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Grim Fandango

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Re: Grim Fandango

#61
post #57

Well 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…

I remember watching my teenage cousin play it as a young child and being really drawn in, then when he let me play I remember getting frustrated because I had no idea what to do, it ended up being more fun watching him play

Re: Grim Fandango

#62
post #53
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police quest was just way too tough for the foreigner unused to American procedures. "Administer sobriety test" is not the easiest of commands without a very broad vocabulary.

I don't know. My friends and I growing up in Asia played Police Quest I as 8 year olds. We learned about the Miranda rights, and the PR-24 nightstick. I remember the sobriety test part. We didn't know what a "field sobriety test" was exactly, but we knew it was something to do with drunk drivers. Somehow we managed to finish the game. I think most people can pick up a lot of clues from context alone.

You finished it as an 8yo? Congrats! It's a serious achievement.

Re: Grim Fandango

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those point-and-click puzzles never felt like anything but time fillers to me. It's interesting to think about the "could have beens" of Western visual novels instead, or at least Telltale-style story games.

It's interesting how much this is still the case. I was just thinking about it myself when considering the new remake of Silent Hill 2. It's mostly beloved for its story and it spends a lot of time on that, and there's of course a lot of survival-horror combat in between. But beyond that there's another horror game (and just game) staple: lots of puzzles. The SH2 remake aimed to be very faithful so was always going t…

Heh. Resident Evil 1 feels like a (well designed) escape room.

Re: Grim Fandango

#65
post #5

An 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…

> 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.

Silent film would like a word. Er, uh… an intertitle.

Lots of modern viewers find films made before digital editing weird, or even near-unwatchable. The editing isn’t quick enough, shot pacing feels too slow.

Acting styles have changed over the years. It can take some work to be able to enjoy film acting from decades ago.

Older special effects are an acquired taste. I’m thinking of things like pirate movies where the ships are very-obviously models in a tub of water, easy to tell no matter how good the models because the water itself looks “small” in motion.

On the music side, older music will be mono. Tons of old blues legends exist only in scratchy, terrible recordings. Older music sounds different than more recent stuff and could not have sounded like the modern kind, because they could only mix so many tracks without ruining the sound, since each down-mix meant a re-recording and a loss of quality. Newer tracks will almost always use visually-aided editing that includes adjusting vocals by eye rather than ear, which changes the way things sound a lot.

Re: Grim Fandango

#66
post #57

Well 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…

[dead]

Re: Grim Fandango

#70
post #58
post #33

Earlier 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.

> he just comes out and says ‘vehicle’ like it’s spelled What do you mean by this? In what what is "ve hicle" not pronouncing it as it's spelled but "ve icle" is? Isn't the one including an h more faithful?

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.

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