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For anyone that never got a chance to play the Tex Murphy games, GOG.com has just released Mean Streets and Martian Memorandum, bundled for $5.99 and the much-loved Under a Killing Moon for a mere $9.99. The Pandora Directive and Tex Murphy: Overseer (which is a re-vamped Mean Streets) are in the pipe-line for a later release.
I remember playing Martian Memorandum (with its millions of 3.5 diskettes) and getting stuck - this was before the Internet and I couldn't afford the by-the-minute fees to call the hint line - and never finished it. I adored UaKM and Pandora Directive. I still have the entire series in my collection but haven't attempted to play them in XP. Maybe I'll finally get around to finishing MM now that it's available and I won't have to swap disks!
*edit - because I can't spell
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Tex Murphy. I loved those games so much, esp. the much lauded Pandora Directive and Under a Killing Moon. They were so cheesy yet endearing in that they were hardboiled detective games that never pretended to be anything more than what they actually were.
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Back then I was never able to get Under a Killing Moon to play well on my old machine (a 486 66, if I recall), so I sadly missed out on the whole series. Maybe I''ll check them out now!
How is GOG, by the way? I know they have tons of titles, but does everything work? Are things optimized for modern PCs? Is it worth it?
And why does my avatar still appear as Radioactive Red Wings when I changed it in shame back to my normal Somber Blue Radiation Symbol?
Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
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Steerpike said:
How is GOG, by the way? I know they have tons of titles, but does everything work? Are things optimized for modern PCs? Is it worth it?
Every game I've picked up from them so far (6+) has worked just fine on my XP machine. I suspect that I'll be getting these ones, too, since I never got a chance to play them "back when".
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May I suggest Freespace 2? I found it to be an amazing game, but then, I'll spend 200 hours trying to shave off a second in a race car. It's a classic that still defines how flying in space ought to feel. It also was an amazing technical achievement, with the original game working on every platform I've had since 1999. Volition also released the source code to the community allowing people to bring the graphics up to today's standards and to start a number of full conversion projects:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....de_Project
I think I'm going to give gog a try for maybe Hitman and Fallout 2 once the sawdust settles.
Steerpike, you just have to clear your cache. Your avatar looks fine to me.
My Dark Souls single player sensibilities are protected by a +10 GfWL Firewall of Ineptitude
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I love the Tex Murphy games, and The Pandora Directive is a favorite of the Little One and me. I merged all 6 CD's into a single DVD, and we play it under DOSBox on my MacBook Pro. (Except that today, she felt like playing Escape from Monkey Island, and I, only having slept for 4½ hours last night, fell asleep.)
-TimK
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Tex Murphy games were the best. I wish there was an adventure game available today that was so enjoyable. Loved the humor. I've pretty much given up on adventure games.[Image Can Not Be Found]
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I'm right there with you Pokey. The majority of the adventure games that get pumped out today are all about the graphics. Yes, they're exceptionally pretty - and I'm a self-proclaimed graphics whore - but pretty alone does not a game make. New adv games are so devoid of any kind of life or fun. I played the demo for the follow-up to Secret Files: Tunguska (which I liked except for that stupid cigarette hunt) and nearly wept at the awful voice work of the main character and how lifeless the game felt.
The same thing happened with the demo for Still Life 2 (I adored the original - except for the lockpick puzzle) good heavens what a stinker! - no chance I'm installing that load o' crap on my machine. [Image Can Not Be Found]
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Still Life 2 is bad too? [Image Can Not Be Found] I remembering liking the original and had hopes for the sequel. Tunguska was pretty good too. You think they are really that bad or are we just getting more critical? I wonder if we replayed some of the adventures we liked ten years ago, would they not look as good today? I'm glad that I still have some good RPGs and action games I can look forward to.
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Odd that you would mention that Pokey. I'm playing the first Broken Sword adventure game and am totally swept away. Swept away from the Fallout expansion I was playing, and interested in a video game for the first time in a month. I never played this game before so it's not a replay technically. No one is more surprised than me but I guess I would answer “yes” the old games are still good. I think it matters more what my mood is than anything. Suddenly, in the middle of 2009, I can't bear to face another “twitch” or roleplaying game. Color me puzzled.
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Scout, I think you may have hit on something regarding mood - I'm just finishing up the iPhone review for Return to Mysterious Island and I had a good time with the game. Oddly enough, I remember playing the PC version back in 2005 and it annoyed the hell outta me. I played the PC version again this go round to compare/contrast with the new version and for the life of me, I can't figure out nor remember why the game annoyed me so much back then. Maybe I'd reached my saturation point with adventures at that time? Or it was too cold in my apartment or my cranky pants were on too tight? Who knows.
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Scout, I agree, Broken Sword: Circle of Blood is one of the really good old games. Great that you are discovering it. I'd rank it up there with the Tex Murphy adventures.
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I just happened to be reading a top 20 list over at Adventure Gamer for some reason that mentioned the Pandora Directive. I never played any of the Tex Murphy games when they came out, but I remember my curious little brain being blown away by the sheer unabashed interactive movieness of Under a Killing Moon. After a bit of snooping I found the GOG site and, 9.99 at this point, I thought, well that's perfectly fine.
The game runs just fine in Windows Vista 64-bit... absolutely no problems... a part of me almost wishes for some realism in getting these games to work... making a boot disk, figuring out your CD-ROM, Sound card and resolution settings was always one of the most important parts of any initial run through ritual in DOS for me.
But that's only a samll part of me.
I understand that, in some respects, the video on this game is fairly cheesy, acting, costums, set... ahem... design... but after watching the intro, and just a bit of the in game stuff, I'm actually quite impressed. This isn't Oscar worthy for sure, but, in contrast to most "interactive movie" presentations at the time this isn't really that gut churningly awful. In fact, it's actually pretty comendable.
On a totally different note... the much lauded 3D exploration aspect of the game, although poorly implemented in terms of control by today's standards, is really quite intriguing. It's interesting that it hasn't really been expaned too much. This is probably a symptom of the wain in anything to do with adventure games, but I can't help thinking that this type of puzzle solving would be really nice on a more modern engine.
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