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"Look, prophecies aren't in my job description, OK? I'm just a humble P.I. trying to save the world as we know it."
Tex Murphy, Under a Killing Moon

In 1989, Access Software developed and published Mean Streets, a noir adventure thriller for several different platforms. The game starred Tex Murphy, who represented the epitome of an old-fashioned, black-and-white noir private detective.

Access would go on to make five games; The sequel to Mean Streets, Martian Memorandum (1991), was released strictly for the IBM PC and was not terribly revolutionary. The third game, Under a Killing Moon (1994), was a whole different ball game: it introduced a 3D virtual world and made extensive use of full motion video cutscenes. The fourth game, The Pandora Directive (1996), included the same system and was Access' most ambitious effort. Number five, Overseer (1998), was essentially a replay of Mean Streets, but brought into the modern video game era with Access' usual movie work.

Tex Murphy's setting is a post-apocalyptic America after World War III. Tex, a gritty Private Detective who lives in San Francisco, is genetically resistant to the effects of radiation but lives amongst numerous mutants. He tries to tiptoe along the dangerous fault lines between the world of the mutants and the world of the "norms".

The plots of the five games can generally be summarized thusly: Tex is down on his luck, has no money and is largely reduced to eating dog food. A client appears and offers him a relatively simple job: Find a MacGuffin, track down my friend, etc. In the course of his investigations, Tex discovers that he is a pawn in a plot to bring about The End of the World as We Know It. He then saves the world, making sardonic quips along the way.

The final three games were, as mentioned, notable for their "interactive movie" quality. They featured solid writing, sharp acting and some surprising celebrity appearances. (Russell Means, Margot Kidder, James Earl Jones, Barry Corbin, Tanya Roberts, John Agar, Michael York, Richard Norton, Joe Estevez, Brian Keith and Clint Howard)

At least two additional games were planned, but they were binned when Microsoft bought Access in 1998 and sold it to Take Two Interactive. Take Two eventually shut down Access, apparently killing the Tex Murphy franchise. However, the original developers eventually formed Big Finish Games, acquired the rights to the series (via a clever loophole thanks to the novelizations that series creator Chris Jones had written), and teased fans with the announcement of "Secret Project Fedora".

After years of speculation they finally confirmed that Fedora was indeed a new Tex Murphy game and eventually released it as Tesla Effect on May 7th, 2014 after a very successful Kickstarter project. It was published by Atlus in addition to the Kickstarter backing.

A Fan Remake of Overseer called The Poisoned Pawn is in development, Access Software were initially working with them but this stopped due to creative differences (but the remake was allowed to continue.), the novelization of The Poisoned Pawn by the series writter Aaron Conners, however, was released in 2021.

You can get the Tex Murphy games at GOG.com or (as of June 12, 2014) on Steam.


Provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 

    The series in general 
  • Actionized Sequel: Inverted. In Mean Streets, there are several combat sequences where Tex has to shoot his way past hordes of enemies. In Martian Memorandum, Tex has a gun, but it's only used one time, to kill a poisonous snake attacking him and after that he's out of ammo for the rest of the game. In Under a Killing Moon, Tex accidentally throws his gun out the window early on and spends the entire game unarmed.
  • Always Night: Part of the City Noir atmosphere of the game series.
    • The Daylight Reversal Act mentioned in Under A Killing Moon, which came about because of ozone layer damage after World War III. Most everybody sleeps during the day, which is why it's always dark during gameplay.
  • Affectionate Parody: Almost every trope from old-school, black and white, noir private eye films is lovingly re-created and mocked.
  • After the End: World War III came and went, leaving behind radiation and a completely shot ozone layer. Due to the latter, governments have enacted a "time reversal": regular business hours are during the night while most people sleep during the day. It's much healthier that way.
  • Big Bad:
    • Mean Steets: J. Saint Gideon
    • Martian Memorandum: Thomas Dangerfield
    • Under A Killing Moon: Lowell Percival
    • The Pandora Directive: Jackson Cross and Regan Madsen
    • Overseer: John Klaus and J. Saint Gideon
    • Tesla Effect: The Translator
  • Brain Food: Fresh off the grill at the Brew & Stew.
  • Crapsack World: Post-apocalyptic San Francisco ain't a pleasant place.
    • The cause for this is revealed in The Pandora Directive as the US military using untested Imported Alien Phlebotinum to blow up a Middle-Eastern country, which results in WWIII.
  • Creator Provincialism: While Tex himself is firmly based in San Francisco, mentions of Utah pop up with unlikely frequency (Access Software is based in Salt Lake City).
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Tex Murphy is incompetent with technology, bad with people and generally denser than a dwarf star. Yet despite all that, he's a good detective with a talent for MacGyvering and logic puzzles.
  • Cyberpunk
  • Da Chief: Mac Malden comes off as this.
    Mac: You seem to have a habit of forgetting that I'm a cop. And right now I'm a tired, pissed-off cop.
  • Deadpan Snarker: As the series goes on, Tex becomes increasingly snarky, to the point that in Tesla Effect, he has about twice as much snark as normal dialogue.
    • Then again, Tex is far more stressed than usual in Tesla Effect, having lost seven years of his memory and finding out he apparently became a total bastard in that time.
  • Death by Adaptation/Spared by the Adaptation:
    • A few characters have different fates in Overseer than they did in Mean Streets. Most notably:
      • In Mean Streets Slade is just a hired goon and Tex kills him in a shootout about halfway through the game; in Overseer Slade has a more prominent role in the story, has a Climax Boss confrontation with Tex and Sylvia towards the end, and survives to menace Tex again in Tesla Effect.
      • In Mean Streets it's mentioned that Gideon tried to flee the country and was arrested by the authorities, while in Overseer he commits suicide after Tex gets the better of him.
    • A number of characters die in the novelization who didn't in the games, mostly in Under A Killing Moon, namely The Colonel, Alaynah Moore, Eddie Chang, and Eva in Killing Moon, as well as Archie Ellis in Pandora Directive. Also, at the end of Tesla Effect it's strongly implied that Dalton Fiske and the Translator go down with the Immortal Coil, while in the game they're a lot further away when the explosions begin and possibly escape unharmed. Also, Mantus survives in the novelization of Tesla Effect.
  • Either/Or Title: The chapter titles within the games follow the Noir pattern.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: All of the game plots involve Tex trying to stop someone from either destroying the world or taking it over.
  • Fantastic Racism: Allegedly there's no longer any discrimination against races. Genetic discrimination against mutants has taken its place, however, and is a recurring theme throughout the series.
  • Film Noir: Increasingly parodied as the series goes on.
  • Flying Car: All over the place. Tex has a really cool one.
  • Fun with Acronyms: NSA now stands for National Surveillance Agency.
    • And much more blatantly, C.A.P.R.I.C.O.R.N.
  • The Future Is Noir
  • Gaia's Lament: It is not prominent, but there are background details about how the environment has gone to hell and back. For example the government is mentioned to have instituted a "time reversal" so regular working hours are during the night and most people sleep through the day because of how much the ozone layer is gone.
  • Grumpy Old Man: Rook Garner, a crusty old WWIII vet with a face like a raisin and a tongue like a butcher's cleaver.
  • Hammerspace: Being an adventure game character Tex often carries items that are either too large or too plentiful to keep on his person. Lampshaded in one short cinematic from TPD when Tex pulls a 10ft bamboo pole out of his trenchcoat pocket.
  • Hardboiled Detective: Tex is an Affectionate Parody of the stock character.
  • Hint System: With the exception of Mean Streets, all the games in the series have a built-in hint guide.
    • Martian Memorandum has a "Help" option, which, when clicked, allows you to choose any object in the room (including ones you haven't found yet) and tells you exactly what you're supposed to do with it.
    • From Under A Killing Moon onward, the game has a more helpful hint system where each incremental hint cost a certain number of points (gained by solving puzzles) and the system was structured so that it was impossible to "look ahead".
  • Laser Hallway:
    • Tex has to navigate through lasers on a hoverboard in Big Dick Castro's vault in Martian Memorandum. It's less fun than it sounds, with the camera only showing a small part of what's ahead of Tex.
    • The Pandora Directive has a laser hallway at Roswell, right before the entrance to the facility
    • Another laser hall shows up in Tesla Effect, with rapidly moving beams and almost no margin for error.
  • Limited Wardrobe: The classic depiction of Tex (established in Under A Killing Moon) is that his entire wardrobe consists of several of the same dress shirt and tie, pants, overcoat, Fedora hat and sneakers.
    • By the time of Tesla Effect, Tex has a collection of fedoras of many colors hanging on the wall of his office.
  • Love Interest: Chelsee Bando is Tex's romantic interest through most of the series.
  • MacGyvering: Combining random items into whatever crude instrument required to advance past a given obstacle is an absolute necessity in these games.
  • The Mentor: "Colonel" Dobbs, who taught Tex most of what he knows about being a private investigator.
  • Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot:
    • Mean Streets and Overseer: Investigating a suicide leads to stopping a Well-Intentioned Extremist and a corrupt political party from taking control of global politics.
    • Martian Memorandum: A kidnapping leads to preventing a madman from destroying Mars by unwittingly unleashing a Sealed Evil in a Can.
    • Under A Killing Moon: An art theft leads to thwarting an Ancient Conspiracy planning to wipe out all life on Earth.
    • Pandora Directive: Tracking down a missing person leads to a race to recover functional alien technology before it falls into the hands of evil government agents.
    • Tesla Effect: Tracking down whoever attacked you and gave you amnesia leads to stopping a Well-Intentioned Extremist from using the lost work of Nikola Tesla from accidentally destroying the Earth trying to open a portal to Heaven.
  • Novelization: Two novels were written based on Under a Killing Moon and The Pandora Directive. A novel for Tesla Effect and The Poisoned Pawn have also been released.
  • NPC Amnesia: In the second game, Tex is on the phone trying to convince another man to meet with him. This requires a very specific set of (lying through your teeth) conversation steps, and if you say the wrong thing at any point he'll hang up on you. But don't worry, you can call him back two seconds later and repeat the process from step 1; he'll be none the wiser. And if you've done the whole thing right and convinced him to meet you, but forgot to use the address tracker to find out where his home is, well, you just do the whole thing again.
  • Odd Job Gods: The Big P.I in the Sky - the God of Private Investigators played by James Earl Jones - who appears in the Have a Nice Death sequences of Under A Killing Moon and some of the alternate endings of The Pandora Directive and The Tesla Effect
    • At the beginning of Under A Killing Moon, this god hilariously bemoans that all the great private investigators of the past have died of old age, meaning they're stuck with Tex Murphy instead. James Earl Jones knows funny, people.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: "Tex" is a nickname that he receives as a kid after crashing through the ceiling with the hole looking exactly like the state of Texas. His real name is rarely, if ever, used. In Tesla Effect, his given name is revealed to be James Tiberius Murphy.
  • The Only One: Tex is a textbook case. Unfortunately, his enemies tend to notice this quality about him, frequently resulting in him being turned into an Unwitting Pawn. Tex always manages to clean up his own messes in the end, though.
  • Private Eye Monologue: Tex is prone to give those throughout the series.
  • "Save the World" Climax: Somehow Tex always winds up having to save the planet from conquest or destruction.
  • Shout-Out: According to Word of God, Tex's recurring police contact Mac Malden is named after actor Karl Malden. They both also have an unusually large, round nose.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Tex Murphy, Once per Episode.
  • With This Herring: Largely averted. Tex's clients don't exactly overwhelm him with aid when they enlist his services, but they usually pay him a nice retainer and give him solid leads to begin the case.

