This is a great trilogy and the price is unbeatable. The first Gobliiins game is quite hard because your little team shares a life bar and every injuring action empties it a bit. The problem is that doing the wrong actions is half the fun of these games. The goblins get hurt and the complain to you about sending them into these traps. It's hilarious. Gobliins 2 gets rid of the bar and you can try everything out without worrying. You get 5 jokers in case you get stuck that will help you complete a screen. Especially the later levels require exact timing which can get quite frustrating. Goblins 3 is by far the best part in the series. You get different partners with different abilities and all the puzzles are logical. The voice overs in the games are quite quirky, but they really fit the crazy characters and the overall funny tone of the games. If you like adventures, you really shouldn't miss out on the Gobliiins. Too bad that Goblins 4 was such a let down. But if GOG gets Woodruff and the Schnibble of Azimuth, be sure to check it out. It's the unofficial sequel to these games.
The Tex Murphy series had reached its pinnacle with The Pandora Directive. In Overseer we get even better FMVs but the story this time around is kinda lacking. Basically, it's Mean Streets again. You no longer have multiple endings or even different paths to take as in TPD. Acting is mostly on par with TPD, though it's lacking the massive cast TPD had. Still, there are some great actors like Michael York or Henry Darrow. You still get to choose between Entertainment and Gamer Mode, although there is not such a huge difference to them like in TPD. You can bypass some puzzles in E Mode and get extra points for solving puzzles quickly in G Mode. The puzzles are your basic Tex Murphy fare with some real mindbenders and many jigsaw letters and photos. Conversations are still played out by selecting one of three options, but those have no real effect on the story for the most time. A bit on the downside is also the fact that you get a massive cliffhanger at the end of the game that never got resolved in a game. There's still hoping for Project Fedora, though....
Mean Streets and Martian Memorandum started it all, Under A Killing Moon was the first step into the realm of 3D and Pandora Directive is the pinnacle of Tex Murphy's adventures. It takes everything that made UAKM so great and expands on it. More locations, more puzzles, better quality FMV and overall a longer game. Not only due to the lenght of the story, but also because of the possibility of 3 different moral roads that you can take leading to 6 different endings. TPD also has the most interesting storyline of the games, IMO. It also has many quotable lines ^_^
This is exactly what I was hoping for with GOG. I never sell any games, so I still own all the games I like. And while the price tag on games like Far Cry may be nice, I have no trouble playing them on my current machine. But some games need really big efforts to get running on XP or Vista and in the case of all the Tex Murphy games I haven't been able to get them running at all. With GOG that's not a problem any more. Install, play, have fun! Under A Killing Moon was my first Tex Murphy game and after shit games like Phantasmagoria or TLC I was astounded at how good a so-called "Interactive Movie" could be. I came on 4 CDs, had great acting, tons of humorous dialogue, funny characters and so on. It's just great. The Pandora Directive is better, though ^_^
I have very fond memories to playing this game at a friend's house with 2 other guys in the Hot Seat-Mode. The different kinds of cities with their special buildings and cool-looking creatures create a great atmosphere. But, nonetheless, I think you should wait for the sequel. HoMM2 is the best part in the series, IMO. So that's only 4 stars for this installment.
