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Masterpiece

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: July 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Although still a gamer (or at least an interested former gamer), I have been sceptic about games as of late. Almost no game has managed to captivate me at all for the last 5+ years, and that is tragic. But I don't give up on the medium, largely because of this game. Grim Fandango is proof that video game design can be an art, and as video game art, this is a masterpiece.

Of course, Grim Fandango is really only 1 part game, and 5 parts story. If you have played any Graphic Adventure game before, especially one by the fantastic Tim Schafer or his contemporaries Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman, than you should know the gameplay already. If you haven't, then it is going to seem weird, ungame-like, and maybe even boring. What makes this game so great is that it is really a vehicle to drive the story more than anything else. With the fantastic music, graphics (for it's time), voice acting and dialogue (by far the best dialogue in any game before or since), you could be more than entertained watching this as a movie. However, it is more than obvious that an interactive game is the very best way to tell this story, and all the characters, conversations and plot twists are designed to take advantage of your interaction with them.

Replacing the point and click style that dominated the adventure game genre since it replaced the text adventure style, this game uses a new keyboard based interface. It is the same interface (almost) later used in the (dissapointing) fourth Monkey Island game. While it is better used in this game, it still isn't as good as the old mouse system. If there is any complaint to make about this game, it is that.

I recomend this game to anyone. If you haven't played an adventure game before, this may turn you on to the genre... which might actually be misleading, because no other game gets as good as this one. Adventure game lovers would have already played it, chances are, unless they are old fogeys who haven't played it because other new adventure games have been sub-par. If this is you, I understand your frustration. But this game is a beacon of light in the dying genre. It was the game engineered to save it from extinction, and it should have worked. But it didn't, and now it is more like a swan song.

It's like a movie

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: August 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Welcome to the Land of the Dead - a place of corruption, villains and...dead people. You control the sales agent Manuel "Manny" Calavera. He (you) works for the DoD (Department of Death) within the Land of the Dead, selling journeys to the Ninth Underworld. You can get there by train (this is what's called a Double-N-Ticket), by boat, car, walking of postal. By train is the best, it only takes four minutes, BUT, you must have lived a very good life, so very few people qualify. The rest takes four years. Why are you working? Well, because you have been doing something you weren't supposed to do in your past life and work at the DoD to pay of your depts to society. Man, we're getting deep already. The game is based on the mexican holiday Day of the Dead. Now, when you think of the game as it is, a skeleton walking around, it doesn't sound fun at all, but that's what LucasArts is so good at - making the game fun! So, they have put a lot of finishing touches on all the characters, and, well, you can't explain, you've got to see it.
Anyway, back the story...a while ago, you were the best sales agent in the LotD, but now, Domino's the best there is. The DoD runs a illegal game, and you intend to prove it. And it sure in hell aint as easy as it sounds. You have to think the brains out to complete this game.Lemme tell you, when you steal a client from Domino, which is ensured a Double-N-Ticket to the Ninth Underworld but you can't fint it for her, all hell breaks loose. The good thing is that, if you have played a game in the Monkey Island series you know that a lot of the solutions is so nutty and weird that you don't even think about it for houres. But not here, everything is logic in this game. When you play the game, it got this wonderful feeling of a film noir, from the 30's. Grim Fandango got high-rollers, murders, weapons, corrupt bastards, and of course, great MUSIC!!! The music is one of it's kind, and it fits SO well, just like a film noir. It's jazz and swing. All made bu Michael Land and Peter McConnell, as usual. Even if you don't like jazz and/or swing, you wont bother.
The wonderful things about this game that is that it is, as I said, like a film noir, the music, the story, corruption, and it is like NO OTHER COMPUTER GAME YOU'VE EVER PLAYED BEFORE! You wont get this kind of feeling in Half-Life, Serious Sam (serious??) or any other game, it could ONLY be made by LucasArts! Ok, I'm done...but I reckon you should by the game. Trust me, the best money spent on a computergame in the history! Enjoy!

Sadly overlooked game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: October 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

For those of us who were addicted to this game when it came out, it's very sad to see that it was so underappreciated. The graphics are beautiful...the storyline is intelligent and funny. and the game play is easy to adjust to. It makes me wonder exactly what went wrong here.

I wished it wouldn't end

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

We just finished Grim Fandango last night and I wished we hadn't. I will miss Manny, Meche and especially, Glottis. I love Glottis. I wish that Lucas Arts hadn't dropped this series, but had continued it and marketed it. I would love a soft, plushie Glottis stuffed toy. He is the finest "Spirit of the Land" I've ever had the pleasure to meet. The story is involving, the puzzles are challenging, and the atmosphere is absorbing. On the down side, we did have problems with the game crashing. We saved often and late in the game discovered a choice box under "Options," "3-D graphics" that may fix this problem. I encourage you to get this game while you can.

