The music from Overseer was never intrusive. I even found myself humming some of the tunes when I wasn’t playing the game, which certainly must be a good sign. Most of the music seemed to fit the environment. For example, when I was sneaking around in dangerous places and stealing things out of people’s pants, suspenseful music kept me on the edge of my seat. The voice acting was, for the most part, professional and convincing, with remarkable performances by Chris Jones (the series co-designer and producer) as Tex Murphy, Michael York as businessman J. Saint Gideon, Henry Darrow as fellow P.I. Sonny Fletcher, and Roger Davis as political candidate Robert Knott. Occasionally I felt that the responses of characters were forced, but overall I was very impressed. Many sound effects added to the atmosphere of the game, such as a speeder vehicle racing past Tex’s office window, etc. The music, voice acting, and sound effects category receives an A.

The puzzles in Overseer range from novel to worn out. A lot of the game’s “puzzles” involve finding and using the numerous passcards, passwords, and keys, which can sometimes get old, though it’s well worth the reward of a new lead or room to explore. Some of the puzzles involve combining inventory items in creative ways to advance, deciphering coded messages, or moving big objects to see what’s underneath or behind them. For any accomplished tasks, points are awarded. Aside from these things, there are also the real puzzles, which are usually timed in “Gamer” mode. (There’s another “Entertainment” mode, which offers the an online hint system, bypassing unwanted puzzles, and easier puzzles in general.) Don’t worry–when the timer runs out, you only get fewer points for finishing the puzzle. It’s easy enough to save before the puzzle until you get it right for all the points. Some of the puzzles are run of the mill, such as the listen-and-match-the-sound-tone type of puzzle. Some of the puzzles don’t seem to fit the plot very well but are nonetheless fun. Others are downright clever. For example, I especially enjoyed the puzzle in which Tex had to rearrange loose bricks in an unstable wall to make a perfectly square hole to crawl through. The underlying chess theme in Overseer added a nice touch. Don’t worry, no chess experience needed. I only think there should have been a few more puzzles. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I enjoy a good puzzle. Overall, the category of puzzles receives a B+.

Even though this is certainly a great game, no game comes without flaws. Access has a new patch out to fix some bugs and other errors. However, some flaws are “built” into the game. For example, often times I found that I was swapping disks just to look at an inventory item. The disk swapping isn’t too bad when it’s just between locations, though. The interface has a nice feature of putting a little green dot next to locations that are on the current disk, so you can visit them all in a streak if needed before you switch disks again. The interface is polished and functional, with side bar slide-outs for travelling, inventory, options, and navigation activated by moving the mouse to the corresponding edge of the screen. I also like that the game has in-game configuration settings. This includes separate music and other volume settings (so you can turn down only the music if it’s too loud), and other technical stuff, such as 3D sound on/off, etc. I didn’t get to experience the 3D sound, however, because of my technical limitations. Speaking of technical problems, this game has a crash potential. I estimate that the game crashed about six times during my 25 or so hours of play. I was expecting this since I’m using a lower-end machine. Even so, it’s only a minor problem, since the game conveniently saves your game before crashing. One other good feature of Overseer is that it offers subtitles in addition to the voices. Games should always have the option of subtitles. Kudos to Access Software. Overall gameplay was pretty smooth for me, as I only encountered sticky spots when I had missed an item from earlier. The interface and gameplay receives an A.

Despite a few little problems, Tex Murphy: Overseer is well worth the money. The extraordinary plot, combined with witty and professional voice acting, challenging puzzles, and immersive graphics result in another great adventure game from the Tex Murphy series. Overall grade is A.

Notes:

1. The newest patch for Texas Murphy: Overseer is available at the Access homepage.
2. Overseer can only use hardware acceleration on AGP graphics cards.

System Requirements:

CD-ROM Requirements:
133 MHz Pentium processor or better
Windows 95
16 MB RAM
Min. 640 x 480 video resolution, 2 MB video RAM required
16-bit multimedia sound card
4X CD-ROM
35 MB hard disk space
Keyboard, mouse, and speakers

DVD Requirements:
133 MHz Pentium Processor or better with hardware MPEG-2
or 233 MHz Pentium Processor or better with software MPEG-2 (AGP recommended)
Windows 95
32 MB RAM
Mininum 640 x 480 video resolution, 2 MB video RAM required
16-bit multimedia sound card
DVD drive
35 MB hard disk space
Keyboard, mouse, and speakers