Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure

This game is simply perfect, a blast from the past bringing back the most awesome P.I in the history of videogames, Tex Murphy. You can feel the love and care put developing Tesla Effect since everything you loved from the series is there, bringing a smile on your face at every corner. Clever puzzles, an amazing story, a superb performance by Chris Jones and all the fun are back. All the wait was well worth it. If you like adventure games or if you want to experience a game created with love from fans and for fans of Murphy, Tesla Effect is for you.

The Tesla Effect opens magnificently, with a flyover of a pretty well-rendered cityscape and an intriguing setup to a promising mystery. It uses visuals, a slightly discordant timeline, and sets the table just right. Everything that follows is a pleasant but thoroughly lo-fi adventure game with one foot stuck in 1999. Which is fine for fans like me who have waited for this, but won't do much for anybody else. At one point my girlfriend walked through the room and saw me watching a cutscene, her first glimpse of the game, and said, "Oh my god! That background is not real!" She felt moved to speak at some length about the obvious compositing. Yes, I'm sorry fellow fans, it's that bad. The opening city shots were clearly done in an entirely different set from the rest of the game, which would probably look good if this game came out directly after 1998's Overseer. So let's get my two major gripes out of the way. Considering the above, the Tex team went with a slightly baffling decision to render the game for 4K, which is like using a high-powered space telescope to photograph your lawn. To my understanding, this is why the game feels so insanely chopped up and incomplete; a lot of footage had to be left out for space constraints. If true, this is not a good trade-off and the resulting story is frequently rushed or even confusing. Put it this way, long-time series fans; imagine explaining the story of The Pandora Directive to a friend. Now imagine explaining this game. 2nd gripe: Not enough Chelsea. The actress might have been busy, but any devoted fan is going to chase her ending and will only find her in about thirty seconds of screen time. It's jarring and does a lot to spoil the taste. Which is a shame, because this game otherwise retains good form for the series, has a charming cast, and interesting if not-too-difficult puzzles. It serves its legacy well, but doesn't do anything to enhance it. Tesla feels like a solid goodbye to Tex, and I'll take that.

This game is truly a masterpiece of entertainment for fans of detective series and point and click games in general. The acting is spot on and the gameplay is really good. The puzzles range in challenge but the only puzzle I hated in gaming mode was the timed puzzle toward the end. WTH? Timed?

I've spent four hours in New San Francisco today and I don't think I'll go to sleep untill I finish the game. With Tesla Effect, Big Finish Games and Atlus managed to take my breath away, which is something I haven't experienced in a long time. I love the old Tex, the humor, the plot, the silly FMV, the graphic style, open locations, popcultural references, participation of known faces... But more than anything, I am grateful for the amount of pure fun the developers were able to concentrate in a single twenty dollar game. I really hope they can make a sequel, this is a top notch product and an instant classic.

When I had a chance to back a new Tex Murphy game, the decision was easy, but my expectations were still low. I wasn't sure how a FMV game would play after all these years, but even if I got an hour of nostalgia out of it I would have been happy. I am however blown away by how fun this game is so far. They really did an excellent job keeping the same feel to the game while not making it feel out dated. Buy it, enjoy it, thank everyone later.