Grim Fandango

Grim Fandango? What's a Grim Fandango and why would I want to put it in my disc drive? Do you find yourself asking this question when seeing such a game on the shelf at your local game store? No? Yes? Whatever your answer and whatever you may or may not think of this game already, Grim Fandango is certainly a game to be recognized, and not just for its wackiness and originality.

Created by Tim Schafer of LucasArts of which has produced many recognized titles to this day such as Day of the Tentacle, & Full Throttle; Grim Fandango offers rich and compelling storylines, realistic settings, characters and plot along with mind boggling puzzles that will keep you playing for hours on end. This definitive game which all adventure games should aspire to be is a reminder of the advancement and true talent behind the gaming curtains today. It's something that makes you stop and think of how far video games have come and may continue to go.

Story: 9/10
One of the best parts of Grim Fandango is its plot and although cut-scenes are far and few between, there is plenty of in-game interaction that acts as a story-telling element which furthers the development of the story throughout the game. You play the role of Manuel Calavera: Travel agent for the 'Department of Death', an organization set up to transport the recently deceased throughout the land of the dead to the Ninth Underworld where they are laid to rest for the remainder of eternity. As the story unravels early into the game you will come to learn that as an employee of the DoD, Manuel is 'serving time' at the DoD due to living a bad past life. In order to 'work off time' and 'pay their dues' to get into the Ninth Underworld themselves, the employees must sell premium tickets to the deceased which automatically grants them a seat aboard the Number Nine: A bullet train that shortens the trip from 4 years to 4 days in a much more comfortable fashion.
The story within the gameplay itself focuses around Manuel and his struggle to find customers that can afford Premium tickets. When he eventually does get a customer (Mercades Colomar) entitled to the ticket, the ticket of which she is in need of is nowhere to be found. As a result, Mercedes decides to hike alone the tough way: on foot. Knowing that Mercades may be the victim of a scam within the DoD and that she may be at risk alone, Manuel decides to go off in search for her and the truth as to why her ticket wasn't where it was meant to be. Throughout the game you travel from world to world through the course of 4 years, meeting all sorts of characters, each with their own unique sense of character and personality. It is this great story within Grim Fandango that makes it stand out from other games out there and will definitely keep up a fight for years to come. So although all of this may sound a little too surreal and a little gimmicky, I can guarantee that it doesn't come off like this at all. As a side note, you may find it worth knowing that the entire story is actually based upon Aztec and Mexican Folklore. So if you have no idea what all that is and you want to learn a little about it then this is another reason for you to play this game! Educational and fun!

Graphics: 9/10 Sound: 10/10
Grim Fandango is the first game from LucasArts to utilize more modern 3d graphics and what a great difference it makes. Visual representation within the game is nothing short of impressive. The environments are all created beautifully with perfect lighting, highlighting the well made foreground objects placed upon highly detailed and atmospheric backgrounds. Mostly all of the significant items scattered around you throughout the game are interactive in some way or another and will most likely have something to do with the puzzles and story itself. It's through this functionality that one of the games other true highlights gets a chance to shine; the sound created in Grim Fandango is so perfect that at times, it sometimes seems like a classic movie, if not better. The voice acting is done to a very high level of realism, telling the story and developing the characters along with the plot so perfectly that it won't be long until you grow to love them all.

Gameplay & Control: 8/10
Fandango is not just a nice game to watch and listen to; there are some fantastic elements to the actual game believe it or not! Throughout the games 4 year span (that's in-game not how long it will take) there are dozens of puzzles for you to solve with each puzzle taking you a long time to finally finish. Most of them will involve using numerous items, characters and general knowledge to just plain guessing. Each one feels planned and put together with a high degree of care as you will find that almost none of the puzzles resemble any that you have done prior to the one you're currently solving. Infact, it seems like Fandango's use of this technique is flawless in the aspect that it never allows boredom to creep in and kill the atmosphere. If you were to believe that however, you'd be wrong. Although there is hardly any sign of repetitiveness to the puzzles, the sheer difficulty and originality of them all will lead to you scratching your head for hours. It's the difficulty of these puzzles that sometimes drags the game down and makes it feel sometimes un-enjoyable and slightly irritating when you can't progress after hours of searching and interacting with everything you can find. So yes, this is a hard game, a very hard game so don't be expecting all that beautiful story for nothing... it will take some time. Even with a walkthrough it took me around 16 hours straight to finish the game as a whole. So be prepared to spend a good 30+ hours without any help. Other than this however, the game is flawless and deserves high credit points for achieving an almost perfect balance of story and gameplay.

Enjoyment: 8/10
To cut a long review short, your PC was built for Grim Fandango just as cheese was made for pizza, so don't hesitate. Yes your computer will most likely run it and no it won't disappoint you. There's no excuse not to give this a try and you will not regret spending time on this truly innovative and encapturing game.

Final Grade: 8.8/10