Tex Murphy: Mean Streets - A Fair & Balanced Retrospective

[@jasonblalock4429]

Also, credit to Chris Jones for having one of the most successful self-insert OCs in gaming. Six games writing, designing, and starring as his own pet PI character, plus the various other spinoffs. That's a pretty impressive feat.

[@spacequesthistorian]

My favorite quote from him about taking the lead role as Tex is: "As chief financial officer of Access Software, I believed I could afford myself."

[@randorandom]

loved this - please please PLEASE do retrospectives on the ENTIRE tex murply series. campy and quirky but truly iconic and underrated

[@spacequesthistorian]

Thank you! That's the plan!

[@rainyjay8156]

​@@spacequesthistorian cant wait, love your review. Great job on this :)

[@spacequesthistorian]

@rainyjay8156 Thank you very much. ☺️ I started working on the Martian Memorandum video today.

[@strain42]

I always enjoy the Fair and Balanced videos, doubly so when it's a game like this that you clearly love and have a lot of affection for. Would absolutely love to see more Tex Murphy videos from you, especially since you say it's one of your favorite series. I think we're in for a good time!

[@spacequesthistorian]

Thank you very much! I've got a different video in the works at the moment but the next one is going to be about Martian Memorandum, the second game in the series.

[@KM-hv1jg]

Mean Streets on the C64 is like a two year old riding a bike without training wheels. It’s awkward and imperfect, but the fact that it even happened is amazing, even inspirational.

[@spacequesthistorian]

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[@xXHashassinXx]

That's a hell of a metaphor there, well done.

[@RaposaCadela]

Nothing I love more than early, crusty, jpegy digitalized graphics! Found out about this game while randomly looking at other 3D games of the era like Death Trax and David Wolfe, both with 3D + digitalized graphics. I had no idea I had stumbled upon an actually really beloved game! Got curious but never looked into it though, so I'm excited to watch this. Parts of this game also look like Crime Wave, a NARC clone, and I think it has a similarity on the music aswell

[@spacequesthistorian]

Crime Wave was also developed by Access Software, so that might explain a few things. ☺️

[@RaposaCadela]

This was really really interesting!! Damn this is ambitious! A proto-point&click, and a proto-FMV game that looks about 5-10 years younger than it actually is, yet so ungodly dated xD. I mean, these graphics are the something only a mother could love, and you know what? I wanna adopt it!! Crusty digitalized graphics, rough digital art/effects, synth-tastic music, extremely low-poly 3D... you couldn't unironically make a game like this nowadays, for better or worse, and I think it looks so damn charming. NGL I will admit the Amiga graphics on the adventure and shooting sections I thought looked more consistently cartoony, prettier colors, objectively better, but not as charming y'know?? Also what the hell is it doing on C64??? HAH!! It's amazing!!!! Either way, graphics aside, the theme and story was also really cool and surprisingly relevant even to this day. Classes divided, discrimination, neo-nazis, heavy polution and its side-effects, law corruption, and 2042 being post-WW3 might just fit our real-world schedule. Oh my. ...Also, the other Tex Murphy games, the way you showed and talked about them, got my curiosity going and I'd love if you did a video on them aswell! Honestly been in love with your channel. Perfect script, editing, pacing, humor, and really interesting games, all properly researched and honestly, fairly judged. I appreciate that!! I hope you continue, I wish you success!!!

[@RaposaCadela]

​@@spacequesthistorian Hey thanks for replying! While I was writing more my friend showed up and we watched your video on Police Quest :D

[@Kirkklan]

Huh. Police Quest III sure did something different for this entry...

[@patrykzukowski7471]

That sound gag at the end, 10/10, amazing, genius, simply video game brilliance at its finest.

[@spacequesthistorian]

Couldn't agree more.

[@TheTomimt]

I recall reading/hearing that the flight simulator was actually developed before the Mean Streets. They were trying to find a story driven game to use it in and then decided to build an adventure game around it, making it the means of moving between other locations. But as it didn't really add much to the game, they dropped it for the sequel.

[@spacequesthistorian]

Yup, that was indeed the case.

