ARTICLE: Why I Won't Review 'Grim Fandango' / Why GOG.com Is The Messiah

Remember when I said I was going to review Grim Fandango: Remastered this week, in a simultaneous attempt to keep up with current releases whilst ticking off another entry in my ‘games I should probably play before I die’ list? Yeah, things have changed…

This is the first game I’ve been so excited about that I actually pre-ordered it. You see, I’ve never played Grim Fandango. I really like Psychonauts and The Secret Of Monkey Island, but I’ve never had a chance to play what many consider to be the greatest one of all. For once, I decided to buy through GOG.com because the game was £1 cheaper than the Steam version. Previously I’d dismissed GOG, but recently I realised that it was so much better because it’s like the old days of PC gaming when you were just given a disc that you were permitted to take home and keep forever – except it’s an .exe file.

But I would happily exchange all the joys GOG offers for a game client that installs at the press of a button. When you buy Grim Fandango, you get TWO files you have to download. One is a convenient .exe, the other is a whopping 3GB .bin file that took 30 mins to download. Why the .bin file can’t be combined with the .exe to create one convenient install a mystery that no undead detective could solve.

But then the fun began, as after a painless 15 min install a little box gleefully informed me that I didn’t have the correct Open GL drivers. Then the box ran away sniggering before I could ask what the hell an Open GL is and where do I get the new drivers. I feel that with the purchase of Grim Fandango: Remastered, I’ve travelled back in time to when PC games were an absolute nightmare to run because video cards wouldn’t be compatible, Quicktime needed to be updated, and the game didn’t like how your computer held it’s cutlery. 

"I can't use that."

Of course, these days we have the internet – so I thought the issue would be solved by simply updating my graphics-card driver. I did this to find that it was still not enough. Whilst eating my own tongue, I went round the internet updating windows, updating software, basically giving my computer a complete makeover that if nothing else will make my other games run a bit smoother. Still, the game wouldn’t work.

Luckily, the saintly haven that is GOG.com actually has a support service. So I dropped an email explaining my predicament along with a .txt document featuring every single piece of information concerning my computer. I then went to bed with a headache.

I woke up today still with a raging headache, and checked my email as I always do after waking up. To my surprise, a lovely sounding man named Genoan had already responded – saying that the problem was much simpler than I thought: my 2012 computer was just too ancient. I then felt like a complete idiot because I should have done a ‘will it run’ test on my laptop first instead of blindly snatching the game in my excitement. Genoan was surprisingly cool about my situation and said that everyone is entitled to make a mistake. My order was refunded (something I didn’t even consider asking for) and now I have £9 to spend on a game that actually works. Consequently, I think GOG.com is the greatest thing ever and I would like Genoan to consider this post an apology for being a nuisance and a marriage proposal. 

"Well, it works on MY computer..."

So next time you want to buy a game, check to see if it’s on GOG first before heading to Steam. In the meantime, I would like to blame Double Fine Productions for this whole affair. I know the product description does say that my computer could never have ran the game, but I still have a headache so I’m going to criticise them anyway.

From what I’ve gathered, the PC version of Grim Fandango: Remastered is actually a dodgy port of the PS4 version. This blows my aching mind on so many levels. 

Firstly: Grim Fandango is regarded as a masterpiece of PC gaming. The fact that the remaster is actually a port kinda feels like a stab in the back. Secondly: I cannot imagine any PS4-owner caring about Grim Fandango. No-one who wants to play the best games ever made would buy a PS4. The only people I know who own a PS4 are either reviewers or the sort of people who play FIFA. Grim Fandango does not belong on a console. I could understand if the PS4-version was a last-minute port, but the kind of people who care about Grim Fandango are just not the sort of people who have bothered to shell out for a PS4.

Research tells me that the UI interface has troubles with the 4:3 aspect-ratio, and that if you switch to 16:9 then the picture gets stretched. I thought this problem had been eliminated ever since the advent of HD, but Grim Fandango is such a botch-job that we have the most elementary of problems present.  

I’ve been informed that we have another elementary problem: There is no auto-save function. Even worse is that rather than program one in, the game instead warns you before you start that there isn’t an auto-save as if to say: “yeah, we should have put that in but we have your money now so bye!”  

"Crap! We spend all our time and money on these really cool pictures..."

Also, apparently button-prompts for the game are only for the PS4 controller. As of yet, there is no way to get the PS4 controller working on the PC – and there is no need to get it working because everyone just uses an XBOX 360 or an XBONE controller to play PC games with controller-support these days. All Double Fine needed to do was replace a couple of JPEG files, but I guess they ran out of coffee and decided to call it a day. Oh, and apparently if you use a controller then Manny doesn’t do that thing where he looks at an object he can interact with – which was an essential mechanic needed to solve all the puzzles.

I personally can tell it’s a dodgy port because this is a game made in 1998 and it requires OpenGL 3.3 to run. The only reason why it needs OpenGL 3.3 is because that’s what the PS4 uses. I didn’t check to see if my computer could run it because I assumed that a game from 1998 with a few upgrades to lighting and character models wouldn’t require the same technology needed to run Far Cry 4. My laptop can run Bioshock Infinite, but it cannot run Grim Fandango. I can run a heavily-modded version of System Shock 2 (from 1999) with impressive updates to character models, textures, and lighting – yet I can’t run a similarly modded version of a game that's one year older. This is perhaps the best sign of a terrible, terrible port.

So, if you can run Grim Fandango – then good for you. I hope you like it. I, on the other hand, can’t and so instead of playing it, enjoying it, and writing a review for it I’m going to lie down in an attempt to quell this raging headache. 

(Oh, and there's still going to be a review Monday. I have a backup planned...)

"Day Of The Tentacle will only run in DirectX 3000"