The Big LucasArts Playthrough

[Zeusthecat]

One a bit more specific than bkbroiler's hint:

The axe's weight could be useful for something.

 

Yes, yes it could be useful for something. Some things I've tried with the axe already:

• Dragged it all around the suit of armor and tried repeatedly lifting it near the suit to try to get it to catch on something and make it topple over.
• Dragged it all around the sprinkler area and tried lifting it onto the cases of tickets.
• Dragged it all around Meche and tried lifting it up to see if I could prop it on her head.
• Dragged it all around every crack I could find to see if dragging the pointed part of the axe through a crack would reveal something secret.
• Dragged it all around the sprinkler valve and tried lifting it up to see if it could rest on the valve or break it off or something.
• Dragged it all around the vault door and tried lifting it up to the door contact or the door itself to see if something would happen.
• Layed it on the floor near the cases and tried using my scythe and Bust All with it to see if I could create sparks and set the cases on fire.
• Tried lifting it several times in a row to see if it Manny would eventually get strong enough to lift it all the way up Maniac Mansion style.
• Stared longingly at the axe for 5 minutes straight and then curled up into a ball and sobbed uncontrollably.

[Thrik]

Haha, oh boy. OK, here is THE ONE if you're truly ready for that tantalisingly juicy answer:

Use it to smash open the drain in the middle of the room by having Manny pick it up.

[Zeusthecat]

Haha, oh boy. OK, here is THE ONE if you're truly ready for that tantalisingly juicy answer:

Use it to smash open the drain in the middle of the room by having Manny pick it up.

 

THERE'S A FUCKING DRAIN?!?!?! And here I thought when the water drained it was just seeping through the cracks between the floor tiles or something.

[Thrik]

Haha, yeah it is a bastard. You have to watch where the water goes. Another one of those wonderful 'for fuck's sake' Grim Fandango puzzles.

[Zeusthecat]

Man, I'm honestly surprised I didn't at least get it by accident at this point. I dropped that axe in quite a few locations. This is the first puzzle in the game that I feel is kind of a load of shit.

[bkbroiler]

I don't think that puzzle is as bad as some of the others in the game (like the TUMBLER ONE!!! or kitty hat day, which I think is just not clear), but I do think they could have clarified the draining visually (is there a wet spot where the drain is after you've used the water?) or even had Manny say "Looks like the water is all going to the center of the room." 

[Udvarnoky]

The tumbler puzzle counts as a gear puzzle in my book, and the decision to include gear puzzles in your game legally entitles me to bisect your thorax with a trenching spade.

The issue with a puzzle like that is that you can understand exactly what you're suppose to do (align the cylinders) but struggle to pull it off for reasons that have squadoosh to do with actual, you know, puzzle-solving. I like to think Tim would find it unacceptable to do today.

Only kind of relevant and it's not an adventure game, but I remember when Resident Evil 4 came out, and I'm enjoying it and then at some point the game decided to present me with a sliding tile puzzle. I almost swallowed the DVD in my white-hit contempt and never finished the game.

[Udvarnoky]

Capcom went bankrupt a day later.

[Thrik]

The water draining puzzle is another one that I like because it's SO obvious in hindsight. The red herring vent on the ceiling that the game goes to great lengths to point out serves its purpose wonderfully. Maybe I'm just a fan of these asshole puzzles because it's been so many years since I myself faced being utterly stuck on them for hours.

The gears one is shit though, probably the worst puzzle in the game simply because it's a total pain in the ass for me to get the movements right no matter how many times I've completed the game (about six). I used a PS3 pad last time I played — which incidentally really does feel like the way this game was meant to be played — and it doesn't even moderate the movements depending on the angle of the analogue stick, making it even harder.

[mikemariano]

I started Year Three yesterday and had to come back to this thread for a spoiler hint.  I spent 40 minutes watching Chepito walk around in a circle. *angry tomato*

[mikemariano]

I completed Year Three last night.