[@yawg691]

WOW that was a face melter in the beginning!

[@spacequesthistorian]

Thank you! That was a remix I did. The whole video uses remixes made by members of my community. I put them up for free download here: spacequesthistorian.bandcamp.com/album/tex-murphy-mean-streets-a-fair-balanced-remix-ep

[@acemcjack]

Excellent review! This is my second favorite game series as well (after Space Quest of course). I actually bought a VGA screen back in 1991 just to be able to play this game with full blown 256 colors, but the sound is what actually blew me away. IIRC, Access Software also provided instructions on how to connect your PC to a real stereo system and play the music through it, instead of just the miserable PC speaker. I never did try it, though. I was afraid of ruining my stereo in the process. On that note, love your remix of the theme!

[@nychold]

RealSound was awesome. I remember scouring bulletin board services in the early 90s looking for a library to do it. Eventually found one, but could never figure out how to make it work. Still awesome today, though.

[@eddieking6723]

I love the tex murphy games ecspecially the later 3 so appreciate ANY attention they get!

[@spacequesthistorian]

Oh, they're going to get a lot of attention. I'm editing the Martian Memorandum video right now and I've already written the script for the next game, Under A Killing Moon. Also, I've been in contact with Aaron Conners ever since I moderated a Tex Murphy panel at the Adventure Game Fan Fair in Tacoma earlier this year, and I'll be doing an interview with him about the Tex Murphy novels some time in the future.

[@lancebaylis3169]

Another great retrospective from The Tex Murphy Historian! 💯💯💯

[@spacequesthistorian]

It's my side gig. 😏

[@backlogpanic]

Of all Tex Murphy games I only have gotten to Killing Moon, which is alot of fun. I liked it enough to support the Tesla Effect Kickstarter, so I really have to get on that now that this Retrospective is on! One reward they gave to backers was the "first" apperence of Tex Murphy(the singing cowboy) in 'Plan 10 from Outer Space'. A short film, featuring Chris Jones as Tex, stopping the bad guys (aliens) from resurrecting Hitler. There is a commentary at least with Jones on youtube.

[@TehAwesomer]

This game really was unique when I first played it at the time. Thanks for the comprehensive review.

[@Pleasedontpickatme]

Sleeps during the day and works at night...me at my factory job. Glad I found this channel.

[@spacequesthistorian]

Love your profile name and pic. 😆 Also, welcome!

[@SergioLeRoux]

I remember playing this game and just making a journal to write down notes chronologically. This bite me in the ass when I got to the end and had to quickly type down all the passwords before the time limit. Obviously I didn't make it since I had to page flip and find each section where the password had been written down! I had to then reload and copy all the passwords in one single location and try again. (I also played this in a Hercules monitor)

[@tipulsar85]

I think part of that villain overhaul in the remake was due to the actor hired for the role. You don't get bad performances all that often out of Michael York, and this wasn't his first post apocalypic role. That would be Logan 5.

[@ShinoSarna]

This game is really historically significant in that as far as I can tell, one of the very first cyberpunk video games. In fact, considering some of the others were adaptation of Neuromancer and Robocop, it's also the first that is fully original instead of being licensed.

[@spladam3845]

I can't believe I didn't know this game existed. I loved the later Sierra games but did not know it started here.

[@MrDVader]

I love these games and have finished them all, some multiple times. Mean Streets and Martian Memorandum are my favourites.

[@AaronConners]

A very enjoyable retrospective. Great work!

[@spacequesthistorian]

Thank you, sir. 😁

[@camwyn256]

W isn't for warp speed, it's for wrap speed, because the speed wraps around to 0

[@beavinator]

Somehow I never got exposed to any of the Tex Murphy games, despite being all over most of the rest of the games Sierra was putting out at the time. I recently acquired the whole series on Steam but haven't gotten around to checking them out yet. I must do so soon.

[@spacequesthistorian]

I don't know if I'm just reading your comment wrong, but just to clear up any potential confusion: the Tex Murphy games were not made by Sierra. They were made by a company called Access Software.

