Tex Murphy Games available now on Gog.com
 

just wanting to let those of you know, who missed these games back in the day, that they are now available on Gog.com

i myself am one who has missed out on all of them (never played a single one) but i will surely alleviate this now.

i don't plan on purchasing all of them, but i think the two best ones which, if im not mistaken, are "under a killing moon" and "pandora directive"? am i correct on that?

Hmm, that is interesting. Always wanted to try those games and they seem to be near impossible to track down even through EBay and the likes. Never heard of Gog.com though, is it a reliable site to use?

YES!!! :P
I can't believe the games are now easily available!
I still own Under a Killing Moon and Overseer, but my discs are scratched as hell (lesson I learned through the years: never borrow any disc-based media to friends, you're asking for trouble), and I always wanted to replace them.
Add to this the fact I was never able to track The Pandora Directive, so for me it's an all new game to play.

And The Seed, GOG are extremely reliable. You buy a game, and you are free to download it as many times as you want. The games don't have any DRM or copy protection, so you can install in as many machines as you want, without any trouble.
Plus, they usually have some cool extras for the games (soundtrack, maps, ...).

Sounds almost too good to be true. :P I think I might just give it a try.

yes gog.com is extremely reliable. i have made several purchases from there already. drm free, no hassle, very nice.

There's 3 free adventure games on the website (Lure of the Temptress, Beneath a Steel Sky and Teenagent).
Create an account and add these free games, to see how it works (regarding downloading, extras access, ...).

Already tried Lure of the Temptress & Beneath a Steal Sky since theyv'e been availible as abandonware for some time now, but I've never heard of Teenagent so I'll give that a try, actually looks not bad. Thaks for the tip off.

GOG are extremely reliable. It should also be mentioned that the games are tweaked to work easily on Vista systems without having to do any fiddling about yourself. I'm not sure about XP.

I will be getting at least Overseer, Under a Killing Moon and Pandora Directive, though I've heard Martian Memorandum is worth a look.

Amazing news!!!

My cds of Under a Killin Moon were scratched... unplayable and I never got to play Pandora Directive.
Just got Martian Memorandum and Under a killing Moon. Works great on Win98. Uses Dosbox of course.

Oh wait so MM and UAKM are XP and Vista compatible just because DOSBox is included and you use that to run it?

I was going to download them cause I thought they ran straight from Vista but if it's just the DOSBox version running it, I already have that :)

Wow that's great. I played UAKM and PD through DOSBox and they were really fun. I couldn't get Overseer to work though. So if this works with XP, I'll be very happy.

Yes, but the great thing about this is, that you don't have to manually do all the dosbox editing etc. and copying all CD's to harddrive to play without all the disk swapping.
It was a pain in the butt with UAKM :)

I'm SO jealous. I wish I could play Pandora Directive again for the first time. That game is CRAZY good. Right up there with King's Quest 6, Monkey Island 2 and Gabriel Knight as my favourite adventures of all time.

This is certainly great news. I've never played any of them either. I'll probably go for Under a Killing Moon, The Pandora Directive and Overseer means they've received the most praise. I would, however, rather buy these games off ebay though, with the original boxes, CDs, manuals etc. But it's great that some more old classics have been added to GOG for a reasonable price, which are now easily available for everyone. :)

@gazzoid
If you buy the DVD version of Overseer be prepared for a lot of trouble.
It's really hard to get playing without crashes (if playing at all without serious tweaking and installing of other programs) and the midi music - forget about it. :D

If that's how you feel fair enough, but you could treat this as a 'just for now' moment.

For instance, if I was looking for a particular hard to find sci-fi book and I came across a cheap copy in poorish condition, I would take it until a better one came across, especially considering how infrequent some appeared.

To those that have played it, how is Martian Memorandum? I'm aware that Overseer is Mean Streets remade with fancier graphics and the action sequences removed.

I think i'll avoid the DVD version then. :D Thanks for the tip.

Yeah, it sounds like a good idea. I'll probably do that. I mainly want the rare boxed versions with their original content just to add to my little collection of boxed games/rare items. But these downloadable versions are appealing if they work with XP or Vista without any set-up required.

I thought this was absolutely fantastic. Great choices, and I love that Overseer and Pandora Directive will be added too.

Here's to hoping for the Sierras, the LucasArtses and the Westwoods to come to GOG as well, GOG are the best of the crop as digital distribution of games is concerned.

Re: Digital versus box, I prefer digital these days. Some games are worth having in a box, but only those that mean something special to me personally, I feel. Otherwise they take up too much space as soon as you get up into the hundreds (I have around 800 physical games at home which is way too much, really).

Regarding Martian Memorandum, I played it a couple years back through DosBox and I definitely think it's worth playing for the completist. There are several characters from the FMV Tex games that appear. The game has a solid story as well but one really awful maze (just get a walkthrough).

Worth playing for sure, especially if you enjoy the story/atmosphere of the latter games.

Yeah, just +1 for GoG being awesome. The price is worth it alone for all the downloadable extras, and the guaranteed XP+Vista compatibility w.r.t DosBox.

Most of the time I notice a significant speed increase using their version of the game as opposed to my own tweaked DosBox environment. I don't think anyone knows really what they are doing, they might be using a proprietary wrapper of the core DosBox code, and it might be game-specific.

Pretty awesome though.

I've never played Tex Murphy...1 & 2 look really ugly :P

I might give Under a Killing Moon a go. I've heard a lot of people say that's the best one and it doesn't look too bad, either.

i think pandora directive is easily the best. but it's best to play UAKM and then PD in order, it makes PD more impressive. they really are fantastic 90s adventure games.

