Quick Look: Grim Fandango Remastered

@louiedog: I actually wrote "remake" as a mistake, I was thinking "remaster" when I wrote it. But if you think about it, it's just like half of a remaster, most stuff on this one aren't really remastered...

Duck Tales just used the wrong word. That was a remake in everything but name. This is a remaster, it might be a pretty light remaster (there's only so much you can do with the backgrounds of this game without beginning from scratch, which they obviously didn't have the budget for) but a remaster nonetheless.

Anyways, really looking forward to play this game. I haven't played it since it came out.

I'm loving this game so far. though it's a bit annoying that they don't really tell you where to go. Like that puzzle involving Mannie's teeth.

YES FINALLY SOME MORE ALEX. we just need that voice back

alex should be in everything. like deoderant commercials.

One thing I will say for anyone a bit wary of old-Adventure game style puzzles is to check out the old UHS system for this game:

http://www.uhs-hints.com/uhsweb/hints/grimfand/1.php

It's an awesome little gradual-hint system for a number of games, that instead of just giving the solutions outright instead gives you a little nudge in the right direction. Definitely check it out for some of the more esoteric solutions if you get stuck.

VINNY

Grim Fandango is my second favourite game of all time (after Baldur's Gate 2). The atmosphere was just amazing, and had a big impact on my tastes.

I wish they did some major works on it instead of only graphically updating the characters, but i guess i'm at least happy that now this game is available easily on modern machines instead of having to go through various hoops to play it

Thanks! I've never played this because my computer was actually a calculator and it only did math.

So from that opening statement I take that the studio is still anything but ready?

Grim Fandango is definitely one of my Top 10 games of all time. I already platinumed this remaster, since I pretty much remembered all the puzzle solutions.

Hey, @vinny. You always brighten my day. Thank you.

Yeah the track in-game is of course an hommage to that (but not exactly the track! God I wish I could stop myself from being that guy)

@aishan: this is what I have been using and it's been absolutely fantastic!

I have never played an adventure game before. they all just seem like bullshit. The way jeff talks about hating myst is the same exact thing I feel towards adventure games. In fact I think all adventure games are in the same boat as myst in terms of bullshitness.

@pudge: I'm pretty sure it's just a case of using the same inspiration. I think a lot of traditional Mexican piñatas have a very bright yellow/blue/pink color scheme.

It's like how, when The Book of Life came out, a lot of people said, "Holy crap, they made a Grim Fandango movie!" when it was really just both using inspiration from Mexican political cartoonist José Posada, who created the "Catarina" skeletons that are now associated with Día de Los Muertos.

..and some of us were old enough to be grumpy & jaded about this game when it originally came out. Let's see if things have changed!

Manny Calavera is the Wa-version of Vinny Caravella

Thinking about getting the optional Hummus dongle for my Playstation Pita.

take a look at your first and last sentences there buddy

Maybe I need to see comparison shots but this doesn't look like a "remaster" at all to me.

Edit: Oh just saw the toggle between old and new, yeah there's still barely much of a difference

ok correction. I never enjoyed one. Have tried to play many. like half my steam list is full of adventure games I got though humble bundles. all bullshit.

I don't care that the remaster barely looks different; I've never played Grim Fandango before, and I couldn't play it. As far as I'm concerned they could have released the original game with zero changes and I would have been happy.

Great game that I never finished, I seem to remember some sort of balloon puzzle that stumped me and then a friend "borrowed" the CD :(

As someone who played it when it came out, just having a version that works on modern systems is worth 15$ alone. Has anyone looked at the prices of trying to get even a jewel case version alone lately? The run was pretty limited, and my attempts to get gift copies for people or even get it to run were too much trouble.

Live commentary & play by Tim:

Lots of great insight in here :).

I'm playing this for the first time and I'm really enjoying it so far. Now I don't have as much time as I used to when it comes to playing games, so I simply have to use a walkthrough once in a while. But other than that it's been pretty great so far. But I'm also only 2-3 in to the game.

I can't wait to dig into it this weekend.

Wait this game is still 4:3? What was the point?

