Grim Fandango being remastered for PS4 and Vita

[Ben X]

Which I'm glad about.

 

Merus, is your suggestion to pan and scan? If so, yuck!

 

Oops, I meant Mington, obv!

[RubixsQube]

"I don't want people always asking me about Grim Fandango."

[melmer]

[thorn]

Thank god for the preservationist attitude.  This is one game that does not need much changed.  Honestly, I wish they'd keep the tank controls in, but I realize I'm in the minority on that one.

I never minded the tank controls. My issue was with the walkboxes (not sure if that's the right term) that meant you'd occassionally veer off to a side path instead of continuing straight. The example I can remember most clearly was in Rubacava when you come up from the gambling office; if you're running straight ahead you'll accidentally turn right up the stairs to the security station and Carla.

 

I hope they can fix that.

[tabacco]

From the panel, it sounded like it was a requirement that the tank controls stay in as an option, but that they were also working with point and click man to support that.

[lobotomy42]

From the panel, it sounded like it was a requirement that the tank controls stay in as an option, but that they were also working with point and click man to support that.

 

I must have missed that.  Thanks!

[syntheticgerbil]

I never minded the tank controls. My issue was with the walkboxes (not sure if that's the right term) that meant you'd occassionally veer off to a side path instead of continuing straight. The example I can remember most clearly was in Rubacava when you come up from the gambling office; if you're running straight ahead you'll accidentally turn right up the stairs to the security station and Carla.

 

I hope they can fix that.

Yeah, I feel the same way. The second video seemed to insinuate that they were going back to smooth out all of the collision and possibly make it more forgiving? Maybe Manny could not almost completely turn around when you run into a wall as well. Maybe do that stupid looking thing all games do now where the character suddenly starts walking slow when you hit a boundary. All direct control Telltale games seem to do this.

[MrHoatzin]

 

I am LITERALLY hot and bothered by the new Grim Fandango footage

 

LOOK AT THAT CHUNKY INTERFERENCE PATTERN ON MECHE'S FAEC!!

 

:manny:

[syntheticgerbil]

Hahaha, I'm no longer bothered and disturbed by Glottis' jagged teeth!

 

However that trailer could have been wayyyyyyyyyy more exciting to entice people who have not yet played it to give it a try. I mean there's more than enough moments to mash up there.

[thorn]

I'm guessing they've only got the El Marrow stuff finalised so far.

 

The music sounded great, but I've heard the original music so many times that hearing something that was almost the same was actually quite jarring. I suspect the entire game might be like that on the first run-through.

[Marek]

Not necesserily an exciting trailer, but I love how faithful this remastering is going to be. Just seeing Manny in hi-res makes me very happy.

 

Are those background at their original resolution though? I was hoping that had them rendered out at higher res back in the day. Can't tell if the artifacts are part of the video or part of the background images. It'll be great to see the re-encoded cutscenes which were pretty blotchy even at the time of release, but with the uprezed characters the in-game backgrounds now feel grainy in comparison.

 

But whatevs I'm 100% buying this. Haven't replayed Grim in years.

[MrHoatzin]

You're gloriously underexcited by that lighting! Those shadows y'all! Be more excited!

 

Obvs this is a kind of proof teaser, not an exciting romp in new audience recruitment... still, the rendering is way sexier than I hoped for, it really moods it up to 11.

[BigJKO]

That advanced lighting is the best! Holy shit all the little shadow details on the characters! Aaaahh so good and so faithful to the original!! Sold!

[Thrik]

Looks and sounds great. It's so nice that people will be able to (re-)discover such a faithful remaster. There's an entire generation of people who have most likely never played it. I hope the PS4 release draws them in.

I'm a little disappointed that the backgrounds appear to be the original sizes upscaled, but I'm guessing there are technical obstacles to that because Double Fine would surely render out higher-resolution versions if they could. I know that places like Rubacava were one ginormous 3D environment, so there could be any number of things making it difficult to get faithful re-renders of everything, ranging from positioning the camera perfectly to one-off tweaks artists might have made but never saved when doing the original renders.

I did play Grim Fandango on my TV recently though, and it actually looked excellent with anti-aliasing enabled. The backgrounds are still 480p which is DVD quality, and if Double Fine has at least got uncompressed versions of them they should look pretty good.

[MrHoatzin]

I wonder if upresing with some kind of fractal tool and then manually buffing or adding some considered texture—aided by dummy 3D geometry and lighting or not—would be quite good looking without having to rebuild everything from scraps?

[Ben X]

Gameplay:

 

 

I haven't watched it yet because computers

[Udvarnoky]

I'm most looking forward to the uncompressed cutscenes.

 

Do we have any reason to believe that the original voice files were found as well and thus were given a little bit more breathing room?  I honestly don't remember the original game sounding too hampered in that regard, whereas it was very much an issue with Escape from Monkey Island.

[Cordeos]

I am more than a little sad that we no longer live in an era where a large game company would make something like a Day of the Dead art style Noir themed puzzle game with a jazz soundtrack. At least we get remakes.

[Udvarnoky]

I think it was considered pretty gonzo at the time as well.  The justification for pumping so much money into it from LucasArts' perspective was that it was meant to be their big investment in the 3D frontier.  I think, for instance, that they were touting ILM's involvement in the press the same way they were doing it for Star Wars 1313 (and insinuating that it was this novel collaboration).

 

"Loss leader" is not the appropriate term, since LEC was not expecting this to be a loss and in fact it made a modest profit long-term, but I would suspect that a significant amount of the R&D that went into making Grim was utilized in some form or another by a lot of subsequent games, adventure and otherwise.

[Salacious Snake]

I am once again stoked to the max. Frothing demand, etc.

[Jayel]

I guess it was too much to expect for widescreen conversion, seeing as how they probably don't have the original assets anymore... But 4:3 does have that noir-ish feel (or films of that era) so I don't think I mind it too much. I'm pretty psyched. This, and DOTT, and Thimbleweed Park, it's like christmas.

[syntheticgerbil]

Oh god, commentary! Yesssssss!

 

Also why would you want to switch to the original version in this? It's the same art just no lighting and low res.

[Udvarnoky]

I don't know, but I appreciate that they're erring on the side of pandering to purists.  Having a version of the game exactly as it played in 1998 available is just good form, especially since this functions as a re-release.

[thorn]

Well, dang. I'd gotten my wishful, hopeful hopes up that Disney allowing this game to be remastered might be a sign that their film that currently has the working title 'The Untitled Pixar Movie About Dia de los Muertos' might actually have been a film adaptation of Grim Fandango. Sadly, it's described as being "wholly original" and the art doesn't match.

[syntheticgerbil]

Oh my god, I don't want Pixar or Disney or whatever bland Calarts pumped studio to ever touch this game.