I'm undecided on Tesla Effect

I'm sorry you feel this way, funny thing is I think you are on your own there, everyone else loves it

plumgas wrote:I'm sorry you feel this way, funny thing is I think you are on your own there, everyone else loves it

I'm surprised you don't, at the very least, agree about the puzzles.

The trickier puzzles do seem to be further on in the game. I get what you mean somewhat about the feel being different, yet I consider UAKM and Pandora to have greatly different "feels" in terms of the ambience, with Overseer being different again. Tesla Effect almost seems to amalgamate the quirks of all three.

SPOILERS:
I was particularly reminded of the Bastion of Sanctity in Sesen (which FWIW contains an "assembly" puzzle, albeit not of a note) and of Roswell when exploring the Tesla Legacy building.

I disagree but I see what you mean. I did notice Tex giving me hints on things he can't possibly know, which is odd.

It's been taking me a loooong time, but I've been able to make it through up to day 7 on gamer mode with only a little help. At first I thought, "Heyyyy! Am I smarter now, or what? " But that's impossible! I'm a dumbass!

But you gotta remember-- one of the things that contributed to the decline of adventure games was the excessively obtuse and sometimes abusive puzzles. I believe Tesla's extra hints are to make the game a bit easier, not because we're dumb but because it saves time. There's a thin line between frustration and challenge.

Sort of like how a lot of classic NES games were really hard, not because they were challenging (Ninja Gaiden) but because they were poorly designed (Last Action Hero). It's not the same thing.

Maybe there should have been, no joke, a third level called "masochist" or "hardcore".

I kinda wish the game had more Letter and Photo puzzles, these were like the trademarks of a Tex Murphy game. It just feels like the Electronics Shop doesn't really serve a function this time around, whereas in past games it was always used for getting equipment to solve those puzzles which I thought was awesome. Bit of a shame.

Likewise I was a bit sad that the game started off with tex lugging about a huge sum of money, I was hoping there was going to be some of that resource management we saw from Pandora, this idea that you could run out of money and be unable to solve a case without cheating felt very realistic and cool, plus it was a great way of dealing with Karma (if you stole money you wouldn't be having any money troubles, however it'd make Tex more susceptible to cheating on Chelsea with Regan in Pandora).

Those things would've made this the perfect Tex Murphy Game, but aren't needed, what we got here with Tesla effect did the job much much better than Overseer and managed to replicate the quality we expected from Pandora. As to if it surpassed it, I haven't completed all the endings yet so I can't pass judgement on that at this point.

I also think the UI in this was about as weak as what Overseers was, I would've rather the grid layout of old with drag and drop items for combining rather than the fairly clunky system that Tesla uses (which was very similar to how Overseer handle inventory).

I rather liked the inventory screen. It doesn't take you out of the game, and keeps your surroundings in view.

Its design looks A LOT like the item/weapons menu in Tron 2.0. Maybe it's just a coincidence.

I just find it odd you can't drag and drop items onto each other, you have to use a separate combine interface- which kinda doesn't make a lot of sense to have there constantly present. Simply draging and dropping is enough, even UAKM and Pandora allowed for Drag and Drop combining. Just gotta say its not how I would've implemented it. (especially with the Combine Item1 and Combine Item2 tags... that didn't look very right.)

But hey I'm just being nitpicky as per usual.

joliet_jane wrote:I disagree but I see what you mean. I did notice Tex giving me hints on things he can't possibly know, which is odd.


Maybe there should have been, no joke, a third level called "masochist" or "hardcore".

I agree JJ - he does say things that are impossible to know which is odd. Also, if you actually look at the water tower on Rusty's roof early on, it will mention the nasty pooch.
But yes, the puzzles do get harder as the game goes on and by day 6 you get somewhat into the more intricate stuff.

I'd gladly give masochist and / or hardcore a go though, I'm that way inclined

mr_cyberpunk wrote:I just find it odd you can't drag and drop items onto each other, you have to use a separate combine interface- which kinda doesn't make a lot of sense to have there constantly present. Simply draging and dropping is enough, even UAKM and Pandora allowed for Drag and Drop combining. Just gotta say its not how I would've implemented it. (especially with the Combine Item1 and Combine Item2 tags... that didn't look very right.)

I was told that this was to accommodate a touch interface. Not sure why you wouldn't be able to drag to another item just as well, but that's what they said.

Interesting Jerry. I'm not sure either why it would be an issue. The thing I don't like about the Inventory popup is the really small size of the text. It's unreadable on my 60" Bravia, unless you get to within 2 feet.

The text depends on your screen resolution I think - when I changed size in the demo the text was bigger.

I know what you mean re the puzzles but so far (I'm on day 4) I like them. The Ankh puzzle involves rotating pieces and the thing about previous puzzles is that they were all different in one way or another.

You're def not alone in having criticisms.

I wasn't a big fan of some of the puzzles either--a few of them made absolutely no sense unless you clicked the help button, at which point Tex becomes an omniscient super-genius.

I thought that the Telsa Effect was a watered down, casual game version of Pandora Directive, but I'm in the minority here.

I think if all that Conners, Jones, et al. get is praise from the long-time fans (and I'm one of them), they might go even more casual for the next game instead of striving for something of the quality of the Pandora Directive. Thus, I'm not pulling any punches in sharing my opinion of Tesla.

This is pretty much exactly how I feel right now

texmex82 wrote:You're def not alone in having criticisms.

I wasn't a big fan of some of the puzzles either--a few of them made absolutely no sense unless you clicked the help button, at which point Tex becomes an omniscient super-genius.

I thought that the Telsa Effect was a watered down, casual game version of Pandora Directive, but I'm in the minority here.

I think if all that Conners, Jones, et al. get is praise from the long-time fans (and I'm one of them), they might go even more casual for the next game instead of striving for something of the quality of the Pandora Directive. Thus, I'm not pulling any punches in sharing my opinion of Tesla.

I wish you were able to travel to different areas more often. Somethings did seem a little forced but the fact that I was able to play a new Tex game after 16 years, I'm happy with how it turned out! Hopefully we get one more before Tex hangs his hat up.