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Grim Fandango
- Dansvidania 2y agoI still mumble the main theme to myself from time to time..
- Tarq0n 2y agoThe mariachi band on the first outside scene is unforgettable to me: https://tidal.com/track/101427831?u https://tidal.com/track/101427831?u .
- Dansvidania 2y agoYes! I thought that was the main theme.
- rscho 2y agoWithout a doubt, one of the greatest games of all times!
- dale_glass 2y agoI think one understated problem Grim Fandango had is that it's too adult. Today "adult" often means "there's sex and/or gore", but the content is still simple and juvenile. But Grim Fandango isn't like that, it's just full of themes that probably confused the heck out of almost every kid that tried to play it. Like the very first chapter throws you right into office politics. You deal with stealing a job from another salesman, sabotage a pneumatic tube messaging system, and sneak into your boss' office. It all makes perfect sense for adults familiar with office work and all the movies it references. But I recall I tried it when I was maybe 14 and I couldn't make head nor tails of it. I didn't even realize the pneumatic tubes were actually a thing. Things like Monkey Island and even Full Throttle are far more accessible.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wenc 2y agoThat's a really interesting perspective. I grew up around when adventure games were popular, and I learned a lot about the grown-up world (and in fact, American world) through adventure games. Sam and Max had so much Americana that, playing as a non-American, got me into the deep cuts of American culture. I think a lot of it was contextual. I didn't get all the references at first (e.g. who's John Muir for instance), but the context made it possible for me to figure it out.
- nanna 2y agoI got completely stuck in the Beavis and Butthead adventure game when one of the voice acted characters told me to get a "vee-hickul". As a teenager sitting at my family PC in London, I had no idea what the hell the Texan (?) was saying. Only several years later would I figure it out. The only other thing I remember from that game is the hock-a-loogie minigame, which I mastered. I wonder if my parents had any idea what I was up to on the computer?
- dgfitz 2y agoAnecdote: the word ‘vehicle’ is referenced aty day job a lot. I had a PM who always, always said ‘vee-hickle’ and I honestly always thought he was full of shit. On day when he was really mad about $(thing I predicted) he just comes out and says ‘vehicle’ like it’s spelled. I don’t remember feeling smug or annoyed, mostly just kind of bummed at the farce.
- kaashif 2y ago> he just comes out and says ‘vehicle’ like it’s spelled What do you mean by this? In what what is "ve hicle" not pronouncing it as it's spelled but "ve icle" is? Isn't the one including an h more faithful?
- kweks 2y agoİncredible game, matched with an equally amazing soundtrack !
- tetrisgm 2y agoAn excellent game for its time. The remaster is well worth it. One unfortunate aspect of classic games is how dated mechanics can get. It’s a problem that music or movies don’t really have, besides maybe feeling a bit cliché. In the case of Grim Fandango, the tank controls are a bit awkward, some puzzles are actually quite difficult and require logic that would only make sense to a point and click adventure gamer from the 90s. It deserves to be enjoyed and remembered, just because of its sheer style and creativity.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- crooked-v 2y agoThose point-and-click puzzles never felt like anything but time fillers to me. It's interesting to think about the "could have beens" of Western visual novels instead, or at least Telltale-style story games.
- tetrisgm 2y agoThat’s sad to read. I encourage you to explore games like Sanitarium, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. I think they have a lot to offer story wise. And very little in terms of being blocked by mechanics.
- zerocrates 2y agoIt's interesting how much this is still the case. I was just thinking about it myself when considering the new remake of Silent Hill 2. It's mostly beloved for its story and it spends a lot of time on that, and there's of course a lot of survival-horror combat in between. But beyond that there's another horror game (and just game) staple: lots of puzzles. The SH2 remake aimed to be very faithful so was always going to have a bunch of puzzles (Silent Hill games typically have had a separate difficulty setting just for the "riddles"). But it's one of those things that you still almost have to have, particularly as a horror for some reason. Silent Hill 2 is actually a case where even the "obligatory" elements operate pretty well in service of its themes, but plenty of the time games have these things just to have them.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoWhat a time that was for gaming. Everything felt special. I am afraid to revisit these old greats though, in case seeing them today ruins the illusion of the past.
- account42 2y agoI play tons of old games these days and if anything it reinforces just how shittier things have become.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- djur 2y agoJimmy is right about Grim Fandango's gameplay failings, and it's unfortunate, because the game has enough narrative content that they could have just trimmed away a lot of the adventure game puzzles. But visual novels weren't really a thing in the west yet, and in that era there was a lot of emphasis on playtime as a metric that reviews would focus on. Ironically, one of the most forward-looking approaches to extending playtime without relying on obtuse puzzles had been already pioneered (in a flawed way, certainly) by Sierra, the company which often served as the contrast to LucasArts' reputation for innovation. I'm talking about The Colonel's Bequest, which elaborated the classic adventure game score system into a kind of scavenger hunt, a precursor to achievements in today's games. Grim Fandango would both aesthetically and thematically have been a great fit for that kind of "find the secret scenes" style of replayability.
