That's an interesting approach. Highly reminiscent of the approach taken when the original series of Star Trek was cancelled where up until about 1988 (TNG's birth), they used movies and novels to keep the franchise profitable and breathe life into the fanbase which ended up growing from this strategy. Anything is possible. But INCREADIBLE revenue would need to be made from novels and films to be able to consider a game. Think along the lines of The Bourne Trillogy.mr_cyberpunk wrote:Easiest way to do it would be a novel and then move it to a video game by using the funds generated from the novel. (well thats assuming you did the whole self-publish thing)
The weird thing is that adventure games are still being made, 1 or 2 of them with FMV. I still don't see why we can't get a game, especially Tex Murphy which was at the top of its game when it last left off. Even if it means a low-budget production company, i'm sure AC and CJ wouldn't release any TM related product onto the market that was less than perfect.
nondajHow were they able to make the first of the series of Tex games? The market has changed that much I guess to blood and guts, war, shootem ups etc. Sure speaks a lot about our culture these days. The longer I live the more I see quality going down the drain in favor of sex, money, power, and violence.
A very concise but accurate assessment of where things are at. Sadly, the majority of the market wants to see games which push graphics cards to their limit. This trend won't reverse either as the market is increasingly earning millions upon millions of dollars which each title and graphics hardware on the market. I suppose people just want a game that will blindly take their minds off the world rather than thinking about their consequences within the gaming world and the story at hand. I'm bitter about Lucasarts for this reason. They defined gaming perfection in the 1990's, now everything is a derivative clone of best selling genres. But i won't go into that debate since there are multiple threads on this forum with my rants about 1990's gaming
Joel, I agree with you that Access Software was at the top of their game when making Tex Murphy. But the Access Software we knew & loved doesn't exist anymore, not just because of M$'s acquisition, but also because many of its great minds & programmers have moved on from the company to other jobs or retirement.
If a Tex Murphy game were to be made today, it would be made most likely by people who have only played the games, with the exception of CJ & the AC's. The Tex Murphy Trio won't make a game unless they can make a quality game, that is true. But the experience of not just making an adventure game, but making an adventure game in the same style as the Tex Murphy series, extends beyond FMV. It extends to the very core of the engine & interface's designs, something which no one to my knowledge has successfully emulated.
It's sad to say it, but I feel that Tex Murphy is to adventure games as X-Com is to turn-based strategy games. It was the pinnacle of its genre, and even though games are made that are incredibly similar to it, they still can't grasp the magic that made those games so good.
The great games very rarely sell well. Even in the case of X-Com, its first, UFO Defense, barely sold the coveted 250,000 copies, & that's a cumulative total of its sales across the globe on the PC & PS1 under the title X-Com (when released by Microprose) & UFO: Extraterrestrials (when self-published internationally, I believe). The UFO series still continues to this day, but doesn't hold a candle to the first in the series, released over a decade ago.
If memory serves, Tex Murphy never achieved that number of copies sold for any of its games. Its funding mainly came from the Links series, which was highly successful, allowing Access to take chances on other projects, such as Under A Killing Moon, Pandora Directive, & Overseer. For CJ & the AC's to be asked to confirm 250K sales before the game's put into development is virtually impossible based on these facts alone. For this reason, if we do see a new Tex Murphy game, its characters & graphics will probably be more like Metal Gear Solid 3, graphics which become less expensive to produce as newer technologies are developed & time passes, but they still need a team to create the animations & Adrian Carr to direct the cinematography of the person/s in the sensor suit/s.
I don't necessarily feel that FMV is what the market is looking for right now, but I do feel that the majority of gamers would love to catch a break on upgrading their video card to the "latest fashion". But if Tex Murphy again graces our PC's, or some other system for that matter, there will have to have been some tough compromises, maybe not to the character or the story, but to the style of gameplay as a result of the in-house factors during its development. A quality game is possible, but the real question is what do people see as quality today, & is that bar so high that it can't be achieved by an indy company?
My two cents hopefully well spent.
Hammerhead
If a Tex Murphy game were to be made today, it would be made most likely by people who have only played the games, with the exception of CJ & the AC's. The Tex Murphy Trio won't make a game unless they can make a quality game, that is true. But the experience of not just making an adventure game, but making an adventure game in the same style as the Tex Murphy series, extends beyond FMV. It extends to the very core of the engine & interface's designs, something which no one to my knowledge has successfully emulated.
