The Last Great Graphic Adventure

In 1998 LucasArts released Grim Fandango, (GF), a Graphic Adventure Game (GAG). Most of the players in late 1990 considerate GF a great game; not only for the graphics or the story itself, the game has a rich combination of Mexican, Aztec art mix with art deco design. A great idea of LucasArts’ designers brings art of a rich culture in an interesting and funny way.

For the new players maybe they aren't too familiar with GAG of curse there are great titles today, but to make a recall in the early 1990 GAG and First Shooter Player (FSP), were everywhere, today FSP and Real Strategic and Online games are very common, all software companies in that time released a lot of titles; LucasArts' people made good games in that time: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure in 1989; Monkey Island in 1990; Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis in 1992, etc.

Those that want to play the game what will be find in GF; well a lot of things:

*Great combination of Mexican, Aztec and Art Deco design.

*The game's story is about of death, in fact the game start in the Mexican day of the dead festivities November 2.

*According with the game there is a world between our world and dead world the Land of Dead; where all souls must walking to rest in peace, it is a journey of 4 years and your are Manuel "Manny" Calavera a travel agent, his job is sell the best travel pack for those recently dead. The game is divided into four acts, each taking place on November 2 on four consecutive years, Manny forced into his job to work off a debt. Manny is frustrated with being assigned clients that must take the four-year journey and is threatened to be fired by his boss, if he doesn't come up with better clients.

*Another fact is several movies of mystery were an inspiration for the plot's game Casablanca; The Maltese Falcon, etc.

*Compatibility, keep in mind when you will buy GF it is an old game, and maybe you will have some problems to run it in WinXP, I share with you my experience with GF.

The game will run without problems in the following versions of Windows: Win95; Win98; Win98SE; and WinME, this according with LucasArts' troubleshooting web site, Win2000 and WinXP don't appear; apparently the game can't be run in those versions. I tried to install it in WinXP SP3, but I couldn't install the game even run it, I used the compability mode, but I had the same result.

Later I try it again in another computer with WinXP SP2 and the game runs great, so keep in mind Windows' version that you have or if you have a computer with the versions that can be use with GF.

The game has two negatives points:

*It has some rare camera angles, nothing to keep about it;
*Some players report that the game could have crashes or the game goes freeze, also problems PC (Pentium II and faster), this can be fix with a patch that upgrade the game.

In resume it is a good game, a funny fact to end this review, All the game's reviews were positive, but LucasArts considerate GF a failure, because the game didn't reach the sells expectations, also LucasArts stopped the development and sell of Graphic Adventures since, the last one was Escape of Money Island in 2000.

System Requirements: Pentium 133 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 30 MB HD space min or 1.2 GB HD for full installation, 2 MB GC for min or optional 4 MB GC

Support web site: http://yodashelpdesk.lucasarts​.com

Grim Fandango Patch: http://www.lucasarts.com/suppo​rt/update/grim.html

Grim Fandago is a true classic!

Adventure genre is now quite extinct with only a few titles are published each year, which usually also are relatively mediocre. But luckily you can always go back to those really good adventure games. They where the real gems set the bar for the genre. And there, on top, sits Lucas Arts masterpiece Grim Fandango.

Manny Calavera is a travel agent, but not the travel agent at any time - he sells trips to the recently deceased. For when a man dies, it is Manny's job to pick up their soul and bring it to the dead (wearing a grim reaper-uniform of course), where he sells trips that lead to the eternal rest. Depending on the quality of life they lived, entitling it to various good tickets. But it is however quite quickly that all is not quite right with Manny and thrown into the conspiracy that leads him to begin his own journey through hell

The story in Grim Fandango is absolutely brilliant and you get to know the most shapely and interesting characters in gaming history, from its bilgalne sidekick Glottis to the deliciously vicious mob boss Hector LeMans, and all with the best voice actors you can think of. The whole thing is framed then into a wonderful "film noir"-feeling, awesome architecture and wonderful jazz music.

Instead, like any traditional adventure game where you play with your mouse, so you use the Grim Fandango instead arrow keys to control Manny. This is something that works absolutely perfect for the game's design.

