Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon

Let me just say that this game is one you'll love to play in spite of its horrid controls. this one kept me fiddling with graphics and control options for hours just because I was so invested in it after only an few minutes of gameplay. If you can last long enough to get used to the bizarre movement which resembles driving a tobogan over ice and complicated mouse interface and no less than10 different camera angle keys then its totally worth it. pros: delightful film noir done right, fantastic real star (james earl jones!) voice acting and live actor film clips, funky post apocalyptic cities to explore, awesome music track full of cool jazz which brings home the genre. sorta logical puzzles (its an adventure game after all so dont expect reality) that makes sense and actually can be worked out without a walkthru, intriguing story cons: the controls are a nightmare. you 'steer' with keybinds and give gas with the mouse, the camera does its own thing with too many idiotic key bindings to look up/down/right/left/sorta right/sorta left/behind/stand on toes/slither on ground etc. the gas via mouse gives a floating sliding feel to your char which usually means you continue to slide past your target, over react with your mouse and end up careening all over the place spinning like a top. you have an option to slow mouse movement which I did but it only helps a little. graphics are pixelated and tearing if you choose to increase your rez and go against the native windowed mode. my screen was offset to the right, cutting off interface controls which took a long time to fix. sliding around makes hotspot finding a chore, especially when you only get the cue for interaction from one tiny angle so 3d movement is not a blessing persevering thru all the control and graphic issues leaves you with a great game to listen to, enjoy, solve puzzles, laugh at the comedy, get creeped out and wonder what will happen next. In other words...an adventure game

Solutions to puzzles are sometimes very implausible, the characters are clichés and the acting is sub-par -- especially from the lead, Chris Jones, who's playing the detective going by the name Tex Murphy -- but boy, is this a great game or what? Under a Killing Moon does every single thing right in making you feel you're a detective. You can talk to people, decide "how you want to play it" and -- if you're succesful -- ask them what they know about items you've found, people you've met and locations you've heard of. You'll carefully search desk drawers, paper bins and turn around furniture and whatnot for clues. You can examine suspicious items you've found to see what's beyond their exterior. And you'll patiently piece together scraps of paper to see which secrets they contain. Then there's the plot, the mystery, the mood, the virtual world, the interface (which is designed as something I would describe as an organized and stylish file cabinet) and last but not least: Chris Jones -- yeah, who I said was a bad actor. Again: everything is set up in such a way that makes it fun and exciting being a detective, investigating your surroundings. Chris Jones tops it off. Sure, his acting may be merely ok, but he sells it nevertheless. Without him as Tex, I don't know if I'd be as attracted by the game as I was when I was younger. Why? His voice and the delivery of his lines. It's completely fitting. The funny remarks, the conversations; you can't help but laugh and you want to keep on listening. Yes, Chris Jones IS Tex Murphy. What else? Well, the game is really colorful, intriguing, atmospheric and suspenseful. Yeah, I said the characters are cliché, but they are interesting nonetheless, and alright, I said the solutions to puzzles are sometimes implausible, but they can be deduced and the puzzles themselves are actually quite entertaining and really fit their surroundings. Ah, just forget the negative things I said. It was just a ploy to lure you into reading this review and subsequently into playing the game. Go on, you'll find yourself immersed in Tex' world in no-time.

Alleine das Margot Kidder (Damals wie heute eine meiner Lieblingsschauspielerinnen) in dem Spiel eine Rolle hat war und ist bahnbrechend. Ansonsten ist das spiel zu seiner Zeit ein Meilenstein gewesen. Auch wenn ich damals etwas anderes erwartet hatte und mehr mit SciFi gerechnet hatte als mit dem Detektivspiel und Noir Stil war ich fasziniert. Das switchen zwischen Movement und Standbild um zu interagieren ist ebenso eine eigene Besonderheit bei einem Spiel das ich so eigentlich nie wieder gesehen habe. Muss aber auch sagen dass ich danach erst wieder das Tex Murphy Spiel Tesla Effect gespielt habe. Für Spieler die in Erinnerungen schwelgen möchten oder eine Reise durch die Spielegeischte unternehmen wollen ist der Sprung zu Under a killing moon wärmstens zu empfehlen.

The best FMV Adventure game of all time. Plays perfectly

I remember the first time I played UAKM, as a kid with a 486mhz PC... The game simply blew me away. Motion capture was just starting to catch on, and the idea of seeing "real" people in a game was something that just seemed way ahead of its time. The story was futuristic noir humor, and keeps you hooked from start to finish. GOG is a savior. Having Tex Murphy on my Windows 7 laptop for the road has made my month.