Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon

I was thrilled when I found out there was a Vista version of the game. It is one of my all time favorites and sadly, I had only played it as a loan when I was a teenager. Now I can own and replay the game and I am phyched about it. Tex Murphy is the MAN!

This is one of my favorite game all times. When I first played it I could not belive my eyes. A game on 4 cds?? Who could belive it back then? It was good then and it's still good to dag. 15 years later.

Under a Killing Moon is a really solid adventure game with lots of danger, investigative thrills, and cynical banter. This was a soft reboot of the Tex Murphy series back in 1994, and remains as one of the better FMV adventure games to date. A down-on-his-luck private detective Tex Murphy lives in the radiatoned strickened San Francisco after the WWIII, along with the outcasts and mutants. After he accepts what appears to be a simple investigative job, Tex will have to use all of his smarts to save the world. Besides being mired in the noire-movie atmosphere, the plot of the game explores the sadly everlasting issue of racism and classism, and the story moves at a fast pace. Tex will talk to people, look for clues, and avoid being seen, so he can successfully finish the string of connected cases. The dialogue can be a bit hammy, but it is also quite witty with a delightfully dry humor thrown in for a good measure. When you are not checking the full-motion-video cutscenes, you will walk, look, take and manipulate objects in a 3D first-person environment. The graphics are ok today, if heavily pixelated, and the midi soundtrack does have a few jazzy bangers that I keep playing on my phone to and from work. The puzzles are on the easier side and fairly logical to figure out, so they were not a chore to solve. The only exception is the Ferelette Wheel puzzle near the end that was more irritating and based on luck than fun. Most of the characters that you talk to in the game are nuinced, interesting and down-to-Earth, while some are kings and queens of movie-cheese. Overall, this was and remains a very good adventure game that nicely balances investigation, story, characters, and a bit of action scenes where Tex can die. The overall story is okay, but it is nothing exemplary for this game genre. While better stories await in the follow-up sequels of Tex Murphy games, Under a Killing Moon is a solid introduction to the series.

I'd like to say that I'm not an adventure game fan. Back when I played this, it was just an interesting and splashy thing. This game combined 3d with FMV. I remember the 3d choking my 486 back in the day. I loved it. I didn't realize just how special this game was at that time. I did enjoy searching for clues and finishing the puzzles. It was better than Cyberia. Cyberia was cool just because back then I was a kiddie for anything that would splash pretty things on the screen. However, Cyberia didn't have interaction like this game does. Tex Murphy: Under A Killing Moon defined the genre by really making you feel like you were Tex.

Arguably the no1 adventure game of the 90s