Amazing, simply amazing. Story, character, gameplay, all fuse together to create one of the best games of all time...
User Rating: 9.8 | Grim Fandango PC
Gaming perfection? Almost. Over-rated trash? Only when Hell freezes over. This, my friends, is Grim Fandango, easily one of the best games of all time. You play as Manuel Calavera, travel agent for the Department of Death. Yes you heard me right, DEATH. This game takes place in the fabled Mexican Land of the Dead. It works like this: when you die, you arrive in the Land of the Dead, and depending on how good you were in life, you travel for 4 years in this world until you arrive at your final resting place, the Ninth Underworld. With Manny, it's a bit different. For some reason (the game never explains it), Manny has a debt to work off, and therefore, he's stuck at the Department of Death, seeing countless other souls pass by him in the race to the Ninth Underworld. At the same time, he's fallen in love with an angelic woman known as Mecche. As the game continues, you begin to discover corruption in the Department of Death, travel across the Land of the Dead, and confront evil a plenty. The story doesn't end there, but I don't want to spoil the excitement. It's a very deep and enthralling game that doesn't let go until the very end, and even the you'll be fantasizing about the game and intricately dissecting theoretical answers to unanswerable questions in the game. Gameplay is really the only place where this game can be faulted. Like every adventure game, it's linear and rather difficult to replay. Besides that, the puzzles involved in the game challenge the mind but never feel like "Hey! How was I ever supposed to know that!" As well, the controls (especially without a gamepad) can start to get frustrating, but not nearly enough to keep you away from the game. Basically, you navigate Manny by pressing forward, and changing his direction with the directional buttons. Unfortunately, the angle that Manny has decided to turn at is somewhat small. When navigating Manny, you pick up items (these ones are indicated when Manny turns his head and looks at it) and logically use them with your surroundings to progress. Rather simple, in theory. Graphics, especially for it's time, were simply awesome. The backgrounds are sometimes photorealistic (this was back when backgrounds were pre-rendered, so it's not so spectacular today) and the artistic work on them simply stuns the eyes. Petrified Forests, Suave 50's style casinos, and Drab Urban Environments. Characters are wonderfully animated, and the models themselves are good. Sound is another area where this game shines. All the musical pieces were composed for this game, and range from Mexican Band Music to Film Noir styles to Funky Rock. As well, all the dialogue is voiced, and no, they didn't hire a bunch of stupid untalented actors to play these characters, they actually took care and wrote the dialogue with a poetic mastery to it. Every character conveys emotion and speaks with a fluidity that any real person would. It's just that they're dead skeletons, so of course they don't look like real people. All these pieces add up to one absolutely amazing game, and one that should be in every gamer's collection (unfortunately it didn't sell very well, and it's damn hard to find nowadays). Also, it's hard to replay this game (because it's so linear), but nonetheless, no classic needs replayability as long as the story stays with us forever...
