If something catches Manny’s eyes, he’ll turn his head, but it’s not always clear which bit of scenery he’s looking at until you inspect it. Each of the three commands (“Look”, “Use/Talk”, “Take”) are mapped to various keys. Neither really works though, because Manny is way too slippery around corners. You can choose from character relative controls (similar to Resident Evil, also known as “tank controls”), where you turn by pressing left or right and press up to move forward, or camera relative, where up is always up. The familiar point-and-click interface is completely gone, and instead you control Manny directly, with either the keyboard or a gamepad. While the transition to 3D is handled smoothly, the new interface, at least in the initial 2000 release, proves something of an issue. While the software graphics mode uses some pixellated textures, the hardware accelerated options clean them up, as long as your video card doesn’t choke on it. While technology was quite limited back in the late ’90s, the stylized look of the character designs are geometrically simple enough to be rendered effectively, making it much more appealing than similar games of the era (including its own successor, Escape from Monkey Island, which uses the same engine). The backgrounds are all static prerendered bitmaps, with the characters consisting of polygons. Grim Fandango is also the first LucasArts adventure game to utilize 3D. It also gives new meaning to the term “pushing up daisies”, a fact which does not go unmissed by Manny. The underworld denizens cannot be killed by most regular means, but the most popular method of murder is known as “sprouting”, wherein a victim is shot with a special dart that causes flowers to grow out of their bones. The land of living is only briefly visited, but is represented by a Richard Hamilton-style collage. Since the characters are all dead, technically, they are designed to look like Mexican calaca figures, skeletons used in the Day of the Dead festival. It’s patterned after the film noir stylings of the ’50s, with art deco architecture and a classy jazz soundtrack. It begins in the city of El Marrow, before moving to the forlorn city of Rubacava, to a factory at the edge of the world, and finally back to the big city.īeyond its take on metaphysical concepts, Grim Fandango also has a uniquely appealing visual style. The story takes place over the course of four years, essentially breaking the game into four acts. This begins a chain of events that separates the duo and sends Manny through the underworld, as he attempts to piece together the mystery, escort Menche to her proper destination… and just maybe find redemption for himself. She should theoretically qualify for the express train, but the department’s computer system says otherwise. Feeling that something is suspicious, Manny intercepts one of Domino’s potential clients, an altruistic young woman named Mercedes “Menche” Colomar. As Manny quickly learns, it’s not for lack of trying, as his co-worker Domino seems to be getting all of good clients. Unfortunately, he works on commission, and all of his clients are low-lifes unable to afford the better modes of transportation. He, along with everyone in the department, are lost souls, unable to proceed to the afterlife until they have paid off an unnamed debt. Manuel “Manny” Calavera is one such travel agent. The division in charge of these decisions is the Department of Death, who employs a series of grim reapers – or, as they prefer to be called, travel agents – to provide the proper passage. Lesser folks are handed walking sticks and told to be on their way. LucasArts’ Grim Fandango takes this concept and runs with it, by introducing a karmic twist – people who led good lives can take a ridiculously expedient train that boils the travel time down from four years to four minutes. Instead, they are subjected to a four year journey fraught with perils. According to Aztec mythology, most departed souls are not easily admitted into the afterlife.
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