Ten Years On....[GRIM FANDANGO]

Lord Of The Pants

Ladies and gentlemen, we're at the tenth year since the release of...Grim Fandango!

What is it?

It's the Planescape Torment of Adventure games. The proverbial "Half-Life" of walking around and talking games the ...

No Really, what is it?

It's the second last adventure game from Lucasarts. I think of it as the "last great" adventure game from Lucastarts.

But wait? Don't Adventure games suck?

Couldn't be further from the truth, my friend. Grim Fandango is AWSOME.

What's the dealio?

Wikipedia tells us that

"Manny Calavera is a departed soul, serving the Department of Death in the underworld city of El Marrow by selling travel tickets to the newly-dead: the virtuous win passage on the Number Nine train, which takes their souls to Mictlan in four minutes instead of the four-year spiritual journey that sinners must take. When Mercedes "Meche" Colomar is not allocated the "Double-N" ticket she deserves, Manny realises his colleague Domino and his boss Don have been stealing these from the rightful holders and selling them off to the wealthy for profit, "sprouting" all who get in their way (shooting them with "sproutella"-filled darts, causing agonising death-within-death, flowers growing out through the bone). He joins the Lost Souls Alliance (LSA), a revolutionary group led by the charismatic Salvador, and leaves for the city of Rubacava in search of Meche, his demon driver Glottis in tow. Manny's investigations draw him into a tangled web of corruption, deceit, and murder."

Is it funny?

Yes. No. Sort of.
Unlike Monkey Island, this is a Film Noir style adventure, there are a lot of smart ass comments, funny gibes and humorous situations, but it's not all out "rofl my mao".

What makes it good?

Great voice acting. Amazing music. Awsome artwork. Great writing. Really, it's one of the last "Great" Lucasarts adventures.

Did People Like it?

Yes.

Okay, who's in it?

Manny: You, the guy in this story.

Meche: The Girl. But of course this is a Lucasarts game, remember? Don't expect some weak at the knees Dick Francis female lead, she's made of tougher stuff than Manny.

Glottis: The Sidekick. A giant orange demon mechanic with a drinking problem. I'm serious.

Hector: The bad guy.

Domino: The bad guy's henchmen. Funny as hell.

Is it hard?

Yes. No. Maybe. It's an adventure game, some puzzles make perfect sense, some are trial and error problem solving that make sick sense after you've done it. Remember, everything is there for a reason, and talk to everyone.

Also remember i'm not wired for Adventure games, so it could be easier and harder depending on how wired you are. It's easier than Sam And Max, put it that way.

Sounds good, where do I get it?

Amazon has it, but some lucky chaps who live in Australia can find those "Lucasarts Classics" around (Dick Smith?) and you can grab the game for $10aud.

Does it still work?

My old copy from '98 runs in XP, not sure about Vista. Can I get back to you?

Hey do you remember the bit where?

Manny is in the beat poetry club and the options are once he gets on stage
"Are you ready to rock?"
"What's Up With Airplane food anyway?"

Manny is on the roof with the pidgeons?
"RUN PIDGEONS! IT'S ROBERT FROST!"

Manny is, awww hell, just find your old cds and play it again!

[/CENTER]

Tav

10 years? Jesus, I got this when it was new!

Now I feel old

subedii

I liked how you could give your own Poem on open-mic night.

I gave one that seemed to make a semblence of sense and got hissed off the stage. Then I asked the club owner to do one to "see how it's done". She start off with a poem that, surprisingly, I think "hey, this is making some sense to me."

Then half-way through"Hey, that's MY POEM!"

Road Block

I believe you got Glottis and Meche mixed up. Awesome game by the way.

EskimoDave

I always wanted this game when it game out. Just based on the cover.

Big Dookie

I just found my CDs for this the other day. I was elated because I thought I'd lost them forever. It was like finding a hundred bucks in my pocket by accident. I love this game so much.

subedii

The music was incredible too. In fact, I'm going to link this right now:

http://soundtracks.mixnmojo.com/

The officially released soundtracks for loads of LucasArts adventure games, including the complete soundtrack to Grim Fandango.

The_Scarab

i




feel




old

Tav

subedii wrote: »

The music was incredible too. In fact, I'm going to link this right now:

http://soundtracks.mixnmojo.com/

The officially released soundtracks for loads of LucasArts adventure games, including the complete soundtrack to Grim Fandango.

Holy crap, Companeros!

The memories!

LoveIsUnity

I loved this game as a kid. I really wish I could get it working in XP. I've used the Grim Launcher, but I still can't get it to work. Anyone else with this problem?

Kelor

Way to make us all feel fucking old Pants.

Tav

I'm 17, and I can clearly remember being excited when the demo for this came out.....

Simon Moon

It shone, pale as bone
As I stood there alone,
And I thought to myself, how the moon

Each night cast its light
On my heart's true delight
and the reef where her body was strewn.

BlackDove

Kelor wrote: »

Way to make us all feel fucking old Pants.

This. A hundred times this.

Lord Of The Pants

All this hate and pain. So worth it.

It makes me feel strange, I played the Demo, and the game obviously, but I would have been TWELVE at the time...

What mature tastes I had back then. It's funny replaying it recently (A year or two ago) I only got most of the jokes, hehe.

Dr Snofeld

Simon Moon wrote: »

It shone, pale as bone
As I stood there alone,
And I thought to myself, how the moon

Each night cast its light
On my heart's true delight
and the reef where her body was strewn.

*snaps fingers*

Oh man, so many memories...

"So what's the deal with that stuff they pack hams in anyway?"
BLEUUUGH!

