Episodic content in gaming has started to pop up more recently in the past year with the advent of digital distribution services (Steam, iTunes, Xbox LIVE), and with the steady rise to cost of development, this method has proven successful  for the most part, but not without its share of flops. One of the main advantages of this model is the very low cost to developers, along with the decreased risk for us consumers who constantly shell out money for what’s on average, a $60 8 hour game. It’s simple, effective, and becoming the new hot thing next to achievements.

You may have heard of American McGee – you know, the guy who worked on gems such as Doom, Doom 2, Quake, and Quake 2 (I took that from Wikipedia, if you must know). After that, Mr. McGee moved on to make Alice, his stand-out title, garnering some rep for himself. Unfortunately, that’s about as good as it gets. Soon after, American went on to make a couple more titles: Scrapland, which got fairly decent scoring (this could be because Xbox owners really had nothing else to play), and quickly hit rock bottom with Bad Day L.A.

So now, American is living in Shanghai, working with a new company called Spicy Horse, and with a partnership with digital service GameTap, is creating a series of 24 episodic games based off of children’s tales by The Brothers Grimm. How it works is that each week, a new episode will be released, and available for play [ FREE OF CHARGE ] for the first 24 hours, but after that, you gotta pay up by either being Gametap subscriber, or buying it through the website. The first episode, which this article is about, will be free all the time, allowing you to see just what this series is about. So it’s like, even if you didn’t read any of this article, you can still go on there and try the game yourself anyway. Hell, if you keep up on the series, you don’t have to pay a single cent.

In GRIMM, you play as an ugly short troll named Grimm (I know, right), who is basically disgusted with how cute and innocent these tales are, so he decides to go in and rewrite them by making them all nasty and creepy and all of that. In the first episode, A Boy Learns What Fear Is, Grimm gives us his take on the old tale by the much longer name - The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, and yes that is the full title. In the original story, the boy who sets out to learn about fear, only to discover it by getting cold water thrown on him and he then learns to shudder, which is apparently fear. Grimm is disgusted by this cutesy poof story, so he’s just like “let’s show him some real fear” and does his thing.

GRIMM plays like a casual take on Katamari Damacy, that series on console where you roll around the ball and pick up things, eventually growing bigger and picking up bigger things around you. The game is split up into different chapters, about 6 or so, each taking place in a different setting of the original story. Grimm jumps in, and tells you to make something “Stinky” or “Nasty”, and off you go. As you walk around, the world around Grimm changes to a more darker setting, and as you cover the area, your meter grows and eventually you can start transforming the bigger pieces, like trees and houses. Sound familiar? While this is going on though, some characters will clean up your mess, and make your meter drop. You can prevent this by butt-stomping, Grimm’s form of attack, which paralyzes them for a short period. Eventually though, you’ll be able to transform them completely and stop them from ruining your spree.

Each level takes about 5 minutes to complete, and none of them provide no ounce of challenge at all. There’s no time limits, no danger, enemies, anything. You just walk around and transform the level, maybe hopping over some pitfalls here and there. There’s some secret coins hidden in the levels too, and you can unlock some sort of art gallery if you find them all. Leaderboards are available online, so you can see how you rank among players on how fast you can complete levels. I dunno, there’s really not much to say.

The graphics are apparently from the Unreal 3 Engine – you know, what games like Gears of War, Mass Effect, and BioShock use – but when you actually play the game, you’ll really start to second guess it, because it certainly looks more Unreal 2 than 3. But the art style is pretty nice, the story is presented as a marionette show from the old days, and the entire world is transformed from light to dark on the fly. The game requires some more recent specs, which lends to the Unreal Engine 3 claim, but it runs without a hitch at a smooth rate (at least on my box, anyway).

American McGee’s GRIMM can be looked at more of a distraction than an actual game. There’s no sense of challenge or accomplishment, but I suppose it’s worth a look to waste some minutes while dinner is being made, or something. I mean, it’s free, you know? What do you really have to lose. Look at it this way: It’s better than Bad Day L.A. at least. If GRIMM doesn’t do anything for you, you can always load up some Fallout on the Gametap service and play that instead, unless you’re on Vista - then it’s a different story altogether.

Check out American McGee’s GRIMM on GameTap @ http://www.gametap.com/grimm/

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