    Mean Streets (1989) 
  • Adaptational Villainy: In this game, John Klaus was just one of the eight scientists working on Overlord and he's the most helpful to you of all the ones who are still alive. In Overseer he's an ally of the crypto-fascist Law and Order party and the mastermind behind the killings of the other scientists in order to obtain all eight passcards to control Overlord.
  • All There in the Manual: This game is near-impossible without the leads first outlined in the manual.
  • Chess Motifs: The instance where the possible passwords are anagrams of chess terms. In the same room where you find the encoded passwords is a chess set with a bishop missing.
  • Driven to Suicide: The fate of Carl Linsky, though as with most of Tex's cases, there's more to it than it seems.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: Mean Streets was scarcely in the same genre as the following games. Lampshaded in Tesla Effect, when Tex has a flashback to one of the combat sections from Mean Streets and says that he decided never to get into a shootout again.
  • Flying Car: Called a speedster, it's a flying car that can quickly move from across the state in a short period of time.
  • Kleptomaniac Hero: Tex can take cash and valuables in the locations he searches.
  • Never Suicide: Sylvia Linsky doesn't believe the official story, and hires Tex Murphy to verify that the facts are correct.
  • Race Against the Clock: A very common situation is that Tex has only a few minutes to do what he needs to do in someplace he's visiting before he'll be arrested or killed by poison, or some other instant game-over situation.
  • Red Herring: There are plenty of false leads. One location even lampshades this with the suspect eating a red herring.
  • Starts with a Suicide: Carl Linsky jumped off the Golden Gate bridge.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: J. Saint Gideon plans to implant mind-control devices into the world leaders in order to speed up the peace process. If the program wasn't so easy to misuse for controlling the global population - and so likely to fall into evil hands - Tex might've supported Gideon.