- selimthegrim 2y agoSadly, a bug made the perfect score unreachable without hacking in The Colonel’s Bequest. The 1993 rerelease fixed it I think (I believe the fireflies the Wikipedia article mentions were a symptom.)
- thatguymike 2y agoI played through GF with GameFAQs open next to it, and had an incredible time for it. All the frustration stripped away and left with just the story, soundtrack, dialogue, and appreciation for the fun creative puzzle designs without bashing my head against them. I felt guilty for doing it that way; it's nice to know it wasn't my fault for being too dumb!
- Oarch 2y agoHas to be one of the funniest and most creative games I've ever come across. The humour was dark and the world building was so nuanced and poetic.
- AdmiralAsshat 2y agoEven with a guide, I still had no idea what the hell I was doing with that train puzzle.
- glottisglottis 2y agoGlottis barfing and the beat poetry simulator had me rolling on the floor laughing my ass off.
- pornel 2y agoThe pre-rendered backgrounds were breathtaking in the 90s, but today the old off-line ray tracing looks worse than what modern games can render (same goes for the original Myst). The remastered version has been released before AI upscaling got interesting. I wonder if a re-remastered version could be made look better.
- sorenjan 2y agoI agree with a lot of what he writes, but it's still one of my favorite games. I have faded memories about how frustrated I was running around trying to understand what I was supposed to do next, and strong memories about how the game and its world made me feel.
- sorenjan 2y agoWhat a year for games 1998 was. Grim Fandango, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- idk1 2y agoDon't forget Gex: Enter the Geko!
- CobrastanJorji 2y agoXenogears, Spyro the Dragon, Banjo-Kazooie, Goldeneye, Resident Evil 2...
- toyg 2y agoSo many factors contributed to big investment in the mid-90s. Windows had exploded, followed by the Playstation a few years later; 3D became relatively easy to use in all games; the US economy was doing well; the internet was full of promise. It would all come crashing down only a few years later, but it was a massive wave.
- fullstop 2y agoStar Wars: Rogue Squadron was also a technical marvel at the time.
- wk_end 2y agoThis review is pretty dead (hah) on. I’d been trying to crack Grim, off-and-on, basically ever since it came out; each time I was foiled by the clumsy interface and inscrutable game design. It’s not as player hostile as the old Sierra adventures but it sure comes close. Finally I caved and watched a longplay on YT, and I have no real regrets. Great game, but that’s probably the best way to play it. Life’s too short.
- oever 2y agoYes, I can hear you, Grim Fandango.
- DrOctagon 2y agoNicely done
- appel 2y agoExcellent article and absolutely fair points by the author. As a kid I completely fell in love with the characters and ambiance, but got hopelessly stuck in Act 1. In fact, I don't think I ever made it out. But man, what a great story and what a beautiful style. I always half expected to see Hollywood pick this up and turn it into a movie. Just imagine what the folks at Pixar could do with this (with Tim Schafer as executive producer, of course).
- pavlov 2y agoIt’s much too eccentric for the Pixar formula. They are family movies first and foremost. Characters need to be understandable and relatable to an eight-year-old. The Pixar movie with similar themes is 2016’s “Coco”. It’s a fine production, but the themes are much less adult than in Grim Fandango.
- citizenkeen 2y agoRun, you pigeons, it’s Robert Frost!
- ufo 2y agoThe article talks about how Lua "has gone on to become a staple language of modern game development", but could have given more credit to Grim Fandango for that. It was the first game to use Lua and and its success was what put the language on the map when it comes to gamedev.
- zoky 2y agoIts weirdness in indexing arrays notwithstanding, Lua is zero of the most important programming languages ever designed.
- cousin_it 2y ago> Taken as a game rather than the movie it often seems more interested in being It's interesting how movies today seem to be the "top" art form: there are books, comics, videogames that want to be movies, but never in the other direction. (There are books and games based on movies, but they are clearly secondary.) I wonder if there could be some other art form that would be "above" movies in this sense.
- worthless-trash 2y agoBy top i assume you mean most profitable, I guess that movies are simply more accessible and cater to the lowest common denomination.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ucla_rob 2y agovideo games revenues are usually 5x those of video games. call movies 40bb per annum mobile games alone are ~100bb. Finish Him.