SwashbucklerXX

Such a great game! One of the few I allowed myself to play while I was in college, because I just couldn't pass it up. (Yeah, I played it in college, you people who feel old because you played it when you were 12 :P).

Threepio

For a Delorean that could move me back ten years I would give anything.

Bartholamue

This was the best $4 I ever spent.

LaCabra

This game was such pure "fuck yes".

Simon Moon

SwashbucklerXX wrote: »

Such a great game! One of the few I allowed myself to play while I was in college, because I just couldn't pass it up. (Yeah, I played it in college, you people who feel old because you played it when you were 12 :P).

In all honesty, those kids played it nearly half their lives ago. That's probably more shocking to them than college memories for those of us born in the 70s.

BlackDove

Pretty much.

I played Grim when I was 12. But it just goes to show how well the game is made. A 12 year old can like it, and a 22 year old and beyond can like it.

Usually shit be exclusive to age. It's hard to envelop both demographics, but Grim does that more than adequatly.

YaYa

Aside from Portal, this is probably my favourite game of all time.

I first played it when I was something like 9.

emnmnme

Isn't Mark Hamil the voice of the constable in this game? The one dressed like Louie from Casablanca.

King of Mars

It's only been 10 years? Why do I feel like it's been 20? I never got to play it, and a VC re-release would be nice...

edit: Maybe it'll run in wine. Does anybody know?

Orikaeshigitae

This game is wonderful. It is my absolute favourite game in the world.

I spent like six months obsessively reading previews and reviews in PC Gamer before finally getting it. When I get home, I find a mail-in offer for Full Throttle inside the box. That was probably the best gaming purchase I ever made.

I'm just waiting for the ScummVM folks to finish RESIDUAL so I can play it on my girlfriend's computer.

Big Dookie

I think the thing I liked best about this game was the complete departure, control-wise, it was from almost every other adventure game that came before it. 3D Graphics? No context-sensitive mouse controls? I play it with a gamepad???

Adventure games had gotten so stuck in a rut, where the best way to proceed was often to just run your mouse over every pixel on the screen and way for it to change into a different action icon. Grim Fandango was like a breath of fresh air. Too bad it wasn't enough to revive the genre, but I can't complain.

Orikaeshigitae

Dudes are asking about ways to play it now, so here's a link to RESIDUAL.


What is the state of Residual?

---

Basic gameplay works, including cutscenes. Some of the game is playable,
but many features are either missing or unstable. There is no abilitity
to save/load, etc. Crashes are likely.

Game currently playable to:
Meche leaves Manny again (Rubacava, Year 2)

Caveats (in order of appearance):
1) Sound track destruction doesn't do quite a good enough job when
entering the spider web area (sp.set) in the Petrified Forest
2) Video of Copal's death (among other movies) plays at *almost* 2x
the correct speed, this causes buffer overflows in the audio.
While hardcoding the speed to the correct value used by the other
movies works, it is not a good fix and so it is not implemented
3) Sometimes the Demon Beavers get stuck on obstacles - open the
menu for a moment and they will correct themselves

emnmnme

When is A Vampyre Story going to be ready?

Orikaeshigitae

emnmnme wrote: »

When is A Vampyre Story going to be ready?

Fuck! I know! Find a publisher already!

Orikaeshigitae

oh here's a trailer

i hope the animation isn't final, and that the voiceover guy has no place in the final product

otherwise, looks good

Masonite

We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later, we push up flowers.

That one part in the Petrified Forest gave me so much trouble. WTF am I supposed to do with this sign?

ironsizide

Such an awesome game from the waning golden age of Lucasarts adventure games. Up there with Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Sam & Max Hit The Road in my all-time favorite adventures. Probably one of the first games I really started paying attention to the voice actors in games too. The actor voicing Manny is now the father on "Ugly Betty"!

emnmnme

Why doesn't LucasArts do what Sierra and iD did and release all their adventure games in one bundle? All.

freakish light

If you're too lazy to dig out the discs yourself, or missed out on this game (blasphemy), I found this Let's Play Grim Fandango post on teh intarwebs.

Actually, watching it did make me dig out my game discs.

squirly

Lord Of The Pants wrote: »

Sounds good, where do I get it?

Amazon has it, but some lucky chaps who live in Australia can find those "Lucasarts Classics" around (Dick Smith?) and you can grab the game for $10aud.

Oh snap, really? I'm so hitting the shops tomorrow to find a copy of this fabled Lucas Arts Classics..

Kelor

They're all over the place. You can pick up The Dig, Grim Fandango, Curse of Monkey Island and Full Throttle for $10 each.

Theres a ton of them over at www.ebay.com.au


Also, on the side, I am working on the LP, its just that Brawl is doing its best to distract me.


Edit: Squirley, try Game and EB as well, I've seen them there.

-SPI-

One of my favourite games of all time. I was absolutely stunned when it made the transition to the second year the first time, the way the storyline was so epic and personal completely blew me away.

darksteel

It is one of my great gaming sins to have started but not finished this game. I was stuck in the Petrified Forest with that goddamn sign and somewhere along the way I must have decided to give up. I do still have the CD, though, and this thread has motivated me to finish it. Thanks, PA!

Lord Of The Pants

darksteel wrote: »

It is one of my great gaming sins to have started but not finished this game. I was stuck in the Petrified Forest with that goddamn sign and somewhere along the way I must have decided to give up. I do still have the CD, though, and this thread has motivated me to finish it. Thanks, PA!

If you think that's bad!

It's actually quite easy when you know what to do.

Carry it into the other wood area and keep following the direction it points untill it points down and your exit awaits!

I, in my replay am stuck in

Year four, and I'm in the casino but i'm not sure what to do next

GrimCalavera

Best adventure game ever.