GRIM FANDANGO

            An alternative review from Lol Oakes

Some years back, an adventure company came into being called
LucasArts and they were responsible for some of the very best
graphic adventures that money could buy.

Is there anybody out there who has yet to play the Monkey Island
trilogy, Sam and Max, Indiana Jones, etc? These were games of the
very highest quality, not only in the puzzle department but more
importantly in the story telling. Oh how times have changed, their
latest offering is called Grim Fandango and has been lauded in the
popular glossies as the best thing since sliced bread. I've seen
scores of 90%+ in quite a few of the mags. Well, let me give you
my verdict on this "masterpiece".

I've been searching in my dictionary for an appropriate word to
describe this game and after quite a struggle I think I've got it
- CRAP.  Yes, I think that word sums up the game perfectly. The
first thing about the game is that despite it being called
LucasArts' latest point and click adventure it isn't a point and
click game at all. The mouse is disabled during play, you have to
use the cursor keys to move about etc. To look at anything , or
pick it up you have got to notice the character looking down at
something, there are no hotspots on screen.

I'll agree that the story line is novel, after all I can't think
of many games doing the rounds at the moment based on a Mexican
folk tale about the Day of the Dead festival.

I'll also agree that the game looks wonderful to look at, but as
far as I'm concerned that's it.

I have to confess that I never actually finished this game. About
half way through it my machine developed a problem that meant it
had to go in the workshop for 2 weeks to be repaired, when I got
said machine back I tried to continue the game but very quickly
realised that life is too short to be wasting it on drivel like
this.

So what's wrong with it? Well to begin with, the game is very
slow. I have a Pentium 150 with 32meg EDO ram and a 32speed CD ROM
and had all sorts of problems with the game hanging and crashing.
I've spoken to other people who have played this game and they
have reported similar stories of crashes and bugs. The thing that
really pissed me off was the time it took to go from one location
to another, I seemed to spend most of the game traipsing from one
place to another to see if object A would fit in hole B, it would
have been much better if you could have clicked on a map and gone
straight there, {but I'm forgetting, there is no clicking in this
game] . I found a lot of the puzzles completely illogical and I'm
not alone in thinking this, I know of several people who have
played this game and not one of them has managed to finish it
without using a walkthrough and these are seasoned adventurers.

In conclusion, my advice to any of you who have yet to play this
game is to wait until it comes out on budget, you may think it's
worth a tenner!

I know that a lot of readers will not agree with me, but in my
humble opinion this is by far the worst game LucasArts have ever
produced for the adventurer.

This is Lol Oakes for SynTax in front of his computer somewhere in
Manchester [home of the greatest football team in British history]

Goodnight!!!!!!!

@~Have you hated a game that the glossies love? If so, please
@~write in and tell us! ... Sue








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