Grim Fandango
Publisher: LucasArts

This game takes a group of seriously cool skeletons from Mexican folklore and combines it with a film noir style (think Ed Wood meets The Nightmare Before Christmas). Set in the Land of the Dead, you assume the role of Manny Calavera, a beleaguered civil servant stuck with the task of welcoming newcomers to their new nonexistence and setting them off on five-year journeys across the Land of the Dead. Manny, who must wear elevator shoes when assuming his Grim Reaper-esque role, is desperate to free himself from his mundane existence. In the process, he uncovers a revolution amongst the Dead, complete with all the fixings: mob bosses, guerrilla leaders, femme fatales, secret plots, conspiracies within conspiracies, double agents, you name it.

Designed by Tim Schafer (of Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle fame), Grim Fandango boasts a more immersive interface and beautiful 3D world. You control Manny from a third-person perspective and interact directly with your environment instead of hunting around for hot spots. Items get stored in Manny's coat, while his head swivels and nods toward items of interest. There are no menus or interface icons cluttering up the screen at all - in fact, Manny himself acts as your interface. The gameplay involves combining traditional puzzle-solving and assembling tasks with more action-oriented puzzles like those found in Full Throttle.

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