Under a Killing Moon

aka: Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon, UAKM
Moby ID: 850
DOS Specs
Buy on Windows
$2.99 new on Steam

Description official descriptions

It is December of the year 2042. The world is still recovering from the disastrous consequences of the World War III. Radioactivity has turned many humans into mutants, and the gap between those and the "norms" (non-affected humans) is growing wider. Certain places in the world have retained the feel and the charm of the old times - among those is the Old San Francisco. There, the private investigator Tex Murphy is trying to deal with unemployment, upcoming poverty, and his melancholic mood following his divorce. After solving a simple robbery case, Tex attracts the attention of a mysterious woman who calls herself Countess Renier, and is hired by her to find a missing statuette. Things gradually begin to go wrong in this investigation, and Tex finds himself involved in a confrontation with a powerful and dangerous secret cult.

Under A Killing Moon is the third game in the Tex Murphy series of adventures, and a sequel to Martian Memorandum. The game is notable for its use of detailed, texture-mapped 3D graphics during a time when pre-rendered visuals were still the standard in the genre. Uncommonly for adventure games, Under A Killing Moon allows full maneuverability. The player can rotate the camera, change the viewing angle, zoom in and out, etc.; it is even possible to look for clues underneath desks, chairs, etc.

Inventory-based puzzles are relatively rare in the game, and the emphasis of the gameplay is placed primarily on exploration, conversations featuring extended topics and choices, and self-contained logical puzzles. Other features include an online hint system (that decreases the player's score with each use), extensive support for additional sound and music devices, and full-motion video technology: cutscenes and much of the dialogue are presented as movies with real actors.

Spellings

  • 殺人月 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 35 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 98 ratings with 6 reviews)

You can't keep a good man down...

The Good
The presentation...WOW! When I first got my hands on the the demo way back when, I was COMPLETELY blown away. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Just walking around, opening trash cans, etc. was too cool for words. This is an A+ production, and you can tell the creators really put their best into it. It was hard, too...give this one to "the guy who can beat anything without any help" and watch him cry like a baby. Nice to see some returning characters from the old games, too.

The Bad
Like I said, it is hard. REAL hard. Like the previous title, it is far too easy to miss something, only to have it bite you in the rear later on. I suppose the greatest reason for the challenge was in the perspective, at the time, gamers didn't really "think" in the 3-D. You really need to comb each and EVERY inch of EVERY location if you want to succeed.

The Bottom Line
A landmark in gaming, setting a new benchmark for years to come. Hey, it's Tex!

DOS · by Toka (13) · 2001

Save The World!!! (again)

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.

DOS · by wampyrii (9) · 2002

Whow! Heartbeating adventure.

The Good
The moment I took a step into my office, the smell of a cheap parfeume started to tickle my nose. Yeah, there she was, sitting on my working desk, lovely as alwas, with legs to die for. Another customer for sure. Uhh if she was only more, but sure will try to work our diplomatic relationship a bit better than is. She saw me some coverup story, and wanted me to find her father, presumably dead, but missing. I smell trouble all the way, but I took the case anyway. It was my ticket out of my paperwork. I took my old trusty .38 and accidently threw it out my window. Damn, I guess I'll be off the gun in this case. But that won't be enough to stop hard-boiled p.i. like myself, nope baby.

I couldn't feel more like a detective than when starting this game. A big case was warming up, and there was only me to left. A hard-bioled from up 40s, the only old fashioned detective in 21st century, not to mention how effective. I wouldn't need much close, only a set of about dozen fedoras with the same shoes. When something suits you perfect, detective rule No1. is - stick to it. Many rules there are in a p.i. line of work, but you must know them all and live by them all.

This game is third in a row where you play Tex Murphy, 21st century detective with a touch of class from old 40s. Following steps of your idols like Philip Marlowe & Sam Spade you use their kind of investigation, confident and always solving a case. Tex Murphy has some great cases solved as you could see if playing "Mean Streets" and "Martian Memorandum". But this time, the game gets totally new fedora to try.

I played this game five years after it came out, but you couldn't pull me off my chair even if you wanted to. Acting is absolutely great, and this adventure game gives you freely walking/running through the streets of San Francisco in the run down part of city, through your office and other rooms and places. That Tex Murphy (played by Chris Jones) is really something. I take my bow to Access Software for this game. You feel like your in the movie, or better, a part of that virtual reality scene. It's time for you to feel how Humphrey Bogart or Robert Mitchum felt as in Philip Marlow role, and tell it out loud 'Who said I can't be a good p.i.?'.

The Bad
Not a damn thing against this one (pardon my french).

The Bottom Line
You ever wanted to feel p.i., solve couple of mean mysteries and got a hot chick as a reward? Well, first two you can get the moment you start the game. The last one, well, you'll see how you affect women. Music is really amazing, like from Perry Mason mysteries. If you ever appreciated adventures or detectives, try this please, you won0t regret it, I guarantee with my p.i. word on it.