 

I'm using Residual to play the game since I'm on a Mac, and ran into a few hard crashes during a few of the cutscenes, all involving Domino's office.  So I had no idea what was going on for part of Year Three.

[Patrick R]

I never did finish the game because I couldn't get the tumbler to work right. I wonder how it ends.

[Zeusthecat]

Weirdly,I had no issues with the tumbler puzzle. Once I drilled the cover off the solution seemed pretty straightforward and lining up the tumblers properly only took a couple attempts. For me, it was a perfectly reasonable puzzle although maybe just a bit finicky with how lightly you had to tap the keys to make sure the tumblers didn't go past the desired threshold.

More on my latest progress (I've been crazy busy and have had to sit on this for several days now so my apologies if I forget some details). Thanks to Thrik's direct hint, I was able to escape from the vault which then kicked off a scene where we all escaped from the island and then had a showdown with Domino. After a brief scythe fight, I poked the eye thing on his submarine which caused it to veer off course and ultimately caused Domino to get crushed by the grinding wheels that Glottis had fixed to our ship. With him gone, year three finally came to a close. And regarding the vault puzzle, I think that is my least favorite puzzle in the game so far. My main problem with it is that I feel like it was bullshit that the drain was not visually discernible and that it wasn't something Manny noticed up front. Drains are pretty fucking easy to spot and I don't see any logical reason why you would need to watch how the water drains to figure out where it was.

After another year had passed, we finally found ourselves at the end of our journey. Unfortunately when we reached the final area, nobody was able to leave the land of the dead yet since their tickets had all been stolen by Hector and his cronies. And to make matters worse, Glottis was in really bad shape and was fading fast because he had gone so long without driving. Due to these circumstances, I was not yet able to leave the land of the dead and instead I started exploring the areas available to me to try to figure out what my options were. As I went through each room, I ended up running into Chepito and was able to bid him farewell as he made his glorious exit. I then made my way down a series of stairs where I found the coffin from the first year with the dude I had packed inside. After I got him out, he took off, leaving behind a mug full of packing foam which I was able to pick up. From here, the only other place left to investigate was the garage where Glottis was being cared for.

Once in the garage, I found that the only items of significance seemed to be a drum of oil, a mug rack, a toaster, and some rags. So I started by immediately dunking the rag in oil, then putting it in the toaster and turning it on. This sparked a fire and caused a mini-Glottis to come in and put the fire out. After seeing that, I did the next most obvious thing and put the mug full of foam on the mug rack before repeating the process. This time, two mini-Glottises came in and when they saw how the packing foam in the mug reacted to the fire, they realized that the packing foam would make an excellent substitute for rocket fuel and were able to rig up a rocket powered train using the rest of the packing foam from the coffins near the entrance. Glottis was then strapped to the top of the train and we (Manny, Meche and Glottis) took off for El Marrow.

As we sped along the track, Glottis eventually recovered and then freaked out, causing the train to crash near Rubacava. Luckily, the bone wagon was still in the garage in Rubacava but had been rigged with a rube goldberg domino explosive device. So we just needed to figure out a way to get the vehicle out of the garage without setting off the bomb. I started combing through the areas at this point and quickly found that I could pick up the ship in a bottle down at the docks after the dockmaster had taken off. I then went down to the Blue Casket and ran into Olivia, who decided that she wanted to join us when she learned what we were doing. Before leaving the Blue Casket, I went into the back room and was able to fill my bottle up with some kind of jelly or gelatin like substance. I then made my way back down to Meche and Glottis and was able to give the bottle to Glottis, which he drank and then got all sick and threw up all over the rube goldberg bomb device (I'm pretty sure he ended up downing the entire barrel after drinking that bottle but my memory is a bit fuzzy on exactly how that played out). From here, I had no choice but to explore a little bit more and before long, I ended up finding a bottle of liquid nitrogen in a cabinet at the tattoo guy's place. Once I had that I went back over to the garage and was able to use the liquid nitrogen to freeze the puke which effectively disabled the rube goldberg device. With the bone wagon back in action, we took off for El Marrow.