- kaoD 2y agoIsn't most of that revenue from F2P user hostile mobile games? That'd be like counting TikTok as part of the movie revenue.
- iamacyborg 2y agoI doubt many people consider Candy Crush to be a good example of an art form. It’s just an app designed to manipulate human psychology to extract maximal profit.
- dahart 2y agoThis is pretty misleading and 5x is totally wrong. You’re quoting the approximate box office number for film, but leaving out home entertainment (streaming & DVDs) and merchandising entirely, while at the same time including those categories on the games side. Film industry revenues as a whole when including streaming exceed $100B per year, and approximately matched the games industry, at least as of 5 years ago. See Wikipedia’s entries on film & game industries [1][2] — in 2018, film was $136B, while games was $135B. It’s only very very recently that total games revenue exceeded total film revenue. Making this much harder to reconcile is that total film revenues are generally not public information and they are notoriously misrepresented and downplayed, maybe to help reduce taxes, royalties, and bonuses, or maybe just for competitive reasons, but either way film numbers are unreliable and underestimated. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_industry [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_industry
- wileydragonfly 2y agoVery interesting article, I feel like some of the criticisms also apply to Broken Age. I was well into that game before I realized (ok, looked up) that a puzzle needed you to toggle characters. This functionality was never mentioned prior to that. Some of it just felt so janky, but interesting art and story.
- vvpan 2y agoWell I certainly cannot relate to the criticism. I played the game early on as a teen (and every few years since) and while, at times difficult, I never thought the puzzles were "confusing", it seemed like a pretty organic combination of styles of puzzles built into the game. The head turning dynamics I have also found to be quiet pleasant as it made me relate to the character more. Not that criticism is bad but Grim Fandango seems to one of the most if not most loved adventure games (just visit and adventure game forum or subreddit). So one can take it apart and think about the individual parts but the whole is certainly a masterpiece of a game.
- Rastonbury 2y agoI remember watching my teenage cousin play it as a young child and being really drawn in, then when he let me play I remember getting frustrated because I had no idea what to do, it ended up being more fun watching him play
- keybored 2y agoMy only experience with the game is watching a YouTube playthrough. Great game from that vantage point.
- account42 2y agoThat doesn't mean too much though, most games don't intend for you to start playing somewhere in the middle. Usually mechanics are introduced incremtally and difficulty of the problems to solve is ramped up while you have a chance to hone your skills. E.g. what may seem as moon logic on its own may actually be very logical in the weird world thhat the game has introduced you to by then.
- wetpaws 2y ago[dead]
- cainxinth 2y agoThere was one particular puzzle involving an elevator that stumped me as a kid. I played the remaster years later and still couldn’t figure it out so I looked up the answer. Cheating in multiplayer games is obviously indefensible, but I’ve never been above cheating in a single player game. Games are a relaxing outlet for me and if I get frustrated long enough I’ll look up the solution. That said, I will have one of two reactions upon spoiling a puzzle. I’ll either realize that the answer was right in front of me and I’ll be disappointed I didn’t spend a little more time on it, or I’ll realize I would never have figured it out and be glad I went for help. The elevator solution was an example of the latter.
- InvOfSmallC 2y agoI just love this game.
- jcul 2y agoYes, same. I had forgotten all about it. Such nostalgia at seeing the cover.
- ch1kkenm4ss4 2y ago[flagged]
- mwidell 2y agoOne of my top 3 favorite games of all time. When it comes to story and characters, I cannot think of any better game. Recently finished it for the third time on Nintendo Switch.
- michelb 2y agoThe music in this game is just fantastic. I regularly play the soundtrack, brings back warm and cozy memories for me.
- mannycalavera42 2y agothat's what drew me in
- frmersdog 2y agoAlways worth mentioning: if you're a fan of Grim, The Journey Down is a game that borrows a LOT from it, while taking advantage of the advances made in the interim.
- account42 2y agoWhat advances do you think TJD takes advantage of compared to GF besides the improvements in graphics which are IMO barely relevant to the experience. I like the TJD trilogy well enough but claiming it not only holds up to the classics like GF but actually surpasses it is not something I can get behind.
- frmersdog 2y ago>claiming it not only holds up to the classics like GF but actually surpasses it I didn't. >the improvements in graphics That would be the big one. Also whatever changes in development/publishing that made it producible by an indie outfit no one had heard of, rather than Tim Schafer(TM) backed by LucasArts(TM).
- mikeocool 2y agoThe fact that this article is be written almost 25 years after Grim Fandango’s release sort of nullifies the criticism. How many games are still being talked about and played that long after the fact?