[@beavinator]

@@spacequesthistorian No you read me right...that's apparently a misconception I've been carrying around for decades! Not sure why I thought they were Sierra...maybe they were sold in some of the same catalogs back in the day? Thanks for the correction 😅

[@spacequesthistorian]

@@beavinator Dynamix did some similar-looking stuff (digitized actors, speech in disk-bases games, etc.) with Heart of China and Rise of the Dragon, and they were owned by Sierra... Maybe the Access games somehow got lumped in with these games in your memory.

[@beavinator]

@@spacequesthistorian That seems plausible. I never played any of their stuff either, not counting Space Quest 5 of course.

[@violetmeteorz9805]

This game actually seems fairly impressive for a 1989 release!

[@spacequesthistorian]

Oh, it was mind-blowing for 1989.

[@volz0r]

PC speakers back in the day weren’t two tone. Sure, that existed, but many PC speakers were meant to play diverse audio, and were more like an actual tiny speaker. A Tandy 1000 PC speaker was almost indistinguishable from an Adlib card, if it were not for the fact that Adlib cards required external speakers, which produced a much higher quality sound.

[@spacequesthistorian]

To the best of my understanding, the internal speaker in an IBM PC (or clone) was only intended for playing single-tone beeps. To play digital samples through it, programmers would intercept the signal going to the speaker and do some sort of black magic to pass digital samples to the speaker. The trouble is that was also very CPU intensive so, for the most part, the computer was completely tied up while playing those samples and was not able to do anything else. Except Access Software somehow figured out how to play digital samples and keep stuff moving on screen. I'm not Technology Connections, so I can't tell you the technical specifics, but this guy can: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oHWXnmyAq7GsaLs The Tandy 1000 wasn't available in my country so I don't know enough about it to speak confidently as to its inner workings, but AFAIK it had an on-board synthesizer rather than just a single tone speaker.

[@volz0r]

@ I think you may be correct. I had a Tandy 1000, and several other IBM compatibles, and only one was a two tone speaker, as far as I could recall, but I did some searching after your reply and it seems my memories are wrong. That Tandy really did sound amazing for the time, though!

[@georginabensley9453]

this is a totally selfish request and unlikely to happen anytime soon but after watching you cover the police quest games and this, i would love to see your take on Codename ICEMAN. A game which, as a child in the 90s, I was given a pirated copy of that came with a savegame at the end of the submarine section and instructions on how to play up TO the submarine and then jump ahead to the endgame. Which both means that I've never seen a large chunk of the game and explains why I'm more fond of it than a lot of people are...

[@spacequesthistorian]

After PQ3 and PQ4, my plan was to take a look at both Blue Force (the spiritual sequel released by Tsunami Games) and Codename: Iceman. So it will happen. ☺️👍

[@rayceeya8659]

Loved this game when I was a tenager. Actually beat it too.

[@misharatkevich9808]

Was this the first VGA adventure game? I used to think it was KQ5 (beating MI1's VGA version by just a little), but this came out a year earlier. I can't find a VGA adventure game prior to Mean Streets.

[@spacequesthistorian]

I don't think it was the first but it's certainly one of the earliest.

[@davidpa9266]

2:59 is that Clint Howard?

[@samz8691]

Yep.

[@menhirmike]

While I really like Joe Estevez in Overseer, I gotta give it to Mean Streets: John Klaus' face is 100x more punchable in this game!

[@Crowley9]

I am surprised (and just a tiny bit disappointed) you did not mention Tex's main source of money in this game. Which is to grab any loose cash and valuables to pawn away he happens to find at scenes of investigation. On a related note, there is a use for the flying sections which you seem to have missed: There are "Bounty Hunting Areas" in the game, marked by black landing pads which do not have navigation codes but the manual lists their coordinates. Completing those gives you both money and ammunition. The manual even specifically mentions this is the only way to gain more ammunition apart from happening to find it at investigation scenes.

[@spacequesthistorian]

I knew about the bounty hunting areas but I honestly didn't think they were important enough to mention. I mean, who wants *more* of that stupid shooting minigame? 😁 As for the pawn system, that was indeed something I should have mentioned. Primarily because the peeps on my Discord actually found an infinite money glitch that, to our knowledge, has been undiscovered until now. I'm gonna make a short video about that sometime in the future.