Before long we ended up running into our old friend Sal, who had amassed quite an impressive number of freedom fighters to take on the corruption in El Marrow. After joining them in their secret hideout, we learned more about what had been going on and came up with a plan to try to recruit Hector's botanist guy into our cause. I spent some time exploring after this and discovered that I would need to obtain some kind of disguise if I wanted to be able to move around the city safely without being noticed. There were a couple of dudes in costumes in one of the rooms and my assumption is that I will somehow need to get one of their costumes to continue on. And this is about where I stopped.

[Zeusthecat]

I played a bit more last night but didn't get too much further. I was able to give the note I had received from Hector earlier to one of the carrier pigeons who then took it over to the botanist guy. The carrier pigeon ended up getting taken out by some other weird looking bird but the letter was still given to the botanist who then took off, fearing that Hector was coming to sprout him. Afterwards, I tried following after him but he apparently went into a dark tunnel that Manny won't go into until I find some kind of useful object (I'm guessing a flashlight of some kind?). And I've also tried using my items and interacting with each of the vents in this room but all I get is monster roars.

 

So I've probably been stuck at this point for a little over an hour now and I'm still stumped. The two guys in costumes refuse to talk to me and don't seem interested in any of my items, but they at least let me bring them coffee. Same goes for the woman in the dressing room. I'm guessing that I will need to put something in the coffee to knock them out or something so I can steal their costumes. There is also an area above the stage where there appears to be some kind of snow machine so perhaps I might also need to put something in the snow machine for some unknown purpose (perhaps some of that sprouting liquid from the puddle that the botanist left on the ground). I also now have a remote control for the suspension on the bone wagon (which is now parked right below the ceiling hatches that the botanist escaped through) but raising and lowering it doesn't seem to do anything and I can't use any of my items with it. The only other area is the one with Eva and since I've already gone through the part with the carrier pigeon, there doesn't seem to be anything else I can do here with what I currently have.

[mikemariano]

Have you looked at the soldier's body?

[Ben X]

I doubt he'll read that, Mike.

 

What inventory items have you got at the moment, Zeus?

[Zeusthecat]

I have an arm from the dude that was saved from sprouting, a photograph, a vial of liquid nitrogen, a handheld grinder, the remote control for the bone wagon's suspension, and my scythe.

[mikemariano]

I just finished the game tonight.  Still so good.

 

Credits reveal: Grim Fandango reuses music from Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe?  I would never be able to identify where or what is used.  Maybe the music sting when you see the airship?

[bkbroiler]

I hope you're keeping that scythe next to where your heart used to be. 

[Thrik]

I just finished the game tonight. Still so good.

Credits reveal: Grim Fandango reuses music from Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe? I would never be able to identify where or what is used. Maybe the music sting when you see the airship?

Bingo.

[Zeusthecat]

Grim Fandango completed! In the end, I ended up using a few hints throughout the game: 2 in the petrified forest area and 1 for the vault in year 3. I'm not sure how long my playthrough took since ResidualVM doesn't seem to have that information but I think it was somewhere between 25-30 hours.

 

After wandering around trying to figure out what to do for a while longer, I eventually found myself back in the backstage area with the two dudes in costumes. On a whim, I decided to pick up the coffee again and attempted to leave the room which Manny said he couldn't do because the ladder was too long for him to go down while carrying the coffee. After seeing that response, I decided to try going up the ladder behind the two dudes and was surprised to see that Manny was able to make it to the top with the coffee pot in hand. From there I poured some coffee onto one of the dudes below who then freaked out and left with the other dude in tow. With them gone, I was finally able to procure a costume from the lady in the dressing room and I then headed for the casino.