    Martian Memorandum (1991) 
  • A God Am I: The ultimate villain goes full megalomaniac in the finale, believing The Oracle Stone will make him this.
  • Ancient Artifact: The Oracle Stone.
  • Blah, Blah, Blah: Used as a date dialogue option, which appears if you already chose one of the failing conversation tracks.
  • Dialogue Tree: Only one path in the whole tree is useful. Don't worry, you get multiple tries.
  • Improvised Weapon: In the game's final puzzle, a bra is used as a slingshot.
  • MacGuffin: The Oracle Stone.
  • Named After Somebody Famous: Lowell Percival is named after Percival Lowell, a 19th century astronomer and mathematician who among other things observed canals on Mars and formed the first theories about the existence of Pluto. There is also a fitness instructor named Jane Mansfield.
  • Trial-and-Error Gameplay: The only way to get through several of the game's sequences, such as the jungle sequence and the casino vault heist.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Ultimately, Dr. Dangerfield's goal was to deliver justice to a mass murderer. Even his A God Am I megalomania at the end after he got The Oracle Stone wasn't directly malicious against anyone. Unfortunately, his misuse of the technology would have blown up the planet if Tex hadn't stopped him.

    Under a Killing Moon (1994) 
  • Adaptational Wimp: In the novel, the Chameleon is a French disguise artist rather than a Native American shapeshifter. This change may have been due to the somewhat oddity of having a mutant serving as The Dragon for a genocidal group of purists.
  • Ancient Conspiracy: The Brotherhood.
  • Apocalypse How: A Class 4 biosphere extinction is prepared by the Ancient Conspiracy.
  • Batman Cold Open: The first day involves Tex catching a serial burglar with no connection to the main plot of the game, apart from a minor-but-vital part later where Rook agrees to give Tex a much-needed vintage silver dollar as thanks for solving that case.
  • Big Good: The Big P.I. In the Sky, played by James Earl Jones. He steers fate in Tex's favour and berates him during the Have a Nice Death sequences.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The game ends with Tex right back where he started, financially and romantically.
  • Dialogue Tree: The conversations allow for different options depending on which particular wisecrack you want to make.
  • Have a Nice Death: The Big P.I. In The Sky berates you for whatever careless behavior caused your death. Occasionally, he will give you advice on how to avoid it happening again before sending you back to do it right. (i.e. let you reload a save game)
  • I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: The bum behind Rook's place is addicted to chocolate syrup, as in "goes into withdrawals without a fix."
  • MacGuffin: The bird statuette. Turns out the statuette doesn't actually even do anything, and the Ancient Conspiracy just wants it for religious reasons before they cleanse the planet.
  • Pixel Hunt: The pixelated graphics of garbage on the ground make it difficult to tell the difference between random clutter and the objects you're supposed to pick-up.
  • Ridiculous Future Inflation: One of the in-game items is a single postage stamp. It costs 10 dollars.
  • Shapeshifter Swan Song: Your final confrontation with The Chameleon.
  • Shout-Out: Tex is hired to find a rare statue of a bird that several parties are desperate to find.
  • Trial-and-Error Gameplay: The cryo-tank puzzle where you revive Eva.
    • In a hilarious subversion, Tex will complain to the Great P.I. In The Sky during the Have a Nice Death sequence if you fail to save Eva about how unfair the puzzle is and how there's no way to win except through blind luck. The Great P.I. will agrees with Tex and gives him a second chance without needing to reload a save game.

