It’s the future and San Francisco is shockingly still there; In Tex Murphy: Tesla Effect, you play as a flawed private detective that lives in the mutant end of town. At the start of the game, Tex wakes up from being attacked, with no recollection of the past seven years of his life. Since you’re a detective, you spend the duration of the game trying to piece together why you were attacked, along with trying to figure out what happened to your memory.
The Tex Murphy series of point and click adventure games has been unique in that it combines live action acting with more traditional 3-D graphics and it does a good job. The true test was when I connected my computer to my HDTV with the graphics maxed out and both the cut scenes and the in game game-play held up.
What I especially like, is that the developers were able to take the Noir genre and make it their own; Tex is one of those black and white cigar smoking private detectives that you would have seen on the silver screen decades ago except flipped on his head. It’s great that this game doesn’t take itself too seriously and also doesn’t go overboard on the cheesy.
The storyline is well thought out and goes out of its way to tie up its loose ends which is what I think causes the story to drag on a little. I think I may have been okay with skipping a few more “detective” steps. I enjoy a good adventure game like the next person but at times I felt like I was venturing into tedium. There were a decent amount of puzzles with different themes varying difficulties that could be skipped depending on the setting that you selected on the onset of the game.
Bottom Line: This game is a lot of fun and will elicit a few laughs. I don’t think fans of this franchise will be disappointed with the game at all; I’m sure they’ll enjoy the little nods from past games. The game file is huge so be prepared for that, but I think it’s worth it. The game is long; you definitely get your money’s worth in that department. There were moments when I felt that I wanted it to be over because it seemed to drag on.
This review is based on a digital PC copy of the game provided by Big Finish Games.
