A few years back, my iMac G5 died its fifth and final death. Some of the unit's unique, proprietary parts were plagued with bad transistors which lasted maybe eighteen months at a time. Thanks to my ludicrous commute eating most financial resources, I snagged a fairly weak Dell a friend cast aside. Sure, the "futuristic" case looked cool but it required a custom-molded motherboard with on board CPU and sound. So I maxed out the RAM for $40.00 and settled down with XP since the idea of going 64-bit with something that permanently weak was pretty ludicrous. My major consolation for this was the fact I had Windows98 compatibility mode and could attempt playing Grim Fandango.
Of all the Lucasarts adventure games, that one achieved the greatest mystique. Many hyped it as the best game of its genre ever made. Few were able to get it running with the sort of stability needed for a complete play through. By the time my copy became un-lost, even the aforementioned weak P. (O. S.) C. was a bit too powerful and experienced game killing graphical bugs. Thankfully, some dedicated folks have made major progress with ResidualVM and GF is completable with some minor bugs.
For some folks out there, the major "bug" in the game is the control scheme. While still an adventure game with all the puzzles that moniker implies, Grim Fandango isn't point and click. If you want to try stuffing a balloon into something, you need to pull it out of your pocket, walk over to the desired vessel, and issue the command. The game helps a bit by automatically inclining main character Manuel Calavera's head towards usable objects. However, you've still got the standard early-3D gaming tank-like molasses movement to contend with. I found things a bit clunky but intuitive enough to not skip game play in favor of watching the cut scenes online.
A nice part of having some semblance of stability back is the fact one can pause to admire the art direction. Characters and scenery are an amazing combination of Calaca figures, other Aztec afterlife-inspired traditions, and film-noir. Voice acting is so well done you can feel Manny's pain as a friend dies while still admiring the beauty of the flowers sprouting through their skeletal forms which signal their second deaths. In my experience, it's rare to find a videogame world that's beautiful, immersive, witty, strange, yet fairly logical. I'd love to not be one of those moderately annoying Tim Schafer fan boys. However, this game explains why he's their Jesus and then some.
100/100
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