[@Crowley9]

@@spacequesthistorian If you are referring to that the most valuable thing you can pawn appears to have an overflow bug so you can buy it back for less than it sells, that is a known bug.

[@spacequesthistorian]

@Crowley9 Ah, okay. That saves me from making a "whoa" video about it, at least.

[@FelisImpurrator]

Sheesh. The whole future Nazis in America thing seems way too relevant after yesterday's election. Talk about topical.

[@Palooka37]

That joke in the outro is a cracker.

[@drfistface]

I always wanted to play Killing Moon but there was just too much information and I could not follow the story and the slow movement and slow conversations were too hard to pay attention to. Add into that, I have a hard time with Moon logic and need the walkthroughs so every time I played I'm trying to race through the conversations (which I could not understand anyways) but was always sure there was something fun and brilliant behind it. If you could do a detailed cover of the story,I would watch the sh*t out of that

[@pop_ulation]

Did Mean Streets come out before Kentucky Fried Movie?

[@NoOne-gc5ot]

10:06 more like a slower amirite

[@antcosentino27]

Dude, this game had Michelle Yeoh??

[@spacequesthistorian]

You're probably kidding, but just in case someone else doesn't know: No.

[@Maj0rB00thr0yd]

FTR - Jack Daniels is Tennessee Whiskey and not a bourbon.

[@spacequesthistorian]

I know that, but Tex calls it bourbon in Under a Killing Moon's narration, so... be mad at him. 😆

[@Maj0rB00thr0yd]

@@spacequesthistorian I'm not going to blame Tex, it's down to the folks that literally used a bottle of Jack Daniels in the game and referred to it as bourbon.

[@elphive42]

Legally speaking, Jack Daniels is a bourbon as far as the process goes. They just call it a Tennessee whiskey because they filter it in charcoal.

[@antcosentino27]

No, it's bourbon. lol

[@spacequesthistorian]

Apparently, it's a yes-and-no situation: "The short answer is, no, Jack Daniel’s is a Tennessee whiskey. "The slightly longer answer is yes, because Tennessee whiskey is a subtype of bourbon that meets all of the legal requirements for the spirit, but has additional requirements specific to its production in Tennessee." Source: www.masterofmalt.com/blog/post/is-jack-daniels-bourbon.aspx/

[@WannabeMarysue]

1. I guess what Police Quest was missing was a dedicated button to threaten suspects lol. 2. This game does look like low hanging fruit for a roast. It could have gone either way I suppose. I dont know if this Fair and Balanced series is meant to be sincere opinions or roasts, but I also dont care too deeply. I find the videos entertaining. I guess media reviews straddling the line between Comedic Hyperbole and Sincere come with the TGWTG influence. Doesn't matter. 3. 26:30 christ the repetitive cartoon glass shatter/arm falling down animation. lol. 4. I havent played this one. I dont know if I will, but I might chuck it on the backlog. It looks like one I might have enjoyed if I was born 10-15 years earlier, if that makes sense. 5. The balloon in the flight sim is so whimsical... I don't know why that bright balloon is floating around in this post apocalyptic crime adventure game, but I'm glad it was there.

[@spacequesthistorian]

To answer #2, it's kind of a mixture of both. They're meant to be hyperbolic and sarcastic, in the style of old-school reviewers like The Spoony Experiment and Zero Punctuation. Some of it is legit; a lot of it is exaggerated for comedic effect. This Mean Streets video skews more on the legit side, as in this is my honest opinion on the game, whereas my King's Quest videos very much leant towards the hyperbolic, exaggerated end. The reason being that I had somehow cultivated this perception that I absolutely hated King's Quest (which is not true - I'm just not a fan of the fantasy genre), and I decided to lean heavily into this perception for my King's Quest videos. Again, some of my criticisms of the King's Quest games are legit but, to be honest, I'm not that worked up about them in real life. I'm just having fun and hopefully being entertaining. (Also, I've met Roberta Williams a couple of times now and she seems to like me, so I think I'm in the clear.)

[@tabletopfun2019]

Hi