Adventure Gamers - Forums

maladroid - 17 May 2014 12:38 AM

I am still a bit unclear on a lot of things that were going on in the game like timelines and characters’ motivations. All in all, I think there are too many memory wipes and cryogenic reanimations thrown left and right, which really hurt the credibility of the story and test the players suspension of disbelief to the point of breaking.

I also find some aspects of the story confusing. I guess I didn’t follow one particular path consistently, but the choices aren’t obvious, like in the Pandora Directive.

As for Karlok’s avatar girl, if you do the sewer maze and find the Blue Dragon warehouse, you’ll see a lot of mementos/videos that not only tell you who she is (a Romanov princess, I believe) but also confirm that Tex and J.T. Donnely are in fact the same person.

I really don’t feel like doing that killing maze again, so I’ll probably end up watching this part on youtube one day.

This is another thing that doesn’t agree with me, by the way. I mean, it does put an interesting spin into the whole “born a hundred years too late” routine Tex has going on but how is it possible for Tex to have actual memories of himself growing up in our century (I remember a brief flashback in The Pandora Directive where he has an accident riding a toy horse)? Unless it was all part of some (more) memory manipulation that we went through (by Mason, perhaps?). It really is all a bit too much to swallow.

I thought they were talking about reincarnation, it’s one of the things that got me utterly confused. And I haven’t even seen the Warehouse bit!

Sefir - 17 May 2014 04:23 AM

BTW, when I first chose to sleep with Taylor, the location I went was my personal resort. There I found a half-erased phone number (from a woman obviously) and some roman letters on the back of the paper. I couldn’t find any use for it!!

You can use the roman numerals to open you safe (behind one of the paintings). But I was also a bit disappointed that I couldn’t call or trace down the women whose half erased phone number I had

I also had the Taylor ending, but I think at one point I will have to replay to get the Ariel ending as a lot seems to be going on at that ending, and perhaps the Chelsee ending at an even later time. The Saphyre ending doesn’t really appeal to me.

maladroid - 17 May 2014 12:38 AM

... but also confirm that Tex and J.T. Donnely are in fact the same person. This is another thing that doesn’t agree with me, by the way. I mean, it does put an interesting spin into the whole “born a hundred years too late” routine Tex has going on but how is it possible for Tex to have actual memories of himself growing up in our century (I remember a brief flashback in The Pandora Directive where he has an accident riding a toy horse)? Unless it was all part of some (more) memory manipulation that we went through (by Mason, perhaps?). It really is all a bit too much to swallow.

Whoa… I just thought he was some kind of reincarnation or spiritual successor, and now you are telling me that they are actually physical the same person… That doesn’t make any sense at all!

Of course Tex’s childhood memories could simply be Donnely’s childhood memories, but still…

Andraste - 17 May 2014 04:43 AM

Interesting. There’s a conversation with Mojo where Tex may reveal that his given name is actually James Tiberius, so I guess that would explain what the J.T. stands for. (Assuming he’s not making it up. And it’s a far more likely combination of names for someone born post-1966 than a cryo-revivee from the first half of the twentieth century.)

I just thought that that was something that Tex’s made up on the spot, and not actually his real name.

chrissie - 17 May 2014 05:42 AM

Isn’t James Tiberius the first two names of Captain Kirk in Star Trek?

Now that you mention it - it is, and Tex does tend to make a lot of Star Trek references.

Wilco, is there a quick way through those sewers? I hated them. Those splitter-splatter footsteps catching up with me!

FrasierCrane - 17 May 2014 09:00 AM

I have never seen any sewers on the Chelsee path – I’m pretty intrigued now. I think I’ll have to restart the game later.

You have to choose Ariel to get in the sewers.

Yeah, these frequent autosaves before major cutscenes/events are a life-saver. That’s also how I got to try a couple of alternate things like going to the Blue Dragon and finding Tex’s Resort.

As for the J.T. Donnely thing, I admit I may be rushing to conclusions a little bit but in the Romanov girl flashbacks we hear Donnely talking with the voice of Tex (we never see him, though) and combined with the empty J.T. Donnely cryo-chamber the Translator points at in the end, it pretty much suggests that we are one and the same. I mean, if the real Donnely is a separate person, now unfrozen and running around modern San Francisco along with Tex, then wouldn’t that make it impossible for Tex to be a reincarnation of him (as he never actually died)? They are being deliberately shifty about it but there are strong suggestions pointing to that direction (which I don’t really like). And yeah, considering all the stuff Tex knows/remembers about himself it doesn’t add up. I also found it silly that such a major character revelation is based on Tex supposedly being tormented by dreams from the past when that only features in Overseer’s intro. Unless I forgot any mentions of it from UAKM and Pandora but I doubt it.

Also, nice catch on the J.T. initials, guys. I am not an avid Trekkie so I would never have guessed that connection but I also didn’t notice the initials actually match Tex’s made-up (?) name.

Anyway, trying to get through Tesla Society again now to see the Taylor ending. Too bad it’s my least favourite part of the game

chrissie - 17 May 2014 11:56 AM

In my mind getting through The Tesla Society would have been far more interesting without all of the potential death obstacles - it was too much & dulled the motivation to explore.

There’s always one overly dangerous zone in a Tex Murphy game. I didn’t mind it because it posed a challenge, which most AGer’s aren’t so accustomed to. I didn’t mind the deaths because I can just right click and skip the death scene and get spawned not far from where I died.