 

Inside the casino, I found the soldier guy who had been chopped in half running some kind of slot machine scam and at the slot machines adjacent to him were Chowchilla Charlie and Meche. When I spoke with Meche and revealed who I was, she handed me a bed sheet to throw over Chowchilla Charlie's head. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with this situation but after a few attempts, I tried talking to the soldier guy while the sheet was over Charlie's head and he was able to rig Charlie's slot machine to spit out a bunch of money. When Charlie saw this, he was convinced that his system had worked and finally agreed to leave with Meche. Before they left, he changed into his 'toga' in the bathroom and I was then able to go in and change into his suit (the demon at the front door wouldn't let me see Hector unless I was dressed more appropriately). With the suit and disguise all sorted out, all I had left was to figure out how to get a gun from the botanist.

 

After exiting the casino, I decided to go back to the backstage area because I realized I hadn't tried using all of my items with the snow maker above the stage. Sure enough, once I got up there I found that I was able to place the grinder on the snow maker and then put the soldier dude's arm into the grinder. There didn't seem to be anything else I could do beyond that so I picked up my new bone grinder and headed over to the bone wagon to see if I could grind some bone into the green puddle. After a bit of grinding, I found a spot where some little green sprouts shot up and as I continued, I was able to reveal the path that the botanist took into the tunnels since he had left a trail of sprouting liquid. With the trail visible, we drove the bone wagon into the tunnels and eventually came to the botanist's hideout. Before we could make it to the hideout however, the alligator monster confronted us and I was forced to find a way around. This didn't take long as I soon realized that I could raise the suspension on the bone wagon to get up to an elevated walkway which I then walked down until I got to a ladder on the other end that went back down to ground level. Upon mounting the ladder, the alligator monster turned to look at me and, after trying a few things, I discovered that I could lower the bone wagon onto the monster's tail, pinning him in place. I was then able to enter the botanist's shop but couldn't get through to him because he was completely terrified and incoherent and wouldn't listen to what I had to say. After a few minutes I found that I was able to pull something off the wall to reveal a door bell, which pissed the botanist off and caused him to kick me out. So I went right back in and thanks to the door jingle from the bell, the botanist snapped out of his hysteria and calmly gave me a gun and some ammo as if I was just some random customer in his shop. Now that I finally had a gun, I headed over to confront Hector.

 

Even though I was now dressed appropriately and had a gun, the demon guarding the door to Hector's office still wouldn't let me through until I answered a random question correctly. So I made a few attempts and then noticed that there was a board of numbers behind me that seemed to add a number around the time he would ask a question. After noticing that, I just answered his question with the latest number that had been added to the board and he finally let me through. In the next area, I found a dude I had met earlier in the game with his wife. They were contemplating taking Hector up on some kind of offer he had proposed to them so I stepped in and used my mad salesman skills to convince them to do what Hector wanted. Once inside, they mentioned how helpful I had been which prompted Hector to come out and offer me a job. Clueless as to who I really was, he brought me back to my old office and handed me my old reaper outfit so I could get started. He then turned away from me for a few seconds and then turned back to see me pointing a gun at him. At this point he had finally realized what was going on but unfortunately, before I could shoot him one of his dumb birds flew through the window and distracted me just long enough for Hector to escape through the window and down a big neon lady's leg to an adjacent building before falling to the ground below.

 

I followed after Hector but he had broken the neon lady's leg in his attempt to escape so I was forced to climb up to the roof to find another way across. Luckily, there was some cracked cement near a gargoyle that was supporting the neon lady and after pouring in a little bit of sprouting material, the cement crumbled away, causing the neon lady to fall over. This left a path across to the adjacent building and once I made my way across, I found the suitcase full of tickets that Hector had dropped during his escape. This kicked off a scene where Meche tried to escape to the train with the case of tickets but was thwarted by another one of Hector's bird creatures. Manny managed to get the case back right as Olivia pulled up and he then jumped in the car to escape before the bird creature could come at him again. Unfortunately, it was a setup and after I saw that Sal had been reduced to nothing more than a talking head, Olivia revealed that she was actually Hector's girlfriend and was working for him all along. 

