With bony hands I hold my partner On soulless feet we cross the floor The music stops as if to answer An empty knocking at the door It seems his skin was sweet as mango When last I held him to my breast But now we dance this grim fandango And will four years before we rest. Because I'm still hung up on the exact right image size for a potential Mass Effect 3 LP, I decided on a game to try in the meantime. This is Grim Fandango, largely written by Tim Schafer. You may know him as one of the people behind Psychonauts, another underrated game. Grim Fandango came out in 1998 and critics absolutely loved everything about it. Unfortunately, it never really caught on with the public. Its commercial failure ended up being one of the reasons Lucasarts shut down their development of adventure games, thus contributing to the decline of the adventure game genre in general, as Wikipedia so nicely puts it. I can safely say that this is one of my favorite games of all time. I'd advise you to try it as well, but as Grim Fandango is a collector's item now, that might be difficult: the jewel case version I have costs about 70 bucks nowadays. I'm so glad I got it way back when it came out. The plot: When people shuffle off their mortal coils, they are escorted by a Grim Reaper to the Land of the Dead, where they remain until they can travel to the Ninth Underworld. The Grim Reapers actually act as travel agents and sell their travel packages to the recently deceased - if you've lived a good life, you can traverse the Land of the Dead in a nice sports car or on a luxurious cruise ship. If you've led a bad life, you are forced to take the journey on foot, which is said to take about four years in total. Only the purest of souls get access to the Number Nine; a train that shoots to the Ninth Underworld in four seconds rather than four years. Souls that have done terrible things in life are forced to work off their debt to the powers that be. One of those unfortunate souls is Manuel 'Manny' Calavera, a charming Grim Reaper who runs into trouble working off his debt because his steady influx of premium sales suddenly stopped dead in its tracks. While investigating the matter, Manny meets a woman named Mercedes Colomar. When Manny fails to find any travel packages for her despite her purity of heart, she disappears without a trace. Determined to find what might just be his ticket out of the Land of the Dead, Manny goes after her - uncovering a web of crime and corruption as he goes along. -
The conversation with Eva in this (and the next) update is mostly exposition, but it is rather interesting and a good introduction to the setting.
Holy crap I remember this game! I was sadly too broke to buy it even back then. But I remember hearing it was awesome.
It is really awesome! I wish a remake would come along one of these days, though - it takes ages to get it running correctly on Windows 7.
It is awesome. I've been waiting years to forget all its content so I can replay it again...So I guess I shouldn't read this thread again...
Did I mention there's a free novelization of this game? Because there is. It's really well-written, too.
Yes, apart from the typos here and there it's absolutely excellent. Thanks for the comments and likes, people. I'm glad you enjoy it.