This Quick look has me interested in picking it up now as wasn't interested in it before (never heard of it when it before the remaster was announced).

Is he playing of ps4 or pc? If on ps4 how is he using a mouse to control as well as the controller?

why did you fill half your steam list with bullshit?

I just finished this game with my daughter and we LOVED it. Missed out on it back in 98 because I was a close minded dummy that thought adventure games were dumb.

Some of the puzzle design was obnoxious at times, I cant imagine playing this without the internet as backup for when you get stumped. Also, some of the idle characters, like Glottis in his car, will repeat the same lines over and over as long as your are on their screen and it is INSANELY obnoxious, but aside from those minor niggles, this game is a steal @15$

This is one of my all-time favourite games, a lot of thought went into it. I'm just glad that more people can play it now because I couldn't get it to run on Windows 7, even with compatibility mode for XP, which was a real bummer.

Dat lucasarts logo.

is the letterbox border thing on the sides of the video Vinny's doing or is that the game's?

Don't be ripping on Albuquerque.

I was addicted to buying humble bundles for awhile.

That's the game, you can widescreen it, but as Vinny and Alex said stretching the picture looks worse, so keeping the original aspect ratio is a good choice. When the game was released 20 years ago, there was no mass market for HD.

Never got a chance to play this before, but it seems like something my wife would really enjoy watching.

I didn't realize the point & click controls had the "Full Throttle wheel," that's great.

I love this game, but calling this remastered is lazy... Woohoo! We reshaded the character models and added a commentary track.

I love the soundtrack.

Mmmmmm...that Art Deco.

Good luck in that new office getting it sound-proofed!

I don't get why they're rushing through everything in this quick look, the best part of point-and-clicks is the dialogue, and Grim was the pinnacle in this regard imo, better than Sam and Max or Monkey Island. If you're playing this for the first time, do yourself a favour and exhaust every dialogue tree.

Still disappointed they didn't just go all out with a remake though, or at least redo the cutscenes. This almost feels like a port...

Don't be afraid to use at least the "censored" walkthroughs that are available online, the puzzles themselves were some of this game's weakest points. Don't let that stop you from seeing all the story and dialogue, especially before you get to Rubacava. The way out of the forest and betting stub puzzles in particular I remember thinking were next to impossible to "logic" through.

Well, for one thing, there was really no legitimate way to buy a new copy of this game until now. I think if they had been able to get the original project files and re-render the backgrounds in HD they would have made an attempt to do widescreen. It looks like they weren't able to get those, so any widescreen would either be a stretch or a a crop of the 1998 version. Given the low resolution of the backgrounds 4:3 is really the only reasonable option.

I've put in an hour or so, and for me the commentary is worth the price of admission alone. Pretty much every room has a blurb or two of commentary. I loved this feature in the Valve games and they do a great job of implementing it here. As far as the other improvements, the lighting and character model stuff is pretty subtle, but does make things look nicer, and the point and click controls work really well.

Personally, I hate when things that were originally in 4:3 are shoved into widescreen. So thanks for not doing that, Double Fine.

JUST GO BUY IT

You can also turn the decorative borders off and just have plain black bordering if you find the decorative stuff distracting.

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Regarding people asking what's the point of the remaster when the backgrounds aren't changed:

1. The original game only supported keyboard and had awkward character relative movement (i.e. tank controls). New version has camera relative movement, gamepad support, and mouse support (meaning that radial mouse interface is all new).

2. It runs without issue on modern operating systems.

3. It has truly interesting and funny developer commentary.

4. It has 3D acceleration and improved lighting on the polygonal characters that works on modern versions of DirectX.

5. You can actually buy it at a sane price in a readily available format instead of hunting down a used copy.

This all more than makes the remastered version worth it.

That said, while completely reproducing the backgrounds is far out of the realm of reasonable expectation, I do wonder if they couldn't have at least taken the existing 2D images and passed them through a few Photoshop filters to sharpen them a little and remove some of the more noticeable 16-bit color dithering. Regardless, I'm still happy to have the game in a modernized format (even if some kids don't appreciate how improved it really is!)