    The Pandora Directive (1996) 
  • Alien Autopsy: The video at the cabin depicts one.
  • Alignment-Based Endings: You can get up to eightnote  different endings depending on where your Karma Meter is along the Nice Guy/Jerkass axis.
  • Apocalyptic Log: Tex watches a Video message of the last survivor inside the Roswell complex before that person gets taken by the evil cloud alien.
  • Area 51: Tex has to search the facility at one point in the game.
  • Ascended Extra: Chelsee Bando. So many Tex Murphy fans asked Access if there was any way for the comedic flirting in Under A Killing Moon to go anywhere that romancing Chelsea became one of the major subplots of The Pandora Directive.
  • Ax-Crazy: Jackson Cross has shades of this.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The good/neutral ending. You save the world but fail to romance Chelsee. But hey - at least you're caught up on your debts for the moment.
  • Blood from the Mouth: The injured alien in the Alien Autopsy video footage at the cabin spits blood.
  • Bookcase Passage: A secret door behind a bookcase at Elijah Witt's place.
  • Concealing Canvas: The painting at the cabin hides a safe.
  • Damsel in Distress: Emily Sue Patterson.
  • Dismantled MacGuffin: Tex has to find five pieces to assemble the Pandora Device.
  • Duel to the Death: Tex vs. NSA Agent Dag Horton posing as The Black Arrow Killer.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: Tex has to prevent this.
  • Government Conspiracy: The plot revolves around the supposed UFO crash at Roswell in 1947. The NSA makes sure it stays secret.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Gordon Fitzpatrick turns out to be a partial alien.
  • Hypocritical Humor: Tex comments on a book titled "Men are Imbeciles, Women are Erratic," saying "The author generalizes too much, and I think all people who generalize are idiots."
  • I Work Alone: Tex emphasizes this principle to Regan.
  • Jerkass: The player can make Tex a glaring example of this if he chooses the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" path.
  • Just in Time: Depending on your Karma, Tex will either pull this off or fail miserably when Dag Horton attacks Emily.
  • Karma Meter: A big part of the game.
  • Laser Hallway: At the entrance of the Roswell bunker.
  • Lethal Lava Land: In the Mayan temple, there is a long chamber with a narrow maze above several lava pits. Tex has to get to the other side and try to open one of the four doors (whichever one opens is random) — all while avoiding fireballs. This room is only in Game Player's mode, though.
  • MacGuffin Delivery Service: NSA official Jackson Cross lets Tex do the dirty work, so he could reap the fruits by the end. It doesn't pay off for him though.
  • The Maze: Day Nine in the Mayan temple, in Gamer Mode.
  • Multiple Endings: Eight unique endings. Well, for a given value of unique. In truth, there are six unique endings but two of them can be reached through multiple paths. One of the "neutral" endings is reached through the good path if you committed one major screw up that prevents the best possible ending. One of the neutral endings is reachable from the evil path if you tried to redeem yourself after falling from grace. And three the four "evil" endings end with Tex dying and pondering how horribly out of character he was acting.
  • One Last Smoke: Tex pulls this to arrange his escape after the NSA agents kill Malloy.
  • Only in It for the Money: Regan is only concerned with the profit she could make of her father's discoveries.
  • Optional Sexual Encounter: You can sleep with Regan on Day Eight, but doing so makes you unable to finish the game with any ending better than the Neutral one. You can bed Chelsee Bando in the good ending, but only if you treat her and everyone else nicely.
  • Phone-Trace Race: Tex tracks down Elijah Witt with a tracking device from the electronics shop.
  • Outrun the Fireball: How Tex escapes from the warehouse.
  • Ransacked Room: The cabin has been thoroughly searched and trashed by some other party before Tex arrives.
  • Relationship Values: Utilized to a small extent. Your actions and conversational choices help decide whether Tex ends up with Chelsee, tries to end up with Chelsee but strikes out, or ends up with Regan ( and ends up dying as a villain for his trouble).
  • Roswell That Ends Well: The catalyst of the story.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: The Roswell base and the gaseous alien entity that killed everyone before the underground complex was sealed off.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Day 3's subtitle: Out of the Past
    • Day 6's subtitle: South by Southeast.
    • The morgue has several references to Young Frankenstein, including a book on one table called How I Did It and two brains in a Lost and Found cabinet labeled "Use This Brain" and "Abnormal - Do Not Use This Brain."
  • Stepping Out for a Quick Cup of Coffee: The pathologist at the morgue is "taking a long lunch break" so Tex can have the place for himself.
  • The Sociopath: Jackson Cross.
    Jackson Cross (to Tex Murphy): ''I've always wanted to kill you. It's not that I don't like you. I thought you were a very resourceful fellow. I wanted to kill you because I enjoy killing people. I find it very satisfying.
  • Take My Hand!: Tex helps Regan to climb on the rising pole at the temple.
  • Take Your Time: At one point, you have to light a stick of dynamite and throw it at a door. You can light the dynamite while in another building, go outside, over to the other building where you have to throw it, throw the dynamite, then just as lazily walk to a safe distance. The dynamite won't blow until you're out of reach anyway.
  • Tap on the Head: Tex gets this on the first day, which takes him out for several hours and makes him miss his date with Chelsee.
  • Trouser Space: Tex pulls a 4-foot long bamboo pole out of his pants.
  • The Vamp: Regan Madsen.
  • The World Is Not Ready: What Malloy thinks this of his discovery.

