Under a Killing Moon

The Good
UAKM puts you in the shoes of Tex Murphy, a gumshoe in a future world much changed. Tex lives amongst the mutants in the ghetto because he feels he has more affinity with them and lives from hand to mouth with litte work coming his way. Sniffing a job when the local pawn shop get burgled he's straight on the case - but gets more than he bargains for when a simple robbery leads to the uncovering of a plot so large that the fate of the world will lie in Tex's hands.

Yup its up to you to save the world again!

One of the things which i feel adventure games live and die by is the storyline and if they can throw a little humour in there as well then all the better! UAKM has both of these by the bucketload! The story is excellent and you'll soon be drawn into the web of intrigue which unfolds before you and Tex's sarcastic humour, which accompanies virtually every single action in true Marlowe voice-over style, will have you laughing as well. great story AND it'll make you laugh - almost 5 stars just for that!

I should mention this is a point and click adventure, driven by lots of FMV sequences so you know what kind of game it is. The interface is VERY simple to use. you can select between action and movement modes, one allowing you to move about your environment, the other freezing the screen and letting you talk to characters and manipualte objects to solve puzzles. The interface is very intuitive and you'll get the hang of it very quickly.

The characters here are wonderful as well, talking to them is never boring even though you often have to jump between one and the other repetedly as more of the story is revealed and more questions are revealed to ask of them. Check out the likes of the chocaholic mutant who lives in the dumpster for example...

Puzzles are pitched at just the right difficulty so that they are actually solveable although it is all rather linear so you are left in no doubt where the puzzles are and a little random clicking without too much thought will solve them.

This is one of the most fun adventure games I've played.

The Bad
Problems with this game are quite minor to be fair. ts not faultless by any means, but what problems it does have are quite negligible

Its looking a little dated now - go figure, its old! Fortunately it was somewhat ahead of its time when it was released so it has weathered quite well, but some of hte FMV sequences are looking a little creaky. Characters look like shop dummies until spoken to and then suddenly spring into life for instance and the human characters seem to 'float' on the drawn backgrounds rather more obviously than in more recent games.

Sound effects too are good as stated, but sometimes seem too low or muffled and there is a distinct lack of ambient sounds in some parts as well.

Finding it may be a problem these days.

Its a little easy for experienced adventure gamers. I would say the first day or two are quite challenging and then its all a bit of a rush through to the end with little in the way of challenge inbetween! The final day is really one long FMV sequence too, so there really are only 6 days to play across.

The Bottom Line
UAKM is a superb game. Its getting on a little but at this price and with this kind of gameplay you can NOT fault it!! Its almost a must purchase game.

The Good
Under a Killing Moon is Tex Murphy's third adventure as a lonely PI. WWIII has resulted in San Francisco being divided into two sections: “Old San Francisco” and “New San Francisco”. The war also created the formation of two classes of citizens. Those that were effected by radiation are called Mutants, and those that weren't are called Norms. Tex lives in “Old San Francisco”, among the mutants.

UAKM starts out with Tex looking for some work, and eventually finds some work in the form of finding out who robbed Rook's Pawnshop. Unfortunately, Tex's investigation leads to much bigger things – things like doomsday cults plotting the end of the world, releasing a deadly virus into the atmosphere capable of wiping the Earth clean.

Seeing UAKM's introduction almost made me feel that I was actually watching a movie. The introduction has Tex telling the user that San Francisco is split into two sections, labeled “Old” and “New”, and that he is staying at the Ritz Hotel. Fortunately, this feeling was shattered when I could move around Tex's office and interact with the various gizmos that he has in there. You walk around in a 3D virtual environment, and do things a true PI does, such as looking in drawers, looking under (and on top of) desks, entering information into computers, dealing with security systems, plus other things a good PI does.

Like his last case, Tex has to deal with several characters, which are voiced by actors I haven't even heard of. Brian Keith plays the crusty old Colonel, while Suzanne Barnes plays Chelsee Bando, Tex's love interest. Characters that make an appearance from the last game include Lowell Percival and Mac Malden. Rook Garner is responsible for starting Tex with his investigation. When you interact with characters, there are a variety of conversation choices that you have to make, and these conversation choices can either be positive or negative. Unlike the last game, UAKM does not tell you what Tex will say, so it is up to the user to find out.

Okay, I lied. Before I played UAKM, I heard of Chris Jones, who plays Tex. As every Tex fan should now, Chris also happens to be one of the designers of the game. He looks like Tex in the previous games, too, which made me think that when Access were designing Mean Streets back in 1989, the company decided to make future Tex games “interactive movies”, with Chris as the starring role.