 

Eventually, Olivia pulled up to an area with a greenhouse on top of a small hill with fields of flowers all around. At this point I was unarmed and had no choice but to go talk to Hector who was waiting for me in the greenhouse. So I went inside and after a brief exchange, I was shot with a slow growing sprout and stumbled out of the greenhouse before collapsing in the field nearby. After I realized that I couldn't move or do much of anything else, I looked in my inventory and saw that I still had the vial of liquid nitrogen from earlier. With no other options available, I tried using the liquid nitrogen on the sprout that was growing out of my chest and luckily, it completely stopped the growth and I was able to remove it from my chest.

 

After narrowly escaping the sprout, I returned to the car and noticed that I was able to talk to Sal's head since Olivia was distracted going through the case of tickets. He revealed that the key to the trunk of the car was with his body behind the greenhouse and that if I could find it, there was a gun in the trunk that I could use against Hector. He also told me that he had a special sprout tooth but before he could say much more, Olivia overheard us and snatched his head out of the car. She asked what we were up to and in a final act of valor, Sal bit down on his tooth, exploding in a bouquet of flowers and shooting sprouts into Olivia's face. She then stumbled off leaving me free to prepare for my face off against Hector.

 

Before doing anything else, I decided to check out the case of tickets and saw Sal's ticket fly out and go directly towards his remains. Seeing that it was drawn to him, I picked the ticket up and headed for the area behind the greenhouse. Thanks to the ticket, it didn't take long to find Sal's body and once I had the key, I went back to the car and grabbed the gun out of the back. Then I went straight back towards the greenhouse to confront Hector. Unfortunately, Manny refused to go inside the greenhouse for fear that Hector would have the upper hand so instead I started firing shots through the windows. After a few shots back and forth I realized that Hector was never going to run out of ammo and decided to venture around a little bit to see if there was another way I could get him. As I walked around I eventually came upon a big water tank that was feeding water to the entire area and, since there didn't seem to be any better solution available to me, I shot a few rounds into the walls of the water tank. This infused the water with the sprouting material which was then dispersed in the greenhouse, turning Hector into a blob of flowers. This concluded the game and after Manny said his farewells to Glottis, him and Meche boarded the train and the credits rolled.

 

So this game was pretty damn outstanding. The music, story, characters, voice acting, and puzzle design were all top notch and they all came together for an amazing experience. I thoroughly enjoyed all of it and the subpar controls didn't really have any negative impact on the game for me. Above all else though, the story and lore in this game were some of the best I've experienced in a video game. I had no idea what to expect going in and I am just floored by how well thought out and well realized everything ended up being. So bravo Grim Fandango, you were a good fucking game.

[Zeusthecat]

And as a follow up, I started searching for Escape From Monkey Island but so far the only thing I've been able to find is an iso image for the PS2 version of the game. So I guess I'll either have to run a PS2 emulator to play it or find a used copy on Amazon. 

[bkbroiler]

Glad you liked it! I agree with you, the world and lore and atmosphere of the game are all incredible. There are so many little touches, and I love the vast backstory (Manny's past, the land of the dead, the nine underworlds, etc). When I was a kid I wanted to grow up and work in Manny's office in Year One. What a naive young lad I was.

 

The story and characters can't be beaten, either. I cried when I finished the game for the first time. It's such a bittersweet, hopeful, beatiful ending. And the end music still gives me chills.

 

It's gonna be a hard turn to Escape From Monkey Island, though. Not that it's a completely godawful game, but it's definitely no Grim Fandango.

[syntheticgerbil]

I'm glad you liked Grim Fandango in the end. I got the feeling from your messages that you weren't having a good time, suppose I was reading it wrong.

 

I'd recommend the PS2 version of Monkey 4 with the PS2/PS3 gamepad if you can though.

[Zeusthecat]

I'm glad you liked Grim Fandango in the end. I got the feeling from your messages that you weren't having a good time, suppose I was reading it wrong.

 

I'd recommend the PS2 version of Monkey 4 with the PS2/PS3 gamepad if you can though.

 

No, I was definitely having a good time through and through. Just a few parts where I got a little frustrated when I was stuck.