DOS · by MAT (240542) · 2012

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Trivia

Actors

  • UAKM was one of the first multimedia games to score "top-notch Hollywood talent" with Margot Kidder, Brian Keith, Russell Means, and even James Earl Jones (voice acting only) playing characters you'll meet during your adventure. It was also one of the first multimedia titles to show that actors working for multimedia games are usually doing so because they have either been paid an exhorbitant amount of money, need the work, or are giving their services for free. In the case of Means, Keith, and Kidder, it was because they needed the money, and while Kidder and Keith put in good performances, Means turns in a terrible one. As for James Earl Jones, he gave his services (which are quite good considering the average quality of the material) for a deep discount (he usually charges $50,000 per 20 minutes of voice work) because his grandson was into computer games and he wanted to impress his grandson.
  • Chris Jones, a designer and producer of Access titles prior to this one, plays not only the title role of Tex Murphy but was also the director of the live sequences -- and all this was in addition to his other regular duties designing the game.
  • A great many people who worked on the game also appear in the game as various characters. Even a playtester, George Manousakis, gets to kiss Tex's ex-wife.

Budget

According to Chis Jones, the budget for the game was two million Dollars.

CD-ROM

Under A Killing Moon, was the first multimedia game to come on four CDs, and the developers hated switching CDs as much as anyone else since, hey, they're gamers too. So they built into the setup the ability to put each CD on a different CDROM drive (for both network CD servers and CD changers) so that swapping was unnecessary. You could even designate different CDs for only two or three drives, to minimize the swapping if not completely eliminate it. This innovation, which was extremely convenient, seems to have been largely ignored by the rest of the industry.

Mormons

Access is based on Utah, home of the Mormons. As such, some of the people who created UAKM were also Mormons, and they wrote into the dialog that the phrase "oh my God" never be uttered throughout the entire game. They instead replaced the phrase with "oh my Hell". While the latter phrase does not take the name of the Lord in vain and is okay with the Mormons, it sounds extremely awkward. Other religious references also sneak themselves into the game, such as a moon base worker uttering a prayer right before the base explodes, the existence of God as a character (played by James Earl Jones, of course), the plot of the game taking place across 6 days, with the end of the game on the 7th day, etc.

Novels

Two novels were written about UAKM and its sequel, The Pandora Directive. Unfortunately, these books have been discontinued by the publisher.

Outtakes

The end credits of the game are accompanied by some funny outtakes. There are also some inside jokes about popular culture, such as an O.J. Simpson mask in a costume shop (with Tex Murphy saying something to the effect of how scary the mask is).

RealSound Technology

Under A Killing Moon marked the death of Access' RealSound technology; the patent holder said in an interview that, by that time, "the market had moved on and the use of sound cards had become commonplace." There is still a small bit of technical innovation in the MIDI engine (designed by Human Machine Interfaces) in Under A Killing Moon, though: If the user chose to check the "digital drums" option, sampled drum sounds were used instead of synthesized ones. This made the music sound less artificial on FM synthesis-based sound cards like the Sound Blaster.

References

  • Sometimes the limitations of the technology became apparent when moving very close to textures. An inside joke is made about that when examining the fire extinguisher on the wall; Tex quips that the landlord was so cheap that he painted fire extinquishers on the walls to fool the building inspector, since the inspector had "only one eye and no depth perception". :-)
  • At one point Tex can examine a piano, and exclaims, "It's even better than a Stauffway!" This is a clear jab at The 7th Guest, which featured a piano branded after bad guy Stauff. (which, in turn, was a play on the well-known Steinway brand of pianos)
  • If you're killed multiple times by the Probe Droid later on the game, James Earl Jones as the narrator will say, "The Probe Droid is not as forgiving as I am," referencing one of Jones' seminal lines as Darth Vader.
  • You can find a boxed copy of Access's Links 986 aboard the Moon Child. Upon examining it Tex will comment on how it looks like some sort of croquet software.

Technology

Like The 7th Guest before it, Under A Killing Moon was a technology leader in the gaming industry. It was one of the first (if not the first) games to use 16-bit 22KHz sound and an immersive, 3D, textured world with light sources and shadows (although the lighting/shadows are a hack; they're pre-rendered into the textures). This is on a 386 with a single-speed CDROM drive -- I myself played it to completion on a 386/40 and a single-speed drive.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World Magazine
    • November 1996 (5th Anniversary Issue) - #99 on the "150 Best Games of All Time" list
  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/1995 – Best Digitized Video Scenes in 1994

Information also contributed by PCGamer77, WizardX and Zovni

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MAT.

Windows added by Cantillon. Linux added by lights out party. Macintosh added by Jeanne.

Additional contributors: Trixter, William Shawn McDonie, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger.

Game added February 11, 2000. Last modified March 18, 2024.