Adventure Gaming at its best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 30, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've played a good many adventure games in my day, but Grim Fandango ranks above all others. Whereas most games tend to flounder at some point and force you to run around in circles for no good reason, this game sustains its momentum throughout. What makes this most impressive is the fact that this game is relatively huge in terms of its scenes and characters. This is not a game you will play in one day and then stash away at the bottom of the pile. While the ending is a little disappointing in terms of excitement, the task of getting there is consistently fresh and rewarding. Completing the action is a bit of a challenge, as well--I found many of the puzzles to be significantly complex, and I admit I would never have completed the game without the help of some walkthroughs posted on the Web. I would never even have noticed a couple of rooms or locations on my own. I've never excelled at figuring adventure puzzles out, but I am sure that hard-core adventure gamers will find a wonderfully challenging experience playing this game.

Other than moments of puzzle complexity, I have nothing negative to say about this game whatsoever. The graphics are top-notch in every single case; the music is wonderful and a great complement to the action; the characters are interesting and fun; and the story holds up pretty well throughout. The characters are unique in the way they are drawn, being inhabitants of the Land of the Dead, but human faces would have been terribly inappropriate. A lot of attention and detail went into every scene, every recorded voice, and the entire musical score. As far as my own experience goes, there are no bugs to be found in the software; the geniuses behind Grim Fandango did not release this game until it was completely finished. LucasArts has done what it does best, creating a world much different from our own but seemingly almost as real and certainly more exciting and enjoyable. I really love this game.

One of the best adventure games ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: September 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the best if not the best adventure game ever produced! It has the most innovative and creative story line, graphics and puzzles. The characters are funny and even has some depth (which is rare in any video games). The game play is so engaging that I have a hard time turning it off and feel a sense of sadness when the game ended. I hope the maker of this game could continue with their good work.

One of the Greats.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Not only is Grim Fandango a really fun computer game, but it's a work of art. I really can't say enough about this game; the art direction is phenomenal, the voice acting is incredible, the soundtrack is superb, it's hilarious and it's genuinely intriguing. Unlike many PC adventure games, Grim Fandango will keep you coming back repeatedly to see all the things you might have missed in previous playings thanks to the huge attention to detail. The puzzle and problem solving aspect isn't terribly challenging or unique, but that's not what makes Grim great, it's the way it plays like a movie, even more so than most games in the genre. Every 'stage' and environment in the game is exciting and relevant to the gameplay so you're almost never walking back and forth pointlessly through the same environment for hours on end. But even if you did it wouldn't be that much of a problem because most of the time you'll find yourself enthralled by the architecture and character design.
Anyway, the game is amazing and (in my opinion) the standard (maybe even the high point) for the adventure genre. Hopefully the appreciation and cult following will continue to grow until one day we might get to see more of Manny Calavera.

Original and Literate

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: May 07, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Grim Fandango is best described as a detective story in the Film Noir tradition. The hero of the piece, Manny Calavera, evokes the private eye of the 1940's or '50's melodrama whose story begins with a dame walking into his office and who quickly finds himself enmeshed in a vast and corrupt conspiracy which may do him in. The difference here is that at the beginning of this story, Manny is already dead, and the events transpire in the Land of the Dead, the place where, according to Mexican folklore, departed souls go to embark on their journey to the hereafter.

Blending Mexican folk mythology with the Film Noir genre, Grim Fandango is ultimately respectful of both traditions, and the striking art design is in keeping with this approach, combining Art Deco and pre-Columbian elements. The dialogue, refreshingly witty and literate, draws the player in to the characters and the story, as does the varied musical score, which includes Mexican folk melodies.

The characters are for the most part vividly drawn, and due to the superb performances by the voice talent (particularly Tony Plana as Manny and Maria Canals as Meche) are fresh despite their mostly formula roles. One character which may provoke mixed reactions is that of Glottis, Manny's driver. A cartoonish, Jar Jar Binks-like figure, Glottis skews the story in a younger direction (at odds with the mild epithets employed by other characters in a few instances), and while my children liked Glottis, I expect most players will find him either endearing or irritating.

The interface in this game is unusual. Rather than pointing and clicking with a mouse, the player controls Manny's movements with the arrow keys, waiting to see Manny's head turn to an object he becomes interested in and clicking "enter" to see what happens. This approach takes some getting used to, and can be cumbersome at times, but it places Manny at the center of the action and increases the player's identification with Manny, ultimately serving the story.

The puzzles, many of which are multi-step, involve crafting Rube Goldberg solutions to various problems. Some of the solutions are thoroughly counterintuitive (I won't give anything away, but let's just say that objects such as balloons or a crystal paperweight are employed in bizarre ways), and are best solved through aggressive trial and error. Clues may pop up from time to time to expedite this sometimes tedious process. That aside, the Lucasarts team, especially writer Tim Schafer, deserve high praise for this highly original and literate adventure.

miss this game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: December 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I really miss this game. After playing other horrible adventure games I can't help lamenting the fact that they just don't make adventure games like Grim Fandango and the original Myst anymore. I can't stand 3D graphics - they make me nauseous and gives me a headache. Grim Fandango does not have 3D graphics but has ten times more imagination and beautiful imagery than all other games I've played. Sigh...

One of the most fun games I've ever played!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: October 22, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I've was looking for something a little different. Are you getting tired of the same old games? Try this one. I did. All I can say is it's a lot of fun and very different. It comes with a touch of humor. I wish they would come out with a second addition.

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