I'm almost tempted to buy them on GOG just to support their effort. I still have my original discs from when I received UAKM for my birthday Dec 1994. I also haven't played it since I finished it Jan 1995 (although I remember it pretty clearly).

Is there any statistical changes to these games through GOG? I remember UAKM not running well with the fullscreen 3d window. How is the speed and the sound?

Very good move and i hope this helps to spread the word on the way to a new Tex Murphy game- gosh, a new Tex Murphy game would be my personal Tales of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion 3 combined.

GOG's selection so far isn't huge - but I for one, love their idea, and will support them however I can. I am going to buy all the Tex Murphy games...and heck, even on my limited budget, I'll shell out for Beneath a Steel Sky as well.

Seriously, though, I'll definitely do my business through them if they keep grabbing old games and updating them quickly and easily-like for XP and Vista.

One thing I don't get - why don't they charge more? I would have given them $10/game at least, and probably $30 for UAKM and Pandora. These games are hard to get anywhere else, and not having to deal with DosBoxing yourself is awesome.

Thanks GOG!

The Pandora Directive is one of the finest adventures I've ever played. The 3D engine reminds me of an early incarnation of the GK3 engine. There's something so awesome about being able to intricately explore every detail of a location. I never got a chance to play Overseer. This is pretty exciting news.

Since Overseer was Windows native I'm curious what they're going to do.. if they are just going to actually update the executable for WinXP/Vista or are they going to make you futz with stuff like Compatibility Mode, which is no different than if you already had the discs.

I'd definitely pay if they update the executable (even though I already have Overseer)

Beneath a Steel Sky is free.

The want a unified price structure. Originally, all games were supposed to be $5.99 but then that didn't go down well with all collaborators, so a two-tier system was set into place. Everything on the service is either free, $5.99 or $9.99.

The whole point of the service is to provide old games cheap. That's their USP, they don't want to be seen as a Steam or GamersGate competitor.

In short, they sell UAKM cheap because it helps their branding and their customer relationship.

And that's the other part of their USP: No fuss. They will definitely do whatever it takes to make Overseer play straight away on both XP and Vista, no compatibility mode needed.

Yes, I noticed they use at least a somewhat intelligent design, using SCUMMVM, DOSBox when appropriate, instead of just wrapping everything in DOSBox.

I've already played the first four, using DosBox. The favorite is UAKM. It has a surreal and "cheesy in a good way" feel that serves the game extremely well. The Pandora Directive is more polished, with better acting and higher production values as a whole, but some of the feel is gone imo. Still very good though. Only got halfway through the DVD-version of Overseer before I got tired of all the crashes.

The first two feel dated but are still worth playing, especially Martian Memorandum.

Will buy all five for the convinient packages and to support GOG.

Had played it before, but just picked up UKAM to check out GOG's service and am mostly impressed. Easy, cheap, hassle-free, and nice extras. Only one minor niggle: why did they pre-configure the game for Sound Blaster music when Roland or General MIDI sound much nicer?

Another thing to consider is that bringing in Pandora Directive and UAKM shows that GOG are willing to tackle games which are in terms of data, fair sized, with their large amounts of puzzles and FMV.

This means that games like Black Dahlia, Gabriel Knight, X-Files and Spycraft are not beyond the realms of possibility of being released on GOG.

If you aren't already doing so, I'd encourage people to use the wishlist on GOG to put in their 'wishes' for games they'd like to see. I've put in a ton of adventure games of the older type that I'd like to see like the Innocent until Caught series and so on.

The only thing with GOG's wishlist is that there have been certain idiots have taken the mickey out of it. Games like Sherlock Holmes:Nemesis for example have been listed by someone, games that are still fairly new and easily available, or games that don't even exist like Freelancer 2.

Tex Murph The Pandora Directive now on Gog
 

just letting those of you who are interested (like myself) know, that gog.com has continued its release of the Tex Murphy games with pandora directive now available on gog.com. downloading now.

Ahhh... my favorite Pandora Directive released as well. That's great, GOG! ;) I can already feel the urge to replay it and see new endings.

For those of you who, like me, have not yet followed all three paths (Mission Street = Mr. Nice Guy, Lombard Street = in between, Boulevard of Broken Dreams = insensitive, callous Tex): type J K Y to see what path you're currently on. Not during cut scenes, not in movement mode.

I am currently downloading Feeble Files from Gog.com I hope it works well on XP but hey its only $5.99. It might be trivial but the reason I'm getting it is because someone told me Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) is the voice actor for Feeble. Damn my soft spot for all things Red Dwarf!

If I didn't already have all the Tex Murphys on Cd I would be buying those too.

Theres only Overseer that I don't have but its not available yet. Lets hope its under $10.

@viva

I also bought Feeble files from GOG although I already have 2 boxed versions - and it worked perfect for me. :)

As for Tex Murphy - how about go for all the Tex games even though you have them just to support those lovely boys behind them, since they have plans on another Tex Murphy game? :D
I know I don't mind paying for a hassle free version of each of them even though I already have them.

The Feeble Files has its shortcomings but it's a great game. Very long and good value for your money. Even more so because most puzzles are pretty hard. Robert Llewellyn does a good job. My favorite supporting voice actress is the girl who does Feeble's mother, the secretary, the girl in love on the phone, and other parts. I'm sorry I forgot her name but she's absolutely first class.

@misslilo: do the Tex Murphy guys actually benefit from the GOG sales? Are they the current copyrightholder?

haha I too have an extremely soft spot for Red Dwarf, but living in the US, it's hard to get my hands on anything Red Dwarf. :P

I tried to make an account on GOG, but alas, my slow internet wouldn't let me, and I missed out on one of the weekend sales. :frown:

Well, that's the word all over. Seems they got the copyrights back. :)