If you hurry you can play the first installment of American McGee's Grimm:A Boy Learns What Fear is for free today (31 July) on Gametap. If this day has passed you will need a Gametap gold account to play this game as it is currently a Gametap exclusive.
The game takes about 30 mins to play through (watching all cut scenes) and it took me 23.46 minutes (gameplay) to complete, the game is designed to be like a TV show. With episodes coming out pretty frequently and they will be free on the day of release. After that day you will require a gold account to play the game. The idea being that you will get into the game and hopefully miss so you will have to get a subscription (or want to play through again which is unlikely).
Now onto the actual game, firstly you will watch the fairy tale which in this case is about a boy leaving home in search of find out about fear and he ends up riding into a castle of ghosts and getting a girl. Grimm who doesn't like happy stories then has to go in and darken it up a bit so you then play through the story by controlling Grimm with 'wasd+spacebar' key or mouse and darken the place up a bit by wait for it, walking around as he has a dark aura which changes the landscape around you from happy to dark.
So goal is to fill a bar which is located at the top of screen to correct level of darkness and butt stomp things to progress. It also has a few jumps to get through the game. Its a not a particularly deep game and its lucky that the game is so short for it would get boring pretty quickly. Its also not a very difficult game for there are very few obstacles which can kill you and even then they only set you back to where you missed the jump and there are cleaners who are supposed to prevent you darkening the place but they really don't pose a threat. There is also no puzzles without a guiding arrow, always there to tell you what to do.
Your properly thinking then what the point of this game? Well i would say its a game of cheap laughs for example you darken a swing set in children playground and it then has children hanging from it, these provide a quick laugh but nothing more. Also when you leave your character standing still he will pee which can be used to aim jumps this is about as deep as the game gets. Once you complete the game you get to watch a darken version of fairy tale which was mildly entertaining but i think they could have taken the dark theme of this game a lot further.
I would say its hard to give the game a fair review for as it is episodic they may add new functionality and make the game more exciting to keep you coming back for more installments but judging the first episode on its own it not that impressive and i hope they take theme further. The next installment so if you missed this one i wouldn't run out to get gold account but wait to try next one on 7th or August 08
Graphics: 6/10 - its cartoony looks don't try to be impressive (and they are not) but it looks good and goes with the theme of game quite well
Gameplay: 3/10 - needs more functionality
Entertainment : 4/10 - cheap laughs
Total score: 4/10 - for the first episode only, the series still has hope
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