Tex's investigation is within a six-day period. And every day, Tex is faced with a new assignment. These include digging up the dirt on the husband of Francesca Lucido (Jeri Christian; dealing with the scary Chameleon (Russel Means), an Indian who has the ability to change shapes and sets up Tex; and finally, getting off the planet to destroy the doomsday cult.

The graphics are excellent. They show you that Chandler Avenue (where the Ritz Hotel is situated) is a grimy city with no activity whatsoever, apart from the people who are operating some joints. Outside it is a different story. Tex is either likely to enter mansions that are laid out nicely and have the state-of-the-art security systems, or enter company headquarters where other forms of security exist. The graphic quality depends on how much RAM you have. I remember running UAKM with 4MB RAM, which is the minimum memory requirement, and I had to put up with blocky graphics, but getting an extra 12MB fixed things.

A detailed map of San Francisco is used to travel between locations. I like how the locations are color-coded, and how it is accompanied by an small FMV clip showing Tex traveling to his destination. The FMV clips are good to watch, with interesting conversations between two characters that attempt to plot Tex's doom. The clips are well scripted, and it shows you how good or evil the character is.

There is some humor in the game, especially when it is coming from Chris Jones himself. One of the funniest things he can do at the start of the game is where he accidentally throws his gun out of the window. And later, he poses as Inspector Burns in order to gain entrance to the Golden Gate Hotel.

UAKM uses an installation program that I believe is more advanced than any program that I seen. One of its features worth noting is the ability to assign multiple CD-ROM drives. This feature is very useful for those that have more than one CD-ROM drive, since it means that there is no disc-swapping throughout the game. Access supports a wide range of video cards and sound cards that were commonplace at the time, and if any one of these causes the install program to crash or lock up, there is a text-only installation that users can run.

The Bad
When a cut-scene is played, and it involves two people talking, the person who is listening to the other person talking acts like a mannequin, except when he does things like scratching his head or moving his body.

As a true PI, you have to solve puzzles, mainly by getting pieces of shredded paper and putting them together to form a message, possibly getting a new lead. While I was putting them all together, I always ran out of room, and I had to move them around a limited area and try again. These shredded pieces of paper must be in an exact position before they can become of any use. Every letter must be clear and not have immediate cuts to the next one. I found this hard because my mouse often slips just after I get it in the right position, and I also have to try again.

The Bottom Line
Under a Killing Moon is the third Tex Murphy adventure. It is far more advanced than the previous games, with greater freedom of movement, the use of actors, and the fact that sometimes it acts like a movie. As Tex, you have to do all the things a good PI does, and that probably means solving puzzles in order to get a good lead.

You also need to talk to people, mostly asking them about others. The good thing about this is there are various conversation paths that you can go on, and whether it is a positive or negative response is a mystery. In the six days of Tex's investigation, there is plenty of interesting shit to do. The game allows you to assign multiple CD drives. Even if you do not have multiple ones, the disc swapping that you have to do won't stop you from enjoying a fine detective game.

I recommend reading the UAKM novel by Aaron Conners, and I recommend reading it after you have completed the game. It differs from the game, in that it enhances the story, taking elements out that was not relevant to the game's main plot. That and the second novel, based on The Pandora Directive, are both good reads. I believe that you still can by a copy from Amazon.

The Good
First and foremost. When you buy a Tex Murphy game you get the hint book inside the game. In the sub menu you can choose to cheat and get hints for a cut in your score. For those who are pureists (not me) then this option is useless if not insulting. But for the other 99.9% of us that get stuck and want to finsh NOW! then this is the jem of all jems. Good clean fun WOW! No bad language minimual violence maximum gaming goodness. One of the other great things about this game is its length. Killing Moon is a long game but not in a bad way. When you finish the game you feel like you really accomplished something. I know that when it was all over I could not believe how much fun I had. As soon as I was done I RAN to get the next one in the series. This series just continues to preform. A lot of younger gamers will find the idea of a game without violence and topless women boring. But if you can look past that for a moment and try one of these classics you just might begin to see what good PC games really are. When your mind is stimulated not just your... well you know.. then you get to experience what PC have to offer. Thank you I will now get off my soapbox.

The Bad
Nothing. This was one of the infiately few games that had no flaw that I could determine.

...well I take that back. When this first came out it required a system that most people did not have untill years later. It took a while for this game to catch on. But I didnt play it untill years after it came out. So that did not bother me.

The Bottom Line
Everyone should be required to play this game.