Tex Murphy
| Tex Murphy | |
|---|---|
| developer |
 Access software
|
| Publisher |
Access software Eidos Interactive (Overseer)
|
| Designer | Chris Jones |
| First title | Mean Streets (1989) |
| Last title | Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure (2014) |
| Platform (s) | Amiga , Atari ST , C64 , DOS , Windows , Mac OS , partly Linux |
| Genre (s) | Adventure |
Tex Murphy is the main character in a six-part computer game series from Access Software named after him . The character was played by Chris Jones . He is a private detective in future San Francisco .
Tex Murphy's world
After the Third World War in 1998, high doses of radioactivity are still present, some residents mutated, while others were immune or belonged to the higher social class and were able to escape the radiation to another place. Some landmarks have been preserved, such as the Golden Gate Bridge , Coit Tower and Alcatraz , which are also the locations of the games. Tex lives in Old San Francisco, a not yet completely rebuilt district that is mostly inhabited by mutants. The ethnic division of people into mutants and non-mutants leads to racism and is also part of the stories. From a technical point of view, life is ambivalent: While some “outdated” devices are still being used (such as magnetic cards), newer technologies are also represented (such as flying automobiles), which is partly reminiscent of the film Blade Runner . The gloomy atmosphere is characterized by the no-go-out during the day, the partly neglected scenes as well as the sky colored red by the radioactivity.
The figure
Private detective Tex Murphy was born on March 4, 2004 and decided to become a private detective at the age of five after watching the film The Maltese Falcon . In 2023 he finally moved to San Francisco. In keeping with the tradition of the hard-boiled detectives like Sam Spade , Philip Marlowe or Lew Archer , Tex Murphy also wears the obligatory slouch hat and a trench coat. Based on these figures are also his moral concepts (such as the compromise between ethical rules and money - corruption), his actions (violence in some areas of problem solving) and his quick wit and pun. Detective elements from the 1930s are also given to Tex: his penchant for bourbon and cigarettes. Another reference is Tex's place of residence, Chandler Avenue. In 2032 he receives his license to investigate as a private detective, his cases take place between 2037 and 2043, the year in which the stories end. At that point, Tex was once unhappily married. There were no children from the marriage.
The games
The games belong to the adventure genre.
Mean Streets (1989)
Dr. Carl Linsky jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. Official cause of death: suicide, case closed. But his daughter Sylvia Linsky believes there is a crime behind it and hires Tex Murphy to investigate the real motives. During his investigation, Tex discovers that several scientists associated with Dr. Linsky worked together, are also dead. It turns out that Dr. Linsky worked for Gideon Enterprise, an electronic surveillance company. He had also taken out high life insurance. Is Gideon Enterprise behind his death or does Sylivia just want to get the money? The case takes place in 2037.
Martian Memorandum (1991)
The founder of the TerraForm Cooperation, Mashal Alexander, finds out that his daughter has been kidnapped and instructs Tex to find her. Tex travels to Mars, where he learns something about a mysterious artifact that no one should know about. It is a stone, the so-called Oracle Stone (oracle stone), which is supposed to give its owner unlimited power. Tex also has to keep the Oracle Stone away from the scientist Thomas Dangerfield, who wants to use it for his own purposes. The case takes place in 2039.
Under a Killing Moon (1994)
Tex is assigned to investigate a robbery on the pawn shop of one of his neighbors, Rook Garner. But you can already tell that there is more to it than that. After the robber is hunted down, Tex is hired by a wealthy woman to retrieve a lost family bird statue that is said to be extremely rare and expensive. But Tex finds out that it is more than a simple statue. A group wants to wipe out the population of the earth with the statue in order to establish a new humanity that is genetically "pure". There is only one way to stop it and that is what Tex has to find out. The case takes place in 2042.
The game was a so-called interactive movie . You move in a rendered 3D environment, while people to be seen or film sequences are real people. So you could move freely in rooms, examine, record and use things and solve puzzles. A number of well-known actors were hired for dialogue and cinematics: Margot Kidder , Brian Keith , and Russell Means .
The data was released on four CD-ROMs and comprised 2.3 GB and could be played on a 386 DX-25MHz CPU with 4 MB RAM and an SVGA graphics card.
Under a Killing Moon was the highlight of the series. The game received numerous awards from computer game magazines around the world, as well as good reviews overall:
- "Best Cinema-Graphic Adventure Game" - AWARD Strategy Plus
- "Best Interactive Film for 1995" - The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences
- "Four Stars" (of four). Top 100 CD-ROMs of 1994 - PC Magazine
The Pandora Directive (1996)
Published in Germany under the title The Pandora Files . The new employer, Gordon Fitzpatrick, wants an old friend, Dr. Thomas Malloy, found again and commissioned Tex Murphy. What at first looks like a simple case leads to further consequences. Fitzpatrick and Malloy used to work together in Roswell investigating the UFO that crashed there in 1943. The NSA is also interested in Malloy, and his daughter, Regan Madsen, turns up. What really happened at Roswell, and why everyone went to Dr. Malloy want to find out. The case takes place in 2043.
Like its predecessor, this game is also called Interactive Movie, and has a structure similar to Under a Killing Moon (see FMV ).
The data was published on six CD-ROMs and comprised approx. 3.5 GB and could be played on a 486/66 MHz CPU with 8 MB RAM and an SVGA graphics card.
The Pandora file was able to build on the success of its predecessor, also received several awards and consistently positive reviews.
- "Best PC Game of 1996" - Ultra Game
- "Computer Game of the Year" - Games Magazine
- "Best Adventure Game of 1996" AWARD - PC game
Tex Murphy: Overseer (1998)
Overseer is a remake, the story is the same as Mean Streets . Tex is in the year 2044 and tells its story again from the year 2037. The gameplay has been improved, again as an interactive movie with the same components from the 3D environment and film sequences.
The data was published on five CD-ROMs and comprised approx. 2.9 GB and could be played on a Windows 95 computer with 133 MHz, 16 MB RAM and a graphics card with a resolution of at least 640 × 480 pixels (2 MB).
Overseer flopped on the market, a short time later Access Software was bought by Microsoft and the plans for a sequel were stopped for the first time, although the fifth part still showed a "sequel to follow" in the final sequence.
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure (2014)
On May 15, 2012, around 14 years after Overseer , the original core team around Chris Jones started reviving the character with the help of a Kickstarter campaign . The sixth part with the working title Project Fedora should be financed through crowdfunding with the help of his fans and continue the story according to Overseer . Funding was secured on June 7, 2012.
On July 10, 2013, the first information was published on a website. In terms of content, the new game should take up the cliffhanger from Overseer again and deal with the inventions of the physicist Nikola Tesla .
This part of the Tex Murphy franchise was released on May 7, 2014 on Steam and GOG.com.
Book translations
Two books were published based on the computer games. However, both novels can only be bought second-hand today.
- The Pandora Directive by Aaron Conners , Goldmann Verlag , 1996, ISBN 3-442-23696-7
- The Lucifer Project by Aaron Conners, Goldmann Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-442-25010-2
Web links
- Tex Murphy series at MobyGames (English)