it after a while.
Now listen here...
The sound effects are all nicely done, and very appropriate. The music...I have to make special mention of the music. Much of it I could quite happily listen to independantly of the game. And it fits the game so well it just adds to the atmosphere.
The graphics
As I've said, the graphics are quite lovely. The characters are rendered, for the most part, with enough polygons for them to look good.
The graphical style is a cross between Aztec, and Film Noir, and suits the storyline perfectly. Each location is detailed, and makes you want to explore, to see more.
At this point, I should mention the two modes you can play in. You can use 'software' rendering, or 'hardware'. Basically, if you don't have a 3D hardware card, then all the characters and objects are drawn using software 3D routines. If you have a 3D card, then they can use that faster, and 'prettier' method.
Unfortunately, although I have a 3D card that works with Escape from Monkey Island, Thief, Thief II, etc etc etc, it failed miserably in 'hardware' mode. Most of the characters simply dissappeared, flickering into view as they moved, only to dissappear again.
However, on my 667 PIII, software mode was fast enough, and pretty enough for my needs. Really, I don't see many graphical differences between the two. Others find hardware mode much nicer.
The story
The story complex enough to keep your interest, but not so complex you'll be scratching your head wondering what's going on. You start out with very little information and slowly you find out more and more about what's going on, and the climax is quite satisfying.
The puzzles
The puzzles range from rediculously easy to quite difficult. A couple are, to my mind, silly (how to free the Bonemobile comes to mind). Most, however, yeild to logic, if a kind of twisted logic.
User friendliness
As usual Lucasarts give you the first few solutions to get you into the right mindset for the game, then you're on your own. I find this a good way of doing things as it gets you used to the interface, and allows you easy entry into the game. Of course, if you're a hard core adventurerer, you can ignore that section of the manual.
As is also usual with Lucasarts games, you can't die, and you can't get yourself stuck. I'm constantly amazed at how they do this. I played the game a second time, after I'd finished, trying to deliberately get myself stuck by 'forgetting' to do things, and found I couldn't. It always ended up that I had all the things I needed for later in the game.
It sounds as though the game is quite linear, but for the most part you can have several puzzles 'on the boil' at any one time and flip between them as inspiration hits.
The atmosphere
Ah yes, the atmosphere. It's...atmospheric. It drips with atmosphere. Each location sucks you in, each location urges you to explore, each hint pushes you towards the next puzzle. I felt quite drawn into this game, and was quite dissapointed when it ended.
For my money, the most atmospheric part was Ruba Cava, which I'd love to see expanded to a new game. The least atmospheric was probably the Forest. I found that quite dull comparatively.
Bugs
I've already mentioned the 3D hardware bug. There are a couple of other buggets that lie around. I managed, in one part, to get totally stuck with my character rotating through the floor with no chance for me to stop. At another point sound and movement slipped totally out of sync for a while. Luckily, I'd just saved and could restore to that point. The bug didn't reoccur. I would advise regular saving though.
At another point sound and movement slipped totally out of sync for a while.
I mention these just for completeness. Otherwise, the game behaved itself beautifully.
Replay value
I still occasionally play, even though I've solved the game, and there are no alternate ways to play it. Most probably won't though. However, I did get several weeks of solid, enjoyable play out of it. I feel that's worth the price.
Overall...
Despite the few bugs, I would recommend this to anyone who is an adventure fan. I feel this game even surpasses the Monkey Island series (high praise from me). I only wish they'd left room for a sequel. I love the land of the dead so much I want to go back.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.