After playing almost 90 games, I finally decided I couldn’t ignore
the Tex Murphy games any longer. Since I began playing adventure games, my friends
have impressed upon me how much they enjoy this series. The series consists, so
far, of five games. However, the last three are much more well-known than the
first two and are similar enough in format to be thought of as a trilogy. So for
the purposes of this review, I’m going to think of Under a Killing Moon as
the “first” game, even though technically it’s the third.

I’ve
been resisting UAKM for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s DOS, and
loading DOS games on my newfangled computer is a risky proposition at best. Second,
it’s a multi-disk DOS game, which just seems weird to me. Finally, I was truly
put off by the huge manual. It’s like an encyclopedia! I’m of the school
that thinks an adventure game should be so intuitive that I should just be able
to load and play.

Last week, however, I got a wild urge to give ol’ Tex
a try. I screwed up my courage and tossed the first disk into my disk drive …

Love
at First Sight

… and fell promptly, deliriously, totally in love.

First
of all, the game installed beautifully. Not only that, but the game offered a
wealth of setup options that were clear, comprehensive, and helpful. A pile of
welcome choices on one big, easy screen–from screen size to subtitles to hints
to sound. Included on this screen was a configuration option I can’t believe
I’ve never seen on any other game: it actually let me take advantage of the
fact that I have more than one CD drive! I assigned two disks to drive D: and
the other two to drive E:, thereby cutting disk swapping chores in half. Why
don’t all games offer this?!

Next we have to talk about the interface.
Typical of many Myst babies, I generally prefer a simple point-and-click
interface. I get quickly suspicious when things get more complicated. Considering
that, you’d think I would have hated UAKM’s fairly busy, complex interface.
Not so. Full of pop-up menus with choices dealing with conversation, inventory
management, saving games, navigation, etc., the interface is very friendly and
feels like a box full of helpful tools to solve the mystery, not an impediment
to game enjoyment. The whole set-up gave me a wonderful roll-up-the-sleeves feeling.

The
graphical format of the game is an odd hybrid of real-time 3D and full motion
video. These two formats actually provide the two separate “modes” in
which you play UAKM: “travel mode” and “interactive mode.”
In travel mode, you have the ability to move around in a fully real-time rendered,
100-percent explorable environment. Whenever you want to interact with someone
or something, you switch to interactive mode and work with elements on a static
screen. Bouncing between the two modes is accomplished with ease and was second-nature
minutes into gameplay. You can size the viewing screens to best work with your
own equipment, and I very successfully used a full screen for travel mode.

A
Marriage Made in Heaven

As I’ve said repeatedly, and will continue to
say, the detective genre is one of two types of stories that are absolutely, perfectly,
excruciatingly appropriate material for adventure games (the other, or course,
is horror). The conventions of a whodunit and the mechanics of an adventure game
mesh beautifully, and the glow of this happy synergy fills this entire game with
a bright, happy light.

For those few of you who, like me, haven’t already
played all of these games, let me just tell you that Tex Murphy is a down-on-his-luck
private dick in a mid-21st century San Francisco that has been largely destroyed
by WWIII. Humanity is now divided into two classes: people with natural immunity
to radiation mutation (the minority) and people who have suffered severe genetic
mutation and disfigurement.

Tex is one of the lucky ones, but many people
that he meets have some nasty disfigurements.

The game is divided up into
six chapters, or days (actually there is a seventh, but it’s a noninteractive
finale). The first day is a warm-up, an entertaining catch-the-robber escapade
that serves as a good training sequence for the mechanics of the game. The true
case begins on day two, and you know what? I’m not going to give one single part
of it away. Just trust me; it’s fun, imaginative, and fairly ambitious. The story
was compelling enough that I never wanted to stop playing.

As in other detective
games, the more you explore, the more environments are opened up to you. You wend
your way through various San Francisco locations and eventually even to two “off-world”
locations.

Welcome to the Happy Land of Good Game Construction

This
game is full of elegant touches. I’ll talk about just two of them. As in many
games, in UAKM you have to do a certain amount of inventory manipulation,
including combining items and offering items to other characters. These tasks
are handled with great visual flair and ease, which made playing with inventory
a fun exercise rather than a laborious chore.

I also have to mention the
chapter title screens. They are simply the best I’ve ever seen in a game. They’re
better even than the chapter titles in GK1, which were my favorite until
now. The pleasure and satisfaction of completing each chapter was even greater
knowing I’d get to watch one of these cool chapter markers again.

Dialog
in the game is excellent, and many times finding the correct conversational path
is a puzzle in itself.

The puzzles in the game are adequate but not inspirational.

The
Worst Game Acting Since Christopher Walken in Ripper

The game
does have one very big downfall, I must admit. The acting is simply atrocious.
I believe Access actually used employees as cast members, and it just stinks.
Even the lead actor, Chris Jones (actually Access Software co-founder), is terrible.
This blow would be softened if he was dreamy to look at, but he’s, uh, not.
I’ve heard he gets better as the series progresses. We’ll see.

There
are two famous actors thrown into the mess, Brian Keith and Margot Kidder, and
they both acquit themselves professionally, thank God.

All this bad acting
in a game that is so character-driven and full of dialog would sink a lesser game.
It’s not enough to kill the sense of fun in UAKM, however, and I played
the entire game with a stupid grin of pleasure on my face. It’s the kind of game
that makes me feel sorry for all those misguided people who don’t play adventure
games.

As superb as the other elements of this game were, the terrible acting
brings the final grade down to a B.

If you liked Under a Killing
Moon,
Watch: Trancers (1985)
Read: The Little Sister by
Raymond Chandler
Play: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

System
Requirements: 386/25 MHz Processor or better

MS-DOS
4 MB RAM
SVGA display (VESA compliant)
Sound card (supports
all major sound boards)
2X CD-ROM drive
8 MB available hard disk space

Keyboard/mouse/speakers