The design and the graphics are actually something that holds true today. The surroundings to play in is probably the most beautiful I've seen in the game context, and although the characters and some items are low-resolution (standard today) it's absolutely nothing to interfere on.

Bottom line is that Grim Fandango is not only best-ever adventure but also the best game of all time. For how hard I try, I can not think of any bad points of the game. Grim Fandango is pure delight from beginning to end, and a gaming experience you will never forget - and want to come back to, again and again.

My scythe. I like to keep it where my heart used to be

Grim Fandango

Why bought:
I heard about this game in a forum for adventure gamers, everybody who
has played it, definitely likes this game. It seemed to a cult-game
from the glorious times of the adventure games and later I had to see
that it is true.

It made me curious so I bought the game on e-bay then I started
playing immediately as I have received it.

The game:
The feeling of the game is unique. It is between the style of film
noir and the art deco. The storyline is marvelous, exciting whereas
sad a little bit. The scene is oddish: you play in the land of the
dead, between the eighth and the nineth heaven. The
main character, Manuel (Many) Calavera is a "travel agent" who helps
dead people traveling through the heavens to the place of the ethernal
rest. He isn't successful, because there is a big conspiracy by his
boss and the local mafia who stole the tickets of the good souls for
selling them to another ones who doesn't deserve the salvation.

Our hero starts fighting amongst the corruption, you could follow him
for his four-year-trip. He has to find a woman who has to go to heaven
on foot by Many's mistake. Many Calavera's life (or his life after death) is very adventureous, he becomes cleaner in a buffet then the owner of a
casino, then the cook in a cruiser then a supervisor in a lager in the
end of the world under the sea, meanwhile he works as a freedom fighter as
"agent Calavera". Many has numerous enemies, he has to defeat much
hardness and he has to save the souls of deads from the mafia and has to pass
them to heaven.

Pros:
The graphics of the game are quite good nonetheless every character
is a skeleton. The voices of characters are excellent and the music is
brilliant. It is very hard to get free from the feeling of this
game. The puzzles are humorous, moderately difficult (but you have to
be creative pretty much) and sometimes they are quite bizarre.

Cons:
It isn't too easy to get used the control of the game, but you can
choose the camera-relative or character-relative moving.

Summary:
Altough this game is fairly old, it pulls through nowadays. It is
one of the best adventure games for me (if not the best). You must
have and play it if you are a real adventurer.

Grim Fandango (PC Games, 1998)

Grim Fandango is a personal computer game in the graphic adventure genre released by LucasArts in 1998 and primarily written by Tim Schafer. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on pre-rendered, static backgrounds. As with other LucasArts adventure games, the player must converse with other characters and examine, collect, and use objects correctly to solve puzzles in order to progress.

Grim Fandango's world combines elements of the Aztec belief of afterlife with style aspects of film noir, including The Maltese Falcon, On the Waterfront and Casablanca, to create the Land of the Dead, through which recently departed souls, represented in the game as calaca-like figures, must travel before they reach their final destination, the Ninth Underworld. The story follows travel agent Manuel "Manny" Calavera as he attempts to save Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, a newly arrived but virtuous soul, during her long journey.

The best game you've never played

This is easily one of the most entertaining and original games I've ever played...and I almost missed out on it. Thanks to constant prodding by friends I picked up a copy of the game and was hooked instantly. The great soundtrack draws you into the land of the dead, the interesting characters and dramatic storyline keep you there. Easily the greatest adventure game I've ever played (yes, even better then the Monkey Island series) the puzzles will keep you busy for hours at a time all the while you'll be cracking up at the hillarious dialouge.

A few problems are the controls, there is no mouse compatibility which is usually a mainstay in the adventure genre. But within minutes you'll get used to the keyboard controls and you'll feel right at home. Another problem is this game tends to shut down at certain points, but this can easily solved by downloading the patch from the LucasArts website. I know I'm picking at straws here, but this game is THAT good.

Don't miss out on this great game because you'll be kicking yourself later. This Fandango is far from Grim.