Some sort of a review (because I can!)

Late to the party, but I've stayed as far away as I could from this international interweb hostel until I'd experience every possible bits of the game. I've also since read a ton of reviews and nearly all of your posts, so I may skip the obvious now and then! Bear in mind, please, that whatever may sound negative is actually nothing but love, and constructive criticism to build upon, whatever BFG's next project may be!

It'd be an understatement to say how thrilled, grateful and generally giddy I am about this game existing. We've all been around long enough to know how we feel about this success!

Considering Pandora Directive is the gold standard, I was surprised (pleasantly, mind you) to find a style and tone much closer to UAKM. If Pandora was mature, and Overseer melodramatic, I did not expect Tesla to be an odd breed of Mature Clownishness, as if the last two titles never existed, and what we saw on screen was the direct evolution of a two-decade gap between Tesla and UAKM. A lot of this (most of it) comes from Chris Jones, and I'm delighted by his portrayal and most of the dialogue. I don't know how much of this is intentional, but it seems even in terms of throwbacks to the old games, UAKM was much more present than Pandora.

Gameplay is next, and this is where I have a problem. Unlike everything I read about puzzles, graphics and whatever else, my only puzzlement concerns gameplay vs narrative progression. I'm having a hard time explaining how the genius people who so easily solved the universal problem of story integration in games has managed to completely flunk it this time around and fall into the usual traps. Why, oh why, is 100% of the story spoon-fed through cutscenes? What happened to finding out most of the story through actual detective work, reading information spread across the world, putting two and two together and collecting clues?

Outlandish plot points were thrown at us in the most casual way in the same kind of cutscenes we'd get silly jokes. And we were never prepared for any of them, because none, absolutely none of it, was materialised in the actual gaming.

A huge missed opportunity here is the Blue Dragon warehouse. Considering this is a game, not a film, and seeing how they always managed to understand story-telling through gaming in the past, this "hidden content" should have rewarded the player who had found information about it through exploration and in-game content. The key to the sewers, or the ability to visit the warehouse, should have never been tied to a cutscene path for the pure sake of replayability. In a path most people would never take on their first or even second playthrough, no less!

That's one example, but the game is ridden with this issue. And so the gameplay is unfortunately reduced to puzzles, and it seems a lot of players skipped many of them. Which makes me wonder what they actually played! Or did some people just basically skip from cutscene to cutscene to get the story?!

Back to the positive! The glorious FMV. There is sooooooooooo much of it, even after Adrian teased us with how much footage there was, I still managed to underestimate how much they could put in this game, considering the budget. Everything they promised about in-engine integration also turned out to be true, a feat in itself considering studios are so prone to exaggerate, when they're not flat out lying (I'm looking at you, Watchdogs and Fallout 3!).

Story-wise, I can't wait to get my hands on the novel, which is next on my to-do list. It seems the game barely gives us 40% of everything Aaron has wrapped into his gorgeous head (hint hint, another reason why you need story-content in the actual gameplay!), and the more I think of it, the more I read on it, the more intrigued I am about all sorts of possibilities in the story ark. It questions absolutely everything we thought we knew, and leaves room for more!

I'm impressed this was made. I'm impressed this is what came out of this Kickstarter adventure, and I'm very glad we all hung around long enough to see it! And if it means more content in the future, whatever format, I'll stick around for many more years, because I love this odd little world the guys have come up with over the years, and I don't see a single reason to leave it!

PS: As usual, the musical score was a delight!
Part-Time Nomad
There was no centralized game design person for this project. Aaron wrote the story but was, as far as I know, not really all that involved in the game design. Instead, the job floated out and landed on several people. I'm not disrespecting the efforts of anyone (nor am I attempting to kiss any ass) when I say this, but I feel the game would have greatly benefitted from having Aaron on site and holding the reins on the game design aspects.

Also? Welcome back, Frank.

-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!
Frank, IMHO, the spoon-feeding was done deliberately, with the aim of attracting more younger players than a PD would have done. Yes, the game was backed by the fans; yes, it was done in large part as an homage to the fans, but I think BFG is really hoping they can garner a new fan base as well.

The problem with that is today's young game players have the attention span of a gnat. For them, the only problem with instant gratification is it's just not fast enough. So, BFG toned down the puzzles, limited the far ranging travel options of previous games, and generally made the game easier.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents....
Fred Buer wrote:There was no centralized game design person for this project. Aaron wrote the story but was, as far as I know, not really all that involved in the game design. Instead, the job floated out and landed on several people. I'm not disrespecting the efforts of anyone (nor am I attempting to kiss any ass) when I say this, but I feel the game would have greatly benefitted from having Aaron on site and holding the reins on the game design aspects.
I did not want to presume anything. However, this is precisely what I suspected. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, the absence of the writer on premises shows. You have a script that is very well shot. And you have good puzzles in a game. You have no actual story in the gameplay, nothing to bridge and centralise the two aspects.

Not to throw ombrage on the rest of the fabulous work of course! But still, an unfortunate missed opportunity for gameplay.

PS: Thanks!
Part-Time Nomad
Nice review. I've always thought the emphasis at Big Finish was stories and it shows.
Fair review. I don't know if they will release sales figures so that we might judge whether this has been a successful game or not. I do know that there are lots of comments up on the Steam forum (that's where I got the game download) and there was a lot of enthusiasm. It also amazes me how fast play throughs and solutions to all the puzzles went up (not that I looked). I agree that there should have been more of a reward for getting through the sewer maze (I managed to do this successfully without a problem.

I've played the game three times to see the major endings but will wait a while to do it a fourth time (with the hope I forget a lot of the puzzles and have to use my brain to solve them). The only real issue that I have is with the oscilloscope puzzle. The angle of the knobs is really bad and one cannot really line up the second know on #2. I could never solve the second go around because of the time limitation and had to skip through at this point.

If they do a next installment perhaps some of the gentle criticism will be taken to heart and we will end up with a better game.
Taken from Adventure Gamers interview with Adrian Carr:

As a producer and co-creator with Chris Jones on the earlier productions, Aaron would observe the shoot, looking for any inconsistencies or plot issues that I could easily have overlooked. If we needed to add dialogue or trim a scene down, he would come up with solutions most times on the spot. He was also heavily involved in the game design of the projects. Unfortunately, Aaron was unable to work on Tesla Effect because of his job at Electronic Arts; his presence on set was sorely missed.
This bohemian photo-bombed Coit Tower's selfie.
Orange14 wrote:The only real issue that I have is with the oscilloscope puzzle. The angle of the knobs is really bad and one cannot really line up the second know on #2. I could never solve the second go around because of the time limitation and had to skip through at this point.
Completely agree. Although I know I could do this torture, er, puzzle if I really wanted to, I don't want to, so I haven't. And I refuse to play on Casual, because of the 'sparklies', but I won't play without the flashlight either. Consequently, I haven't finished the game at all. One day.... maybe.