McGee's next attempt is free on GameTap
In Grimm you are tasked with changing fairy tails from their usual happily ever after to a far more twisted and grim version spread between 24 separate weekly episodes that'll supposodly last half a hour each, although the first episode timed in far closer to just 15-20 minutes of usual gameplay. Each episode will tell a separate story, some are famous tales such as red riding hood or Puss in Boots, then there are others such as the pilot which are far more obscure. The whole idea and art style are set firmly in the roots on American McGee's Alice, a true classic and demented game that represents the start and highpoint of McGee's success.
Upon first starting the game I was instantly reminded of Namco's Karamari Damacy's art style, with simple bright figures around the landscape and cheerful faces, the twist here is that you take control of Grimm who's simple presence spreads corruption and turns the green fields into dead land, people into zombies and generally makes the whole area around him a far darker place. You can't just run around and change everything into darkness however, instead you need to turn smaller objects dark before you can start work on larger objects, sounding a little familiar? In a nutshell you are playing Karamari Damacy without having to roll around a large ball (instead you have a short fat man) and without a time limit, these facts alone bleed out really any challenge from the game at all since you can run around at your leisure until the whole world is corrupted. After you've run around for a while you will of filled up your Grimm meter enough that you can "butt stomp" (ground pound) a goal target in your area and then move on to the next, once you've completed all the goals in your scene you will continue the story until you've completed all six three minute scenes.
A couple of things do exist to bring a little game back into Grimm, such as a few platform sections over water or lava that will kill you instantly, but since you have infinite lives and start right back on safe ground these terribly simple platform sections are quickly forgettable. The other challenge you'll tackle is that some people are too large for you to corrupt until you get larger, these people will slowly clean the corruption you have brought to the land. Early on in the game it'll seem like this is exactly where the challenge will come in, but no, you can ground pound near these guys to stun them for a short while but there really isn't any point since they go about their business far to slowly to be any kind of real threat. Overall the gameplay feels almost non existent due to the failure to challenge even the most incapable gamer. The whole experience feels like it targets young children until you remember the game's T rating and the fact that you can pee in the faces of small girls. Yes, you heard right, stand still for a moment and Grimm will let loose the yellow flow of corruption, a perfect example of the games humor which is apparently included to help you judge the direction on your jump, just encase you happen to be that incapable that you cant tell which direction on your screen is forwards.
There are a few inclusions here to add replayability, you can compete on GameTap to see who can complete the game with the lowest time or try to collect all the hidden tokens on each level, competing with real people obviously brings a real challenge if you care at all to fight through game repeatedly for the top of the leaderboard. You could always play back through some levels and collect the hidden tokens that you may of missed, which you'll find behind simple objects and just out of clear sight, of course with infinite time they can be collected very easily and upon collecting enough you'll unlock the lackluster object gallery in which you can spin objects around and turn them Grimm.
The biggest bonus here is that each episode will be free for the first 24 hours when it reaches the GameTap system every Thursday for 8 weeks until the end of season 1, with the first episode remaining free for the foreseeable future. Of course the entire collection will be included for anyone who already pays for a GameTap subscription, for others it's an obvious attempt to get people 'in the door', which is a great idea since GameTap is an often overlooked service that I've praised many times in the past, for anyone who isn't a subscriber I'd recommend getting a free subscription and instead playing Psychonauts, Hitman or Tomb raider. 20 minutes isn't a long game and the chapters could most likely improve in future but there are far better ways to spend your time.