SF Kosmo
Al Jazeera Special Reporter
7 years after the release of the last Tex Murphy title, The Tesla Effect, Big Finish has made a new update, something of a good news/bad news.
The bad news is that they have cancelled the Poisoned Pawn, a fan-developed project that began as a remake of Overseer but had evolved into a new made in collaboration with BFG. Apparently the two teams were not working well together and had different visions for the project.
The good news is that they are developing an all new HD remaster of The Pandora Directive, the fourth title in the series, often regarded as one of the best adventure games of all time (it was #9 on Adventure Gamers top 100).
It's somewhere between a full remake and a remaster. Video of actors is being scanned from original archival tapes and remastered in HD, but CG backgrounds and compositing will be redone. Sound and music are being remastered from higher quality archival assets as well. Game levels are being remade based on original source assets used for pre-rendered cutscenes. Gameplay will be faithful but might have a few rough edges sanded down, and a modern interface.
Although I do think the "soft reboot" third game, Under a Killing Moon, is probably a better entry point for new players, it seems like the archival material for PD gives them a lot more to work with.
I'm excited, this is one of the few games from the mid-90s FMV era that really holds up. Hopefully it can introduce some new players to the series as well.
The bad news is that they have cancelled the Poisoned Pawn, a fan-developed project that began as a remake of Overseer but had evolved into a new made in collaboration with BFG. Apparently the two teams were not working well together and had different visions for the project.
The good news is that they are developing an all new HD remaster of The Pandora Directive, the fourth title in the series, often regarded as one of the best adventure games of all time (it was #9 on Adventure Gamers top 100).
It's somewhere between a full remake and a remaster. Video of actors is being scanned from original archival tapes and remastered in HD, but CG backgrounds and compositing will be redone. Sound and music are being remastered from higher quality archival assets as well. Game levels are being remade based on original source assets used for pre-rendered cutscenes. Gameplay will be faithful but might have a few rough edges sanded down, and a modern interface.
Although I do think the "soft reboot" third game, Under a Killing Moon, is probably a better entry point for new players, it seems like the archival material for PD gives them a lot more to work with.
I'm excited, this is one of the few games from the mid-90s FMV era that really holds up. Hopefully it can introduce some new players to the series as well.
An update from Big Finish Games
Big Finish Games talk about The Poisoned Pawn, the Tesla Effect KickStarter, and a new exciting project in the Tex Murphy universe!
bigfinishgames.com