I also have not played
Mean Streets (1989) nor
Martian Memorandum (1991). I have them, but haven't really gotten into them.
My favourite of the three before
Tesla Effect is easily
The Pandora Directive (1996). I'm a fan of when a version of real-life mysterious events (in this case the Roswell Incident) is part of a fictional story. If memory serves, it was a fairly lengthy game, and I liked that there were multiple endings. There was a lot of disc-swapping though, as there are six discs, though I was lucky that at the time I was playing the game I had a drive that could hold four CD-ROMs at once and knew which ones to access, though I imagine that's not even an issue if you're playing an all-digital version now.
Under A Killing Moon (1994) I also liked for different reasons. Firstly, it actually introduced me to Tex Murphy - while I'd heard of
Martian Memorandum,
Under A Killing Moon was the first one I played. It also had a more comedic tone, though at times cartoony (eg. a guy crashing through a brick wall with a hole of their outline, Tex slamming into a wall and briefly appearing flat - both of which can been seen as flashbacks in
Tesla Effect). Conclusion was epic - who doesn't like having an orbital space station blowing up? And that's not a spoiler because it's in the
trailer, which I remember watching multiple times over and over as well as playing the demo before I got the game. Even the trailer itself is a trip down memory lane, but you can see that the video is amusing in that only the person currently speaking moves at all. Well, it was twenty years ago...holy crap, twenty years already?
Tex Murphy: Overseer (1998) I honestly don't remember much of at all, despite it being the most recent game besides
Tesla Effect.
Tex Murphy: Overseer, though framed between
The Pandora Directive and
Tesla Effect, the bulk of the actual game is a flashback and retelling of
Mean Streets, so you could always play that if you feel you need the "beginning" of the story, though all these games are, for the most part, pretty stand-alone. I remember enjoying it, but remarking that
The Pandora Directive was much better. I'm sure that, given the limited number of adventure games there are, I would still recommend it if you have the time, but definitely the previous two first.
I guess the games were ahead of their time. The 3D environments and lots of (almost) full-motion video were a big deal in 1994's
Under A Killing Moon. Even in 1996 when CD-ROM games were the norm most weren't on a whopping six discs like
The Pandora Directive. I remember 1998's
Tex Murphy: Overseer having an actual blinking LED right on each box (at the top of the tower) to grab your attention in the store, and was the first game that I'd heard of to be on a DVD-ROM. While
Tesla Effect is maybe not so groundbreaking other than that they boast 2K resolutions, it's welcome in an age of so few adventure games. I don't know how it compares to my current favourite,
The Pandora Directive, mainly because I haven't gotten all the endings yet, but I do quite like it too, if a bit short (which might not be a bad thing if I have to fully replay it for the other endings).
Okay, my answer turned out longer than expected. In short, the whole series (or at least from
Under A Killing Moon onwards) is not a bad way to spend time for any adventure fan. It's a shame that Tex Murphy isn't seemingly spoken of as much as it deserves, anytime someone thinks of adventure games, it's always Sierra's _____ Quest games, or the LucasArts games. Those are all good games too, of course, but Tex Murphy has its own charm - and a unique blend of classic P.I./noir with Blade Runneresque future setting, a mix of humour and thriller - that I think needs more recognition.
