I still mumble the main theme to myself from time to time..
The mariachi band on the first outside scene is unforgettable to me: https://tidal.com/track/101427831?u .
Yes! I thought that was the main theme.
Grim Fandango
101–110 of 129 posts
Re: Grim Fandango
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I got completely stuck in the Beavis and Butthead adventure game when one of the voice acted characters told me to get a "vee-hickul". As a teenager sitting at my family PC in London, I had no idea what the hell the Texan (?) was saying. Only several years later would I figure it out. The only other thing I remember from that game is the hock-a-loogie minigame, which I mastered. I wonder if my parents had any idea wh…
Anecdote: the word ‘vehicle’ is referenced aty day job a lot. I had a PM who always, always said ‘vee-hickle’ and I honestly always thought he was full of shit. On day when he was really mad about $(thing I predicted) he just comes out and says ‘vehicle’ like it’s spelled. I don’t remember feeling smug or annoyed, mostly just kind of bummed at the farce.
Are you aware that both pronunciations are correct?
'Cause boy are you going to be surprised when you find out about "accents".
Re: Grim Fandango
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a non-native speaker I remember I couldn't figure out how to pronounce "vehicle" just from how it's spelled. It's not like I pronounced it wrong (as is often the case with other words), I just couldn't figure out how to pronounce it at all until I looked it up. Edit: I guess my point is that "as it's spelled" may be non obvious in case of vehicle.
That's partially my point too: pronouncing something "as it's spelled" is meaningless in English - most of the time there's more than one "obvious" pronunciation. And the right one could be a less obvious one.
> the right one
One of the many right ones.
Re: Grim Fandango
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a non-native speaker I remember I couldn't figure out how to pronounce "vehicle" just from how it's spelled. It's not like I pronounced it wrong (as is often the case with other words), I just couldn't figure out how to pronounce it at all until I looked it up. Edit: I guess my point is that "as it's spelled" may be non obvious in case of vehicle.
That's partially my point too: pronouncing something "as it's spelled" is meaningless in English - most of the time there's more than one "obvious" pronunciation. And the right one could be a less obvious one.
I insist on calling Roblox “rob-l-ox” when talking to my kids. It’s a dumb joke, but it also emphasises to them that spelling is a guide and not always a useful one.
Re: Grim Fandango
#105I think one understated problem Grim Fandango had is that it's too adult. Today "adult" often means "there's sex and/or gore", but the content is still simple and juvenile. But Grim Fandango isn't like that, it's just full of themes that probably confused the heck out of almost every kid that tried to play it. Like the very first chapter throws you right into office politics. You deal with stealing a job from another…
Here's the thing - I remember playing it as a kid and so many things, arguably most of it, went way over my head: the whole travel agent thing and getting ahead in the office, dia de los muertos, the references to noir, the weird but gorgeous mexican art deco combo, I knew nothing about any of it. But I still loved every second of it. It made the world feel very rich and real even if I didn't fully get it, in a way t…
Yes, we do a grave disservice to all children when we assume they can't handle reality.
Re: Grim Fandango
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's the thing - I remember playing it as a kid and so many things, arguably most of it, went way over my head: the whole travel agent thing and getting ahead in the office, dia de los muertos, the references to noir, the weird but gorgeous mexican art deco combo, I knew nothing about any of it. But I still loved every second of it. It made the world feel very rich and real even if I didn't fully get it, in a way t…
I think that was part of the fascination of PC:s as a kid. Police Quest or Civilization and so on. It was this kind of adult world that you knew little of and were exploring on your own, or with your friends. The games were not holding your hand. It often was game over. But you could try again. Also, your parents were never involved in any way (except financing the thing). The audience of PC games was different than…
This is bang on. Having a pc back in the day was like having a problem solving simulator for me.
Re: Grim Fandango
#107Well I certainly cannot relate to the criticism. I played the game early on as a teen (and every few years since) and while, at times difficult, I never thought the puzzles were "confusing", it seemed like a pretty organic combination of styles of puzzles built into the game. The head turning dynamics I have also found to be quiet pleasant as it made me relate to the character more. Not that criticism is bad but Grim…
As much as I love Jimmy Maher's articles, he has a certain bias against any adventure game that's not streamlined. So, he levels similar criticisms against pretty much every Sierra games, Full Throttle and pretty much any adventure game that is not polished to the level of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. He's not completely wrong and the tendency of adventure games to sometimes veer into puzzles that are more…
Reminds me of him reviewing Star Control II, which he also seemed to overly criticise, he did however make a legitimate point that the game mechanic of Kohr-Ah only slowly annihilating the galaxy meant that you may have actually already reached a point where winning becomes impossible, but you may not realise it until quite a long time later.
Although I generally remember 90s games being somewhat brutally unforgiving, the lesson they would teach most thoroughly is to save often.
Re: Grim Fandango
#108An excellent game for its time. The remaster is well worth it. One unfortunate aspect of classic games is how dated mechanics can get. It’s a problem that music or movies don’t really have, besides maybe feeling a bit cliché. In the case of Grim Fandango, the tank controls are a bit awkward, some puzzles are actually quite difficult and require logic that would only make sense to a point and click adventure gamer fro…
The remastered annoyed the hell out of me because it was so buggy. I ragequit the game because there was some point that I had gotten to where one of the characters bugged out in a cutscene and wouldn't move the game forward. I had to reload a save and play about 30 minutes just to get back to the same point. This happened multiple times, too. it's a good game, yes, but the remaster is seriously full of bugs that it's difficult for me to recommend.
Re: Grim Fandango
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdote: the word ‘vehicle’ is referenced aty day job a lot. I had a PM who always, always said ‘vee-hickle’ and I honestly always thought he was full of shit. On day when he was really mad about $(thing I predicted) he just comes out and says ‘vehicle’ like it’s spelled. I don’t remember feeling smug or annoyed, mostly just kind of bummed at the farce.
Are you aware that both pronunciations are correct? 'Cause boy are you going to be surprised when you find out about "accents".
It wasn’t the annunciation,
It was the em-phasis.
Re: Grim Fandango
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
As much as I love Jimmy Maher's articles, he has a certain bias against any adventure game that's not streamlined. So, he levels similar criticisms against pretty much every Sierra games, Full Throttle and pretty much any adventure game that is not polished to the level of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. He's not completely wrong and the tendency of adventure games to sometimes veer into puzzles that are more…
Reminds me of him reviewing Star Control II, which he also seemed to overly criticise, he did however make a legitimate point that the game mechanic of Kohr-Ah only slowly annihilating the galaxy meant that you may have actually already reached a point where winning becomes impossible, but you may not realise it until quite a long time later. Although I generally remember 90s games being somewhat brutally unforgiving…
But that's part of the strength of the game! The game world is "alive." Yeah you can fail to win, because you're explicitly told that there is a struggle for control of the galaxy going on!
I don't like how some of these reviewers feel like failure = bad. It's sheer laziness or frustration.