Check them out here!
On the heels of the announcement that Atlus will be publishing Tesla Effect, Big Finish Games has released a whole bunch of awesome new screenshots, including the first without actors (i.e. during exploration). There are no hints as to the controls, but they're great nonetheless. The screens show Archie, Louie, Rook, Chelsee and some new characters as well!
Check them out here!
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In a press release issued yesterday, Atlus announced they will be the publisher for Tesla Effect. Atlus is a large Japanese publisher, known for games like Demon's Souls and Trauma Center. The press release includes some information already known, such as an estimated release of "early 2014" and the the game will be on Steam. The press release contains some spoilers, however I have marked those paragraphs as such below. The rest is spoiler free. Two new screens were also released along with the announcement. "IRVINE, Calif. and SALT LAKE CITY – Aug. 27, 2013 – Things can get rough in post-WWIII apocalyptic San Francisco on a gumshoe like Tex Murphy, and ATLUS and Big Finish Games are making sure of it by partnering to publish Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure. The sixth installment in the legendary PC adventure game series started as a Kickstarter project, and the partnership with ATLUS will help Big Finish Games more fully develop their vision for the first Tex Murphy outing this millennium. If you can make it to Salt Lake City the first week of September for Comic Con, then you may be interested in the possibility of winning tickets! All you have to do is like the post below on Facebook to be entered. And even if you can't make it, you may still win the signed copy, plus you'll be helping to spread the word!
Many of you have probably already checked out the Tesla Effect IMDB page that lists the cast, but I thought I'd point it out again, because it has recently seen some updates, including a few backers with their walk-on roles. The new and returning cast sure looks great. I personally can't wait to see Archie again! Click here to see the list yourself.
Also, I wanted some input on the potential return of CAPRICORN. For those who are new or don't remember, CAPRICORN was a (mostly) weekly game with scrambled pictures, anagrams and some other puzzles played by site visitors. Points were awarded based on correct answers and I kept standings for it. While setting up a form to submit your answers is easy, I'm looking for some help with ideas on how to modernize it. Scrambled pictures are all well and good, but I'm hoping for something that will be a little more interesting from week to week. Please let me know if you've got any ideas in the comments. Thanks! Just a heads up for anyone in the Salt Lake City area, or who can be the first week of September, there will be a panel for Tesla Effect on Friday, September 6th. For more details on the Comic Con click here, and for a list of panels click here.
While I can't share the backers-only video, I think it's safe to say in the interest of promoting the panel, Chris Jones, Aaron Conners, Adrian Carr, Larry Thomas (Lt. Danwicz, The Soup Nazi) and Kevin Murphy ("Voice" in Tesla Effect) will all be in attendance. I can't attend, so I hope there's a recording afterwards, but it should be good! So, while on the topic of games I play, I also own Minecraft. I haven't got into Survival mode so much, and until a month or so ago, I hadn't touched it in a year, but in honour of Tex, I decided to put together a little monument. The entire thing was built the old fashioned way, and I had to blow up a sizeable hill in the middle of it to make the land flat enough to build the silhouette. It's not on a public server or anything, just my own little creative world and I thought I'd share it with you. If you have any Tex creations you'd like to share, let me know and I'll post them! Though the Tex games have always meant the more to me than any other series of games, they are certainly not the only games I've played or plan to play.
I've been playing games since I was very young. Being born in the early 80s, games were really starting to shine as I grew up. Many of my first were children's computer games and several for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Before discovering Tex, the early Mario Bros. games were my favourites. There were a few other games here and there, but it was Tex that opened up the world of gaming to me. Once I discovered the Tex community I was exposed to many other adventure games: Blade Runner, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island. Though it started primarily with adventure games, my tastes weren't limited to just that genre. Some of the more memorable games of the late 90s and early 21st century were The Longest Journey, No One Lives Forever 1 & 2, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. I remember these games quite fondly and have played them all multiple times. Despite only playing the original Half Life sporadically, I was excited when Half Life 2 was finally released in 2004 and bought it shortly after release. It quickly became, and is still to this day, one of my favourite games ever made and began my "love affair" with many of Valve's products. I've played and loved Half Life 2 Episodes 1 & 2 and one of the few games I actually anticipate for the future is Half Life 3 (they've gotta be making it, right?). Of course, I've also played the wonderful Portal games and have spent hundred of hours playing Team Fortress 2 - the only multiplayer game I've ever gotten in to. Then there's the games of Bioware. I came late to the party, starting with Knights of the Old Republic, another of my top games ever. I have continued playing their games, but since the purchase by EA, I've found they're losing what once made them special. Mass Effect and Dragon Age were great, but the sequels were far less engaging. Elder Scrolls is another favourite of mine. I started with Oblivion and then went