Grim Fandango Remastered

I am experiencing some serious bugs. Sometimes it's just a animation done wrong or something of that effect. But sometimes the game just freeze but not in a traditional sense. I can still move the cursor around and the animations in the game keep playing but i cant click on anything and I can't press escape or move by keyboard either. Since this game doesn't auto save this bug seriously messes up my game. Really thinking about asking for a refund here.

The game itself needs no explanation :-) This review instead compares this 'remastered version' to the original game. Pros - no need for Residual VMM - responds well to modern game pads. I use XBOX 360 controller and it works great - commentary is quite interesting - wisely don't alter any of the original materials other than some music Cons - unlike other modern remastered games, this remastering smells of lazy, quick money grabber ploy (sounds like Disney really need some quick cash). This remaster does nothing to background 2D when compared to modern remakes such as Resident Evil (priced quite similarly to Grim Fandango Remaster, incidentally). When you change the screen aspect from 4:3 to 16:9, all it does is to stretch 2D background images to fit the screen. At least they could make high resolution version of static backgrounds that could work well with 16:9 screen ratio. Basically an expensive way to get 360 game pad support for Grim Fandango. I quite like using my game pad but the price is fairly steep so if you don't mind playing it with keyboard (or if you're a purist) then I would suggest getting an old version with Residual VM.

My favorite game of all time. The game is a beautiful tale of corruption and mystery, and the enhanced graphics and lighting of the remaster adds to the noir atmosphere of the game. I've always loved the prerendered backgrounds and character models of this game, the brilliant voice acting, and the soundtrack which is filled with jazzy tunes. The original tank controls are gone, a point-n-click interface now in its place, which makes the game far more playable, and the commentary is very amusing with a lot of notes about the technical challenges about the original game as told by some of the original devs. The achievements are also a cute touch. Very happy this game is available here and on other platforms.

So, this is low-end "remastering", huh? Now, on one hand, I'm perfectly fine with the main characters being nothing but slightly spruced up (and backgrounds not being spruced up at all) in themselves; though I wish that at least some of the animations had been spruced up to become more fluid and less "character's hand sticking through someone's head" type of animation that was the hallmark of the early 3D games. And keeping it so close to the original does let me experience it as I did all those years ago, with what is still one of the best stories told amongst video games, and with some fine and clever puzzles that I admit I rely on my memory for most of the time. And yeah, I do remember most of the puzzles after all these years. Now, I'll be the the first to admit that my memory, good as it is, still is very fallible. But even so, I can't seem to recall that it was that important to frequently save, because you'd never know when you'd encounter a bug that would make it impossible for you to proceed the game. I'm about halfway through, and I've already had to replay scenes I've already done about half a dozen times due to sometimes downright stupid bugs, such as Manny simply disappearing completely. As I have said before, what Tim Schaefer really needs these days is a better team than Double Fine Productions; as a company, it simply doesn't have the resources needed turning his otherwise brilliant ideas into full, proper, and above all -working- games.