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Monday 14 January, 2008
Grim Fandango Game Log Entry #2
GAMEPLAY
When reentering the city of "El Marrow" I was again greeted by the same mixture of light and dark offered by Grim Fandango. The light being the bright colors of the central Americas and the dark being the film noir-esque music and dialogue. What drew attention even more this time was the conversations between the characters. The main character, Manny, and the receptionist, Eva, have a wonderfully complex relationship. Manny seems to openly express his desire for Eva and flirts with here often. Eva not only puts up with it but she picks on him, almost in a loving way as if this has been going on for quite a while.
Manny's character archetype is quite a common sight in film noir stories. A down on his luck hero with a good heart and dreams of one day getting away from it all with the girl he fantasizes about stumbles upon the fact that he is being wronged and seeks to get even. Despite his talent for mischief, Manny is overall a good person. Judging from his actions toward those he doesn't know, he tries to start off on a good note, yet fate has it that most of his encounters with people are usually unpleasant.
The other characters in the game have so far been colorful and interesting to watch and interact with. Manny's rival, Domino Hurley, embodies everything we think of when we hear the words "Over-achieving Jerk". Many times does Domino make fun of Manny's lack of premium clients as well as embarrassing events that took place at the Department of Death's Christmas party. Another character is Manny's boss, Don Copal, who throughout the beginning of the game berates Manny for his poor sales and his lack of "Motivation". Don Copal is a short, squat little skeleton-man with a loud voice and a short temper reminding us of bosses we have had in the past. Overall, I have found the atmosphere, characters and story to be engrossing and loveable; I look foreword to playing more games like this.
DESIGN
Upon revisiting Grim Fandango I found myself once again being hindered by the awkward movement system. More annoying than the movement system I found was the game's mechanisms that enabled a character to go through doors. I found this to be malfunctioning many times that resulted in me banging on my cursor keys in frustration until I finally was able to go through a given door. Another problem I found when saving my progress was that the sound would shut off. Only after quitting then restarting the game would the sound then return.
Another problem I had was constant crashing during cut scenes. Out of the blue, the games sound would begin looping itself and I would be unable to fix what was going on, causing me to restart my game and lose all of my data. Despite these problems I have had no trouble with loading times or slowness during game play.
So far, I have enjoyed how the game creates conflict with subtle hints all leading up to a presumably large climax ending or epiphany. One problem with progression in the game is that some events which are vital to progressing farther into the story can be missed, thus causing the player to have to restart their game from where they last saved. I unfortunately discovered this too late and saved after the crucial point had passed and had to restart my game. Overall, I would say that despite these problems, Grim Fandango offers and wonderful looking into a very under appreciated genre of film noir-inspired adventure games.
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