backwards and played Morrowind and now I've got Skyrim waiting for me on my computer once I get the opportunity. I spent over 100 hours exploring Cyrodiil in Oblivion, I expect to do the same in Skyrim. I've also played all of Fallout RPGs. Though I didn't care much for the original, I quite enjoyed Fallout 2, 3 and New Vegas. I've yet to play Bioshock Infinite, but am looking forward to that, I enjoyed its predecessors including System Shock 2. I've played so much since Tex's last adventure, it really puts perspective on just how much time has passed. Heck, Grim Fandango is a newer game than Overseer! I've had plenty of positive and negative experiences with games, but recently it has trended toward negative. Maybe I've just become too "old school," but I feel that the majority of games fail to tell interesting (or even coherent) stories, and games have become more about the cool technology behind them than the actual game. I fully expect Tesla Effect to be a refreshing change from all of that as it both pushes the technological boundaries AND provides an engaging story and gaming experience. If you're interested in some games I've reviewed check out my profile on GameSpot here. So what games are some of your non-Tex favourites? Is there anything you look forward to other than Tesla Effect? July 31st marked the last day to contribute to Project Fedora via PayPal, and Big Finish has now released the final total: A whopping $657,196 with PayPal bringing in an additional 10% over the money brought in on Kickstarter. It's an impressive feat for Tex to not only bring in the original asking figure of $450,000, but to surpass it by over $200,000. A congratulations to Big Finish for managing to brining in so much, and certainly a thanks to everyone who backed this project is called for, so: Thanks! No specific reason has been given for closing off contributions, but with a publisher becoming involved, it's probable that at some point they would rather sell pre-order copies at more than $15 a piece. I'm sure once all the distribution issues are settled, pre-order will become available. Based on what has been flying around the forums and from Chris Jones's interview on Wednesday, Steam seems to be the main target for distribution, which is great. Steam has a huge user base to expose Tex to. As I write this, there are currently 4.8 million people logged on to Steam. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Tesla Effect show up on GOG as well. Here's hoping Tesla Effect is a huge success! For those who missed yesterday's interview of Chris Jones on RetroNick Radio, it is now available for download here.
There were quite a few interesting tidbits regarding Tesla Effect. The things I found the most interesting are:
When Microsoft bought Access Software in April 1999, things changed dramatically for Tex. adventure games were falling out of favour and Microsoft's interest was in the Links golf series and its underlying technology. The future did not look good for Tex.
Hope remained, however, but it wasn't long before it looked like Tex would never return in the format we know and love. It was the announcement that in place of a full-fledged game, the new Tex would be released in a series of online Flash games or "webisodes", when almost all hoped drained away. You can see my original reaction and follow up here and here. Once I was reassured that the webisodes weren't Access giving up, I felt better, but the future for Tex still seemed bleak. The webisodes idea was soon replaced with a series of radio theatre episodes. While enjoyable, they were not quite the same. They did inspire several in the Tex community, including myself, to help keep Tex alive through the fan-produced Lombard St radio theatre (I recorded several episodes as the narrator. You can find a link to them in Downloads). In the desire to keep Tex alive I wrote and was involved in several fan fictions, several of which I never completed, including one that told the story of World War III and how it tied in with the events of The Pandora Directive. I, along with a fellow community member, attempted to make our own Tex game entitled The Nano War... I honestly don't remember how far we got, suffice it to say, we never finished it. I also created Who Wants to be a Tex Expert, available in the Downloads section on this site, or included free with your purchase of any Tex game on GOG. It was around 2002-2003 when I completed high school and went off to university that I had mostly given up hope. I drifted away from the community and towards the Star Trek community. I continued to be a lurker and hoped that maybe I was wrong, but the more time that passed the more I was convinced Tex was done. In 2008 my hope returned with the launch of Big Finish Games and the tease of Project Fedora. But despite everything, there never seemed to be any developments and by 2010 I was again convinced it was all over. BFG was a valiant effort, but didn't seem to be enough. When Tim Schaffer found amazing success on Kickstarter, I knew that many in the Tex community would insist the idea was the way to bring back Tex. I wasn't convinced. I knew that the community itself would be enthusiastic, I just didn't think it would be possible to get the money needed to produce a game at the level of Tex Murphy. When the Kickstarter was announced, I was 100% on board even if I wasn't sure it would work. It wasn't until the Kickstarter launched that I thought this might actually be just what the entire community had been looking for for 14 years. The sum asked for was modest and the day one haul was huge. I was finally excited at the prospect that Tex could actually be returning. For a short time in the middle of the campaign, it was a bit slow and I started to worry, but all that ended quickly. And I think we know how things have gone since then. So, were you always convinced Tex would return one day, or do you have a similar story to my own? Please discuss in the comments! |
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