    Overseer (1998) 
  • Adaptational Villainy: In Mean Streets Klaus was just one of the 8 scientists working on Overlord. In Overseer he's an ally of the crypto-fascist Law and Order party and the mastermind behind the killings of the other scientists in order to obtain all 8 passcards to control Overlord.
  • Anti-Villain: J. Saint Gideon who is also a Magnificent Bastard.
  • Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: "Big Jim" Slade, as played by Australian-born martial artist Richard Norton.
  • Chess Motifs: Pops up everywhere. Both John Klaus and J. Saint Gideon are avid chess players, though only Gideon goes as far as to decorate his entire mansion with chess motifs and use chess-related code names for each aspect of the STG Project
  • Cliffhanger: The end where Tex's speeder is stolen and he and Chelsee get a ride from a stranger who, after a few moments of pleasant conversation...turns around and shoots them!
    • The radio theater sequel reveals that Tex and Chelsee survived, but got wrapped up in a conspiracy, which also ended on a cliffhanger. D'oh!
    • Finally, all is explained in Tesla Effect, although Chelsee only comes back if you put in a lot of effort throughout the entire game trying to determine what her fate was.
  • Damsel in Distress: Sylvia Linsky.
  • Graceful Loser: At the end, after Tex destroys Overlord, a defeated Gideon graciously shares a final scotch and cigars with Tex, even giving him his lighter as a keepsake, before committing suicide.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!: An unusual case where this is delivered retroactively: Once Tex is done telling the story in flashbacks, he comments how the game's Well-Intentioned Extremist "was probably right". Chelsee's response: "NO. HE. WASN'T. You were!"
  • The Starscream: Towards the end, Slade kills Klaus and plans to auction off the eight Overlord control cards off to the highest bidder. Tex stops him, though.
  • Time Bomb: Tex must remove an implant from his skull before it kills him. Of course the plot requires that you remove it anyway (the entire game is a flashback, after all) so there's no danger of Tex dying.

    Tesla Effect (2014) 
  • Alignment-Based Endings: The game has multiple endings. There are a total of five endings, but only four unique endings (largely determined by whether you pursued one romantic interest, pursued the other one, stayed fixated on Chelsee's fate, or were too indecisive to stick to any one path) with the fifth being a slight variation of the fourth ending.
  • Ax-Crazy: Mantus and the Morlocks, as a result of going mad from the cryosleep process.
  • Call-Back: Chandler Avenue is littered with mementos from Tex's previous cases. In most cases, examining them triggers a verbal description and then a cutscene from an earlier game.
  • Came Back Wrong: Tesla perfected cryogenic preservation, but the subjects are killed when they are frozen and revived after being unfrozen. This has some unfortunate side effects for most subjects. Most are turned into partially decayed, insane cannibals known as Morlocks. Charles Johansson avoided all of the more obvious side effects when he was revived by Gideon Inc., but came back with a dangerous dose of megalomania, turning him into the Translator.
  • Collection Sidequest: The Mike and Ike Hammer Candy Comic books. Collecting all 20 comic books and finishing the game creates a post-game file that unlocks the storage room in Tex's bedroom that allows you to watch the game's cutscenes and listen to songs.
  • Cutting the Knot: Can't get an armoire to open and there's no key for it? Use C4 Chewing Gum to blast it apart.
    Tex Murphy: Uh... maybe that was a little overkill, but was effective.
  • Dark Is Evil: The Translator, Dalton, Big Jim Slade and Tex Murphy (before having his memory erased). They all wear black and aren't exactly the nicest guys.
    • Dark Is Not Evil: Tex Murphy wears darker colored clothing in contrast to the previous games.
  • Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Revealed to be the side-effect of the Translator's plan to merge Heaven and Earth. Fail the final puzzle of the game and you