Under a Killing Moon

This article is about the Tex Murphy adventure game. For the song by Thrice, see Under a Killing Moon (song).

Under a Killing Moon
File:Under a Killing Moon Coverart.png
Developer(s)	Access Software
Publisher(s)	Access Software
Designer(s)	Chris Jones, Aaron Conners
Platform(s)	Apple Macintosh, DOS
Genre(s)	Adventure game
Mode(s)	Single player

Under a Killing Moon (1994) is the third installment in the Tex Murphy series of adventure games produced by Access Software. In Under a Killing Moon Tex again fights the forces of evil as he tries to stop a dangerous cult from destroying the world. Under a Killing Moon combined full motion video (FMV) cutscenes with a 3D virtual world to explore.

In its day, Under a Killing Moon was one of the largest video games ever, arriving on four CD-ROMs (although some material was duplicated among the four to reduce the amount of swapping).

An Under a Killing Moon movie was in the works starring Soleil Moon Frye in a prominent role. Frye appeared on The Jenny Jones Show to plug the movie during its early production stages, but the project was ultimately scrapped.

After its creators reacquired the rights to the series, it was re-released on Good Old Games on June 16, 2009.

Setting

Like all Tex Murphy games, Under a Killing Moon takes place in post-World War III San Francisco in December 2042. After the devastating events of WWIII, many major cities have been rebuilt (as is the case with New San Francisco), though certain areas still remain as they were before the war (as in Old San Francisco). WWIII also left another mark on the world: the formation of two classes of citizens. Specifically, some people have developed a natural resistance against radioactivity, and thus are normal or "Norms" -- everybody else are Mutants in some form. Tensions between the two groups have risen dramatically since the end of the war, and Norms and Mutants usually do not get along. The Mutants are usually forced to live in the run-down areas of cities such as Old San Francisco. Tex lives on Chandler Ave in Old San Francisco. All his friends are Mutants, though he himself is a Norm.

Plot

In Under a Killing Moon the player plays as Tex Murphy, Private Investigator. Tex has hit rock bottom. Recently divorced from his wife Sylvia, out of work, low on cash, and living in a rundown part of Old San Francisco, Tex realizes that he has to get his act together. Tex sets out to hunt for work. He finds it quickly once he discovers that the pawnshop across the street from his apartment has been robbed. Tex quickly solves the case, and feels his luck has begun to change. Then a mysterious woman calling herself Countess Renier, having heard good things about Tex, hires him to find her missing statuette.

Everything seems great at first. The Countess is promising to pay Tex more money than he's seen in his life. But everything quickly goes downhill when Tex finds himself unwittingly involved in the affairs of a dangerous cult.

Under a Killing Moon has many unique characters, and stars several well-known actors such as Brian Keith, Margot Kidder, Russell Means and the voice of James Earl Jones.

Gameplay

The virtual world

Under a Killing Moon was the first Tex Murphy game to fully utilize interactive 3D environments. The player controls Tex from a first person perspective. The virtual world allows full freedom of movement, and as such allows the player to look for clues in every nook and cranny. Though action games with 3D environments and first-person perspectives had been popularized by Doom the previous year, it was unusual at the time to see these characteristics in an adventure game. It is also notable that these graphics did not use raycasting techniques like Doom, but true texture-mapped polygons that allowed players to look in all directions, and ran in resolutions up to 640x480.

Conversations

Under a Killing Moon was the first Tex Murphy game to stray from the traditional adventure game dialogue format of providing options that showed exactly what the player's character would say. Instead, descriptions of the dialogue choices were given, providing some mystery to what Tex would say.

Cast

• Chris Jones as Tex Murphy
• Brian Keith as The Colonel
• Margot Kidder as Bartender
• Russell Means as The Chameleon
• James Earl Jones as The Big PI in the Sky
• Michail Bailey as Lowell Percival
• Mindy Lawson as Eva Schanzee
• Rebecca Clay as Alaynah Moore
• Monique Lanier as Countess Renier
• Kevin L. Jones as Mac Malden
• Sandy Jensen as Eddie Ching
• Doug Vandegrift as Rook Garner, Sal Lucido and Beek Nariz
• Randall Edwards as Louie Lamintz
• Suzanne Barnes as Chelsee Bando
• Jeri Christian as Francesca Lucido
• Aaron Conners as Ardo Newpop and Moonchild Technician #2
• Steve Barnes as Clint The Bum
• Brian Ferguson as Hamm Underwood
• Willie Walker as Franco Franco
• Shannon Engemann as Melahn Tode
• David Madsen as Ferrel Pus
• Richard Haslam as Pug
• Kris Mickler as Sylvia Linsky
• George Manousakis as Rudy
• Mark Mcarthur as Marcus Tucker
• Mark Hulka as Paul Dubois and Tex Murphy Stunt Double
• Travis Driscoll as Security Guard
• Nathan Larsen as Moonchild Technician #1
• Dave Pehrson as Eddie Ching Thug #1
• Wayne Braithwaite as Eddie Ching Thug #2
• Jay Richards as Mick Flemm
• Brandon Wright as Monks
• Les Oswald as Captain Wallaby
• John Berven as Delores Lightbody

Characters

• Tex Murphy: (Chris Jones) the game's protagonist, a down-on-his-luck private investigator.
• Chelsee Bando: (Suzanne Barnes) Owner of the local newsstand and a source of information. Tex states that Chelsee is a mutant, though this is not apparent from her appearance.
• Rook Garner: (Doug Vandegrift) Owner of Rook's Pawnshop, at which Tex agrees to solve a robbery.
• Francesca Lucido: (Jeri Christian) Owner of Slice O'Heaven Pizza. She suspects that her husband Sal is having an affair.
• Louie Lamintz: (Randall Edwards) Owner of the Brew & Stew.
• Ardo Newpop: (Aaron Conners) Owner of the Golden Gate Hotel. He is described as eight feet tall and of low intelligence.
• Clint the Bum: (Steve Barnes) A homeless man normally found in the alley behind Rook's Pawnshop. He is a chocoholic.

Novelization

A novelization of the game was written by Aaron Conners in 1996. Although the basic plot, characters, and setting remain mostly the same, it differs significantly from the game, providing a great deal of extra information, new characters, character deaths, and more detailed character motivations related to the main plot involving the Moonchild, while removing scenes and characters from the game that did not relate to the Moonchild plot, creating a more singular Chandler-esque mystery novel. The final ending of the game (meeting The Colonel and Eva in the bar, and dancing lessons with Delores Lightbody) is also changed to continue this style.

Other Tex Murphy games

• Mean Streets (1989)
• Martian Memorandum (1990)
• The Pandora Directive (1996)
• Tex Murphy: Overseer (1998)

External links

• Under a Killing Moon at MobyGames
• Microsoft's Under a Killing Moon website
• Under a Killing Moon review