![]() ![]() ( Additional Side Note: I… am not a proud man.) ( Side Note: Of course, intrepid gamers who didn’t want to admit that they were stuck would save their game, switch to Entertainment mode, look up the hint they needed, then reload their Gamer-mode save. The Tex Murphy games also let you pick between Gamer and Entertainment play levels–choosing Gamer meant slightly harder (and more) puzzles, and it locked out the (brilliant) in-game help system, which basically was a mix of Infocom’s old Invisiclues hint books and a strategy guide. ( Side Note: Yes, there are slider puzzles. ![]() Some of these are codes, or anagrams, or symbol matching, or logic puzzles, or even a crossword–it’s a startling variety of stuff, and none of them are too mind-bendingly difficult, but they do present a nice way to break up the gameplay here and there. In between roaming whatever location you’re exploring and combining fishing poles with magnets and wire to get the clipboard off the desk from behind a window (look, it’s a mid-’90s adventure game, these things are gonna happen), you’ll happen across the odd puzzle. I cannot overstate how awesome the first-person detective game was back in the day and how much I still love these games even now. It puts you in the (gum)shoes of Tex and lets YOU do the hunting for clues and objects. Sometimes, you’ll be under the gun and have to deftly avoid laser tripwires, sentry robots, or Men in Black in real time. Which means, instead of just looking for the oddly-colored pixel to click in a room, you’ll have to stand up, crawl under desks, open drawers, search in corners and behind potted plants for the oddly-colored pixel to click. You’re thinking “So far, so generic PC adventure game,” right?īut the secret sauce here is that, in a deviation from the traditional “click here to move” scheme of other adventure games of the time, moving around in the Tex series switches to a first-person 3D free-roam view. You’ll visit other locations as well, and have conversations with Special Guest Stars, B-List celebrities, and even a few bona fide actors. You’ll wander Chandler Avenue and its assorted buildings looking for clues, combining things in your inventory, solving puzzles and chatting up the neighborhood. There’s Always Room for a Little More.īut really, the key to why these games are looked upon more fondly than most other FMV games of the time is that the game itself is solid, underneath all the fancy video clips. It’s a great way of making the laughs land harder and unexpectedly, and it’s easily worth replaying the games just to see all the dialogue play out.)ĭanger’s like Jell-O. ( Side Note: One of the great things about the conversations in these games is that you choose a response, but you don’t know exactly what’s going to come out of Tex’s mouth. He’s self-deprecating, noble, despicable, earthy, and funny–depending on which responses you choose in conversations to the other characters. Tex himself is a hard-luck case with a knack for getting in over his head, tripping over his own feet, and delivering narration and one-liners like it’s what he was born to do. Which is to say: these games are plot-heavy, story-driven, and are about ⅓ exploration, ⅓ traditional point-and-click/inventory puzzles, and ⅓ conversations. (see what they did there?), Tex and his neighborhood buddies (almost all of whom are indelible characters in their own right) will solve mysteries, chat about nearly everything, and engage in some old-fashioned sleuthing. The war had the dual effects of creating a new subclass of society in the deformed mutant population and reducing most places to what can charitably be described as “rubble.” From his office apartment on Chandler St. stuck in San Francisco after a nuclear war has irradiated most of the country. Tex (played with increasing ability by series co-creator Chris Jones) is a traditional noir P.I. Today, we’re looking at what might be my favorite series of all time, involving everyone’s favorite post-nuclear-armageddon private eye, Tex Murphy. In most cases, the production of the video got all the budget, and the actual, y’know, game was almost an afterthought.īut! Luckily for young me, the detective genre offered more than a few stone-cold classics in this justly forgotten era. What we got, for the most part, was lousy acting, cheap-looking sets, and subpar gameplay. This was the advent of full motion video (FMV) gaming, and we all looked forward to each new release with bated breath…. It was hard not to see this as the next step forward in gaming immersiveness. In the halcyon days of PC gaming–say, the ’90s–there was a craze that swept the land far and wide, which promised movie-quality experiences combined with interactive storytelling. Access Software, 1989-1998 / Big Finish Games, 2014
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