It's sad to say it, but I feel that Tex Murphy is to adventure games as X-Com is to turn-based strategy games. It was the pinnacle of its genre, and even though games are made that are incredibly similar to it, they still can't grasp the magic that made those games so good.
The great games very rarely sell well. Even in the case of X-Com, its first, UFO Defense, barely sold the coveted 250,000 copies, & that's a cumulative total of its sales across the globe on the PC & PS1 under the title X-Com (when released by Microprose) & UFO: Extraterrestrials (when self-published internationally, I believe). The UFO series still continues to this day, but doesn't hold a candle to the first in the series, released over a decade ago.
If memory serves, Tex Murphy never achieved that number of copies sold for any of its games. Its funding mainly came from the Links series, which was highly successful, allowing Access to take chances on other projects, such as Under A Killing Moon, Pandora Directive, & Overseer. For CJ & the AC's to be asked to confirm 250K sales before the game's put into development is virtually impossible based on these facts alone. For this reason, if we do see a new Tex Murphy game, its characters & graphics will probably be more like Metal Gear Solid 3, graphics which become less expensive to produce as newer technologies are developed & time passes, but they still need a team to create the animations & Adrian Carr to direct the cinematography of the person/s in the sensor suit/s.
I don't necessarily feel that FMV is what the market is looking for right now, but I do feel that the majority of gamers would love to catch a break on upgrading their video card to the "latest fashion". But if Tex Murphy again graces our PC's, or some other system for that matter, there will have to have been some tough compromises, maybe not to the character or the story, but to the style of gameplay as a result of the in-house factors during its development. A quality game is possible, but the real question is what do people see as quality today, & is that bar so high that it can't be achieved by an indy company?
My two cents hopefully well spent.
Hammerhead
Think nothing of it.
I admit I am still wondering how a lady such as yourself would stumble onto a computer game. While trying to put this delicately, not many in your particular demographic enjoy the story-telling arts of the interactive mediums. I am by no means negative to this, heavens no - I'm well pleased to hear we have a representative of the fairer sex/senior citizen-bracket.
It should very well bring some interesting viewpoints on several subjects. Such as what is your favorite game, what is your favorite part and scene, and so on.
If you have been reading these boards for a while, you will know english is not my primary language - I live in Norway. If I have in any way given offense, please let me know and I will try to rephrase.
And for any of you scumbags laughing your butts off at how extremely polite I am (vis-a-vis my usual self) it is because Nondaj is a new poster. We do not have a "thing". I am not entitled to joke or make jests or poke fun... yet!
Yes Malloy, I'm looking at yoooouuu...
I have a lot of respect for long life experience. There is knowledge to be gleamed from such, valuable knowledge.
Therefore I am always polite to my elders. Even Jim. (If anybody's still not up on the current events, it's Jim's nickname 'The Old Guy' I am constantly poking, not Jim himself.)
But I'm a windbag - and I digress.
WELCOME, Nondaj! To the Family of Tex Murphy.
-Fred
I admit I am still wondering how a lady such as yourself would stumble onto a computer game. While trying to put this delicately, not many in your particular demographic enjoy the story-telling arts of the interactive mediums. I am by no means negative to this, heavens no - I'm well pleased to hear we have a representative of the fairer sex/senior citizen-bracket.
It should very well bring some interesting viewpoints on several subjects. Such as what is your favorite game, what is your favorite part and scene, and so on.
If you have been reading these boards for a while, you will know english is not my primary language - I live in Norway. If I have in any way given offense, please let me know and I will try to rephrase.
And for any of you scumbags laughing your butts off at how extremely polite I am (vis-a-vis my usual self) it is because Nondaj is a new poster. We do not have a "thing". I am not entitled to joke or make jests or poke fun... yet!
Yes Malloy, I'm looking at yoooouuu...
I have a lot of respect for long life experience. There is knowledge to be gleamed from such, valuable knowledge.
Therefore I am always polite to my elders. Even Jim. (If anybody's still not up on the current events, it's Jim's nickname 'The Old Guy' I am constantly poking, not Jim himself.)
But I'm a windbag - and I digress.
WELCOME, Nondaj! To the Family of Tex Murphy.
-Fred
Pirates, vampires, zombies, ninjas, ghouls, aliens, goblins, monsters, robots, sorcerers, undead, werewolves, demons, mutated dinosaur-cyborgs and those pesky phone salesmen! The shotgun is a one-size-fits-all solution!
out there wandering around? Or did I goof?
Will rewrite if it does not turn up.