I just wanted to take a minute to spread the word about a project currently going on that is near and dear to my gamer heart.
One of my favourite genres of games is adventure, and one of my favorite adventure series is the Tex Murphy series. Tex is a Private Investigator in post-apocalyptic San Francisco. The games combine a detective story, film noir-style and science fiction, with engaging puzzles and witty dialogue.
I still remember the first time I discovered the games. It was 1994 and I was in a Radio Shack. I remember seeing the box for Under a Killing Moon and being astounded by the description on the box and the presence of real people in the game (it’s Full Motion Video). I convinced one of my parents to buy it for me, brought the game home and did the 4-disc DOS installation. As soon as I heard James Earl Jones voicing the intro (and quoting Poe!), I was hooked. I played the hell out that game and enjoyed every minute of it. This was the game that made me appreciate noir and cynical characters and fueled my love of video games. When the next two games, The Pandora Directive and Tex Murphy: Overseer, came out in the following years I eagerly played, and replayed, those as well.
Then, after a cliffhanger conclusion to the last game… Tex disappeared. After 1998 no more games were made in the series. It seemed the whole adventure genre sort of faded away after a while.
But now, Tex has a chance to be battle-rezzed. The creators of the series have started a new adventure game company and are planning on making a new Tex Murphy game – but they need help. On May 15th a Kickstarter project started for Project Fedora, looking to raise money to partially fund the new game. So far they’ve raised almost $250,000. The goal is $450,000 and there are 24 days left.
I wanted to spread the word about this for 2 reasons. The selfish reason is that I really want a chance to play a new game from one of my favourite series. The less selfish reason is that I like the idea of supporting independent game developers.
So, if you also love the Tex Murphy series; haven’t played but think they sound fun (you can check out all the previous games at GoG.com); like to support indy developers; or just have a little extra cash burning a hole in your pocket, you should go check out the Kickstarter page. If the new game looks like something you’d want to play, you could pledge $15 (or more) and you’ll get a digital copy of the game when it is released (and warm, fuzzy feelings from knowing that you helped get it made).
. I was going through that quickly and got about 75% through the game, then I lost interest. I realised I was playing pretty much the exact same character as I did the first time (except this time I was a mage. Pew! Pew!). I had wanted to try out some of the other options when the big decisions came, but in most instances, there only seems to be one satisfying way to resolve the problems in the game. I’m a completionist. I’m going to play the way I think will give me the most experience and open up the most content. I will never tell someone to go jump in a lake when they ask me to help find their lost kitten. It’s a quest! It will give me experience and gold! I must find the kitten! I’m also rather attached to all the characters in my party in Dragon Age, I don’t want to do things that will result in them leaving or dying. I find the thought of Alistair (I <3 Alistair) getting killed by the Archdemon or becoming a wandering drunk quite traumatic. Anyway, after realising I was most likely going to finish the game in the exact same way as my first playthrough I stopped playing.
. I have all the DLC, but most of it is unplayed, and I decided to start a brand new game, blow up Megaton and generally be an evil bastard. I played through the intro, left the Vault…and immediately realised I’d rather shoot myself in the foot than play through the whole game again. I quite enjoyed my first playthrough, but the thought of talking to dead-eyed NPCs, trekking through identical sewer maps, getting lost in the Capital and being killed by Giant Radscorpions AGAIN made me turn it off. There are a number of things I like about Fallout. I love the setting. The 50s vibe is great and end of the world scenarios are my favourite. I liked exploring the world – there were so many areas and little outposts to discover. The character customization perks are also a lot of fun. It certainly has its downsides though. For one, the game just screams “Bethesda!” and I can’t help but draw constant comparisons to Elder Scrolls, which I hated. The sewer environments were far too common, repetitive and hard to navigate for my directionally-challenged self. Another thing that bothered me was the sheer amount of crap you could pick up. Really, how many clipboards do I need? Fallout was a lot of fun the first time around, but not something I want to sink another 40+ hours into.
. I’m not a big fan of first person shooters, but I thought I’d try something different and continued the game I had started when it was released. I got in maybe an hour or two of play before putting Borderlands back on the shelf. It’s not a bad game by any stretch. I like the look of it and it’s somewhat cathartic to blast away the bad guys with my SMG, but as I said shooters just aren’t my thing. I like my games to involve a bit more story and a lot more dialogue. Calling Borderlands a “role playing shooter” is a huge stretch. A talent tree does not an rpg make. The game has barely a hint of a narrative and your character…lacks character. I also wasn’t a big fan of how loot-driven it was. There was too much stuff. I spent more time examining stats on guns than I did shooting them.
