Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon

When I first saw this game I was at Comdex in Vegas (before E3). My friend was in the Intel booth watching some promo film and when he came out I showed him all the junk I got from the different booths. He showed me his copy of O/S 2 Warp and a game called Under a Killing Moon. I looked at the back of the box and I had to have it. Keep in mind that all we had to play was Wolfenstein and DOOM. My friend told me they gave it away for FREE. So I got it home and it wouldn't run on my computer. The system requirements were to steep. I went over to another friends house that had the best computer I knew of with 4 mb of ram and a 100 mhz Intel. We plugged it in and were immediately drawn in by the story and dark humor. The game was incredible for it's time with full motion video in it with a 3-D environment. I had never in my life seen a game like it. I have yet to see a game that can match it. It has an 80's pop culture feel to it with a sci-fi spin. There are alot of colorful characters and mutants to talk to not to mention a case to solve, lots of fascinating puzzles and side interests. If you’re a fan of Fallout or Wasteland then this game is for you. Where as it's not a free to do what you want environment but the story is along the lines of being campy post nuclear. The controls are a little clunky where you have to press the spacebar to switch to the walk mode and press it again to switch back to the rendered environment. That's the only downside that comes to mind. It is a SOLID GAME, back when they still knew how to make them. It even has an in game hint system if you get stuck. I'm sure Sierra would of killed to have this game as part of their catalog of adventure games. Bottom line if you love adventure games and have a place in your heart for a good mystery BUY THIS GAME.

So there I was, holding a game in my hands that i've never heard about before. I was really curious about it's graphics and noir style and since it was cheap (I found it as a bargain in a shop i knew) i though "heh, why not". A game with 4 cd's was rare back in those days. Only FMV's games like Phantasmagoria, Gabriel Knight 2, etc, had them so I was thrilled to try another one of that kind of games. And I was blown away. The freedom of strolling around in a post-apocalyptic city, the dialogs, the quality of the cinematics, everything was top-notch. I like to divide the game into 3 types of gameplay: - Exploration: walking around freely either in town or other places - Puzzle/"Quest" solving: using items, solving puzzles, etc - Dialogues: like the name says, talking to other characters which is a fundamental part of the game All these 3 parts combined made one hell of a game and let's face it, it wouldn't be the same without Chris Jones playing Tex Murphy. And here I am, buying the game again just to travel again to New San Francisco.

Under a Killing Moon, or UAKM as it's called, is groundbreaking game, not because it has the voice of James Earl Jones, or because Brian Keith and Margot Kidder make cameos, but because it was the first adventure game to properly implement full 3D examination and movement. "Oh no", you think "pixel hunting in THREE dimensions? Horrors!" It isn't though, the game implements it perfectly, and includes some very helpful and forward-thinking features like a complete history of all the facts you've discovered, complete dialogue history by character, items that can be examined in 3D, and even a built-in hints feature goes from very vague hints to explicit solutions, depending on how desperate you feel. To this day it remains one of the most "user-friendly" point-n-click adventure games around. Bad points? It's a huge game, originally came on 6 CD-ROMS, due to all the FMV cutscenes and character interactions. The acting is certainly above-par for an FMV game, the only exception being Tex himself, played by the game's creator. While he gets much better in later installments, he's by no means a turn-off, just campy and cheesy to the max. It's fun, with well written dialogue, and a 3D interactive world that in this era of Syberia and TLJ is still almost totally unique.

UNDER A KILLING MOON REVIEW Still one of my favourite games of all times. I can remember when this game came out. CD Roms were new and I bought one and installed it just to play this. It came on about 4 CDs, which at the time was pretty unheard of, and it was a true interactive movie, a revolutionary step forward at the time, with FMV (which never caught on as we thopught it would). The game cost a whopping £60 (UK, so maybe $90-$100 US at the time). That was a lot of money for a PC game in 1994. Anyway, it lived up to my expectations. It's a truly immersive game, with fantastic graphics at the time. Tex Murphy is possibly the greatest computer game character in history, a fleshed out, well rounded, 'hero' with dry humour that works very well. The game world is a devestated San Fransico of the future, after World War 3, where mutants live in the old town slums, and the humans live in the 'nice part'. The game is a mystery conspiricy story, with great characters, wonderful locations and generally good gameplay, which still holds up well. Some of the puzzles are a little annoying, and the fuzzy graphics make some of the items a little tricky to see, but this doesn't hold back from a great adventure game experience. If you;re a modern gamer and haven;t played it before, it probably looks like a relic, and it is a bit of one. However, if you can get past the fuzzy graphics and give it a chance, it still holds up well, and if you enjoy the slower pace of a good adventure game, it's worth playing this, and its 3 sequels.