This game is simply awe-inspiring. It uses its consistently excellent plot to hold you, while it presents fiendishly difficult puzzles for you to solve. The game felt immensely satisfying both intellectually and aesthetically.
The story follows Manny Calavera in his four year journey of the soul through the land of the dead, as he searches for a woman he believes that he cheated. There are classic themes of corruption, redemption, love, betrayal, karma, and others. The story has a profound sadness to it, lamenting for time, love, and opportunities stolen by injustice and greed. At the same time, the game never loses its sense of hope, and never loses its razor-sharp wit. In short, this plot is as good as many of the movies out there.
As for the puzzles, they are extremely challenging. If you have played Lucas Arts adventure games before, you would know the formula. Basically, it consists of this:
1) You cannot possibly lose the game
2) There is no general time limit, or indeed, general progression of time at all
3) You are given a general, limited area in which to find items and to solve puzzles necessary to advance the game
This particular game seems to require you to find comparatively few items (compared to the other Lucas Arts games I've played), and relies more on the clever use of your surroundings in order to solve a puzzle. Most of the time, I found I had all the tools I needed to solve the puzzle on hand, which was very useful. The puzzles are still difficult enough to keep you entertained for hours.
The only flaw I found was the control system, which was clunky and irritating at first, but the environments become easier to navigate and I stopped noticing. Despite the obvious flaw, I found it hard to justify deducting a star from the overall rating. The game was really that good.
