Posted June 30, 2009
The absolute best in its genre. Back when the FMV craze was a blank check to annoy players with low interactivity and cheap actors, one adventure got everything just right. Who could have expected so much depth from an FMV game?
TPD seems to follow the blueprint used for Under a Killing Moon as a starting point, but everything feels less limited now. You start in the same office, on the same street, but very soon you’ll notice that many new exits and locations are available. Also, you have access to innumerable items and puzzles. You can find a puzzle almost everywhere, and many of them are really clever. Even if you get stumped at some point, you won’t be stuck there for long, as the priceless hint system from UAKM is back!
Once more, full 3D enviroments allow for exploration on a level absent in most adventures. Two difficulty levels are available: Entertainment (for casual gamers) and Game Players (with additional puzzles and content). Also, your choices during the game send you through different moral paths that lead to six different endings, some poignant, and some just over the top (Tex Murphy becomes a circus clown?).
The Pandora Directive especially benefits from the talents of a professional filmmaker, Adrian Carr. The sequences in UAKM were good, but they still had a staged feeling, like a line reading at worst. Now, you can feel the difference not only because of the improved “cinematic angles”, but also when you see the performances given by the actors, both professional and non-professional. You just have to compare the opening sequence in UAKM, with the stilted, heavily grunting and possibly confused Brian Keith, to the distinguished appearance made by Kevin McCarthy in the opening sequence in this game.
Chris Jones is back, better than ever, as Tex Murphy, and some supporting roles are filled in by TV veterans like Northern Exposure’s Barry Corbin (who has a great scene as a trigger-happy NSA agent), the beautiful Tanya Roberts, and even Wilford Brimley’s brother playing a famous conspiracy theorist!
This game is just like UAKM, only bigger and better. Still, you don’t need to play UAKM to enjoy this game. This one was my first Tex Murphy game, and I didn’t know who he was at the time, but I found out very soon that I was experiencing something special!
TPD seems to follow the blueprint used for Under a Killing Moon as a starting point, but everything feels less limited now. You start in the same office, on the same street, but very soon you’ll notice that many new exits and locations are available. Also, you have access to innumerable items and puzzles. You can find a puzzle almost everywhere, and many of them are really clever. Even if you get stumped at some point, you won’t be stuck there for long, as the priceless hint system from UAKM is back!
Once more, full 3D enviroments allow for exploration on a level absent in most adventures. Two difficulty levels are available: Entertainment (for casual gamers) and Game Players (with additional puzzles and content). Also, your choices during the game send you through different moral paths that lead to six different endings, some poignant, and some just over the top (Tex Murphy becomes a circus clown?).
The Pandora Directive especially benefits from the talents of a professional filmmaker, Adrian Carr. The sequences in UAKM were good, but they still had a staged feeling, like a line reading at worst. Now, you can feel the difference not only because of the improved “cinematic angles”, but also when you see the performances given by the actors, both professional and non-professional. You just have to compare the opening sequence in UAKM, with the stilted, heavily grunting and possibly confused Brian Keith, to the distinguished appearance made by Kevin McCarthy in the opening sequence in this game.
Chris Jones is back, better than ever, as Tex Murphy, and some supporting roles are filled in by TV veterans like Northern Exposure’s Barry Corbin (who has a great scene as a trigger-happy NSA agent), the beautiful Tanya Roberts, and even Wilford Brimley’s brother playing a famous conspiracy theorist!
This game is just like UAKM, only bigger and better. Still, you don’t need to play UAKM to enjoy this game. This one was my first Tex Murphy game, and I didn’t know who he was at the time, but I found out very soon that I was experiencing something special!
