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December 1, 2006

Broken Sword – hello again!

August 3, 2006

The best: Grim Fandango

I’ve got so much to say about Grim Fandango game that I become rather confused trying to write a brief article. It’s extremely hard to write about things you really like. And Grim Fandango is one of the best. If not the best one.

It may seem that I overpraise this game, but Grim Fandango deserves it. Like many other games it has all the constituents of the successful project, – i.e. plot, graphics, playability, sound, humor, but it also possesses a special emotional constituent, with the help of which all the components are joined into a single whole. Grim Fandango is not just a game, but a book, a movie, a story, told by means of game.

Aztecs had a legend, according to which the soul of a deceased gets to the Land of the Dead to start a four-year journey to the ninth underground world, the place of final rest of all alive. Tim Shafer used this legend as the basis of Grim Fandango plot.

The Land of the Dead; traveling agent Manny Calavera works off his mundane sins, selling touring packs to the souls of new-comers. Depending upon the life-merits of his client, Manny can sell him traveling by car, liner, or, if the client is saint (or nearly saint), - train №9 ticket. This train will rush the person to the ninth world not for four years, but four minutes. For some reason Fortune avoids Manny, the client is exceptionally worthless, no good money can be made. A bit of manipulations – and Manny borrows an ideal client – Mercedes Colomar, who by all signs deserves №9 ticket. But the Death Department computer denies it. And than Manny begins to suspect that someone plays dirty tricks in the Death department… Meche disappears…  Manny must find her and help her cross the Land of the Dead!

It’s impossible to quest without a friend. And a big cheerful orange smth, called Glottis – a creature with a big and sincere heart, a demon belonging to the Land of the Dead, created with only one aim and a dream – to drive!

That’s the beginning of our story. A four-year soul-traveling is prepared for Manny Calavera; and each year at Dia de los Muertos – the Mexican Day of the Dead together with Many we’ll search for the lost love, which turns out to be stronger than the death, in the dead world.

Life is in full swing in the Land of the Dead. We are going to face plenty of characters while traveling. In Grim Fandango you enjoy the play of the pictured characters as if the best actors were doing their best. It’s a real pleasure to watch the mimics and the behavior of each personage. If I were a theatrical or TV critic, I would certainly pay note to masterly performance of the actors. It’s especially surprising taking into account that the mimics is shown by rather simple means. 3D personages have got only schematically drawn faces, which seem to copy the masks of the Mexican carnival of the dead. I wonder how the game designers managed to impact each “skully” its unique personality. It amazes that women skeletons can look rather alluring and sexually, positive characters cause our liking, while baddies – our disgust.

I especially want to distinguish the work of those actors who scored the characters. When the game was released, the majority of Internet-reviews admitted that Grim Fandango was scored as or even better than the best Hollywood cartoons. Glottis (Alan Blumenfeld) is certainly the best, his voice and performance are so realistic that don’t let you doubt the existence of real demons; while not every actor in the movie manages to prove that he’s at least alive. Mannie’s voice with mild Spanish accent is reach with intonations, it attracts and seems to prove that Manny is a good guy, a very sly one; and it’s not clear whether he’s scoffing or serious; but certainly he’s of our kind.

In addition to the brilliant voices, the soundtrack (its author is Peter McConnell) to the game is incomparable. Each location has its main theme, making the world even more rich, colorful and realistic.

The graphics in the game is unusual and captivating. Nowadays it’s hard to surprise anyone with a beautiful background, but thoroughly worked Grim Fandango worlds still strike with their beauty.

Grim Fandango isn’t reach with jokes, but the humor runs through all the game. It’s “trade” lambent Shafer’s humor, which appears from the very game situations. For example, trouble- revolutionary bees or the keen torture of Glottis on the winding tower count for much. Light humor and irony waves are everywhere – in the interiors, signs and dialogues. The creators’ sense of humor has even overstepped the limits of the game. In the game instruction, put into the box, there is a note for all those exasperated with the number of constantly smoking game characters: “For those who are disturbed by the amount of smoking in Grim Fandango, we offer two reasons: 1) we wanted to be true to the film noir atmosphere, and 2) everybody in the game who smokes is DEAD. Think about it.”.

