Tex Murphy Overseer Plotline Now Impossible? (Disclaimer)

Last edited by Bjyman on March 14, 2011 • 2:46 am, edited 2 times in total.
It looks like there are now plans to make the Golden Gate Bridge suicide proof.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/11/ca ... =obnetwork

Was this bad foresight on Overseer's part or did Overseer actually cause this?
its going to take several years for the design so there will be no rush to jump off.... :lol:
Lynne
tex murphy is back in town
Bjyman wrote:It looks like there are now plans to make the Golden Gate Bridge suicide proof.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/11/ca ... =obnetwork

Was this bad foresight on Overseer's part or did Overseer actually cause this?
Absolutely outraged! I'm starting a tea party to oppose this monstrous concept. How dare they ruin a decade of continuity in interactive movies. Geez, Governments really need to get their priorities straight!
Such a morbid topic. Maybe this needs a disclaimer. Ray of sunshine this ain't.

After reading that article, it looks to me like the Golden Gate's reputation is secure.

I hope they have more planned than just a glorified safety net. The only way it could prove to be an effective deterrent is if it was designed to trap a person inside it (without a means of cutting through it) until authorities arrived. But, if someone were determined enough, I have no doubt they'd find a way to beat the system, even if it was made from unbreakable materials. And yet that may still be beside the point.

At best, this plan will prevent accidental deaths from being potentially labeled as suicides. If the net's going to be like what I saw when touring an aircraft carrier, all someone would have to do is pull themselves over the side of the net, & then they'd fall even more precariously than if their initial jump hadn't been hindered at all, which would increase the non-survivability to greater than the already stated 98%. In short, all it would be is a pit stop for a last-minute rethink which probably wouldn't deter someone from going the rest of the way if they were already determined to jump knowing this was already there to begin with.

And no one would be more determined to beat that system than a brilliant scientist who's unwillingly being motivated/controlled by a chip forcefully placed into his brain. So, no, I don't think there's any significant continuity gaffes here either. In fact, coming out of the net into a free fall would probably yield the uncontrolled fall that we see Carl Linsky take at the beginning of Overseer anyway, minus a few flips of course. And what's to say the nets wouldn't be in a state of disrepair in 26 years (2037)?

Personally, I'm more concerned with how a man confined to a wheelchair crosses a room with an electrified floor given the deactivation panel is in the middle of the room.

Hammerhead
Image
Very good point hammerhead! Maybe he's really good with a slingshot??
David
If the net wont stop someone then why build it? I would think you'd have to at least climb your way out of it and that could give someone time for a rescue team. Would Linsky really be able to do that fast climbing in his condition? Even if he did, what ruins the plotline is it makes it more of a prolonged cheezy death that the game would surely account for and the determination to get out of the net really takes away from the Was it Murder? question.

As far as Gideon goes there's a lot of Gideon's house we don't see in VR mode. The official entrance probably has a different security system. When you talk to Gideon in Ask About mode I think it's in a different area than his Bedroom and Study.
The nets are more for liability than safety. If they help prevent from accidental death, then anyone who does die from the fall in the future can more easily (and possibly more accurately) be labeled as a suicide jumper, which makes it very easy to determine a cause of death. You don't have to interview witnesses (except maybe as a formality) if you know they pulled themselves over the edge of the net to their deaths; it's an open/shut suicide, just like Eve Clements treated it in Overseer. And with response time measured in minutes, not seconds, even a man of his age, motivated by that killer implant, could pull himself over the edge of the net in under a minute.

You're also assuming that Linsky's body wouldn't be pushed to or beyond its limits by the mind control chip in its attempt to kill him. If he didn't keep himself in excellent physical shape, odds are he wouldn't have died from the fall, but probably from a heart attack or stroke beforehand. The fact that he didn't die of a natural cause is what told Sylvia something wasn't right about it, which then led to her hiring Tex. It's the fact that Carl's death looked like a suicide that even Tex is reluctant to take the case until he decides he needs the money because he's up to his ears in debt. In that regard, as bad as it sounds, this may even help the continuity. In insures that Linsky's death is deemed a suicide, case closed.

Hammerhead
Image
Yes I agree that Linsky probably had the fatal implant that would have killed him sooner or later. However I'm not sure with Linsky's age he'd be able to make it over the net. Either way it looks odd in the game now that there's no mention of the net.
I always found it amusing when playing Overseer that the main storyline revolved around a plot to implant people with microchips that will inevitably enable others to control their actions... even though the whole time we are controlling Tex Murphy's actions behind the computer screen! If only Gideon just had a copy of Overseer!

-Cub. =o)
Then he'd only be able to control Tex. Well that should be enough to keep his project from being destroyed. Possibly have Tex go as far as getting the incriminating disc on Law and Order for Gideon to distribute and be done with it.