Review of Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive by Niclas
One of the finest Adventures ever created!
Man, was I in for a surprise when I picked up the Tex Murphy games a while back!!!!! I started off with Under a killing moon, and I really loved it. Then I started playing Pandora Directive straight after that, Oh my Holy, freaking BEST game I have ever played!!!! I gets everything right form story, characters, puzzles, music, mood, you name it. The only concern that I have is that the puzzles can get a little bit hard sometimes, and will tempt even the most experienced Adventure Gamer to look at a walkthrough. How could I have missed such a classic in the mid 90s??!!! And did I mention that it is long, very long. This game will take you over 25 to 30 hours. The graphics still look good with today’s standards, it gives you a great nostalgic feel, and actually suits the gameplay. The only bad thing I have to say about this game are a few annoying timed puzzles (hate those), and one irritating puzzle where you steer a wireless robot through a tunnel maze, that does not have any “map”, and you are not given any specific directions. According to me mazes and timed puzzles are the enemy of a good Adventure Game, but just this time I am willing to look away, since there are so many other good puzzles in this game.
If you have missed this title, definitely pick it up. It is definitely worth it, you won’t regret it.
NEW NOTE AFTER SECOND REPLAY (25 FEB 2013):
I actually enjoyed the game even more when doing a replay, I could focus more on the story, plus I was more used to how to play and how to think when playing a Tex Murphy game. I did this replay just after I finished with Overseer.
Once thing still remains, I really got annoyed by the puzzle design of Malloy’s puzzle boxes. I really hated them. I’m so fed up with slider puzzles (it’s just a waste of time with having 10 plus of them in a game), period. However I really liked the idea of the map puzzle box where you were supposed to connect dots between different locations. However the execution of the puzzle is just horrible. Also I really liked the idea of one of the last puzzle boxes where Tex was supposed to link dates between the Mayan and a traditional calendar. However this puzzle is still way to hard for me to figure out by myself. I even had to consult a walkthrough on the second playthrough.
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Time Played: Over 20 hours
Difficulty: Very Hard