Grim Fandango is music of the best feelings, where love is playing the leading part. Love for the woman, friends, money and power. In the dead world only love and dreams make sense and turn into passion. The captain in Rubakava forsakes everything so as to see his ship again; grave-digger Membrillio is spending all his days hoping to find a treasure; Lupe, the cloakroom attendant, is engrossed in the creation of a modern super system of coat-and-hat distribution; Salvador Limones is a high-minded revolutionist, fighting for the happiness of the souls; and Manny is looking for… for his Meche. Love here is closely connected with death and not by chance flowers present the most frightful sight in the game. In the dead world, where everyone is dead long ago, flowers appear to be far worse than death. All those, being “sprouted” disappear without leaving a trace. Forever.

My main complaint against Grim Fandango is that it comes to an end too fast. And the reason is not that the time you spend playing is short, but the world you can’t find enough strength to part with. That’s why don’t be surprised if you’ll become sad after finishing the game…

Summing up, I can say the following: I envious for myself that I’ve already played and go on replaying this game from time to time. I feel sorry for those people who never play such games and therefore miss such masterpieces. The same thing happens if a person never reads anything - a complete culture layer passes by. And Grim Fandango is undoubtedly the significant phenomenon of this very culture.

How to play on the modern PCs:
1) Install the game
2) Setup the patch.
3) Switch on 3D acceleration in the game properties.
4) Make sure that hardware 3D acceleration is selected in 3D acceleration properties.

The most complete fans’ site about the game is http://grimfandango.net. Here it’s possible to download the soundtrack, the game launcher (though I managed to start the game without it), all the saved games; and look through the concept-art and etc.

 

Posted by mazoo at 5:04 PM | Comments (0)

February 22, 2006

Sid Meier's Pirates!

Author.::.Mazoo

The year 1660. Spain has already lost part of its territories in Caribbean region. England, France and Holland easily apply all possible means for fortifying their position in the region, there is still plenty of Ink gold, and sugar reed plantations guarantee incredible profits. Royal patents for piracy are willingly given, and island governors make their fortunes reselling captured valuables and providing pirates with shelter, ships, armor and women. French Tortugas and later English Port-Royal in Jamaica became real corsair capitals, where filibusterers of all nations returned to waste earned money. Churches, whorehouses, casinos, pubs, jewelry shops and boutiques were never empty. 1660 - 1685 were the golden years of piracy in the Caribbean Sea; it was the time we read about in Sabatini’s and Stevenson’s books; the time of the most popular, daring and the richest pirate attacks.

It has been already mentioned that we speak about 1660 and at this point we start our corsair career, playing “Sid Meier's Pirates”. A small boat and a small crew are at the disposal of a young 18-year old captain (player), who will have to overcome 20 years of sea-outrages, find treasures and flirt with sexy daughters of governors. As Phil and I played this game together, we decided to share managing duties - I danced with the daughters and Phil did the rest: directed our ship through the bright-blue Caribbean Sea, fought in sea-battles and hand-to-hand combats.




“Live the life” is the motto written at the beginning of the game, and it’s interesting that together with our hero we really spend many years navigating, searching for treasures and making career. It’s quite easy to play and it’s impossible to stop doing it.
Only now, when we’re 43, we’ve finally married governor’s Curacao daughter, defeated and robbed nine dreadful Caribbean Sea pirates (their prototypes are taken from real history - Morgan, captain Kidd, L'Olonnais and the others), saved our family from the slavery, our pockets are full of gold and we’ve got enough landed property presented to us - at the moment we are thinking of retiring. What if we begin defending any royal flag?

The only pretension is that time flies too quickly. Hardly do we dismiss the team and share the gold, when we have to spend 8 months on the dry land. But generally the game is cool, and it’s great to navigate through the places we’ve read so much about and recognize familiar cities and islands - Maracaibo, Barbados, Tortuga and choose our own way ourselves.

Posted by Xena at 3:55 PM | Comments (0)