Previously Pwn’d is our brand-new column about retro video games. You’ll see old favorites and unappreciated classics. Get your button mashing fingers ready.
What’s the best game you’ve never heard of? What’s the best game to ever kill a genre?
In 1998, LucasArts released Grim Fandango for the PC. The game combines Dia de los Muertos imagery with film noir storytelling right out of The Maltese Falcon.
The player controls Manny Calavera, a detective in the Land of the Dead, as he attempts to help a femme fatale (no pun intended, considering all the characters are deceased) into her final resting place in the Ninth Underworld. Calavera gets sucked into a crime ring where tickets to the Underworld are bought and resold. Where corruption lurks at every turn. Where the afterlife itself is ruled by greed.
Grim Fandango features the height of 1998’s graphical capabilities. It had lighting (which was new at the time). It was the first game to have 3D models walking around on top of pre-drawn backgrounds. It was among the first games to boast three-dimensional sound. Oh, and it had an original score.
Technical aspects aside, the story itself is both inventive and impressive in its depth. The story takes place in four acts, each on November 2nd of four consecutive years. As Manny converses with other characters, he may select from a variety of possible responses. Certain responses may cause other characters to like Manny less or more. Talking to a vendor on the street, Manny may slip the vendor a bribe and get a bit of useful information. The game is crafted, however, to assure that no branch results in a dead-end. Instead, the game is left with countless different storylines, most of which the individual player will never experience.
The game received a 94/100 from Metacritic (among the highest scores of all time). It won numerous awards, including Adventure Game of the Year. And the game didn’t even break even.
After the extremely successful adventure titles Myst and Monkey Island, the adventure game genre seemed to be growing. Grim Fandango expanded on (and perhaps even perfected) certain elements of this genre while delivering the complexity and difficulty that fans of the genre demanded. Grim Fandango is one of the first examples of gaming as art. It had an impressively literary storyline (complete with social commentary on corruption and government), and showed a heavy film influence. But the game just didn’t sell well. And nobody knows why. Today, gaming aficionados still refer to the Grim Fandango Effect: games that fail despite being awesome.
I know you’ve never heard of it, but anyone with a Windows computer should check out this game. You can find it on Amazon, or find out more on the Grim Fandango Fan Site (which is still alive over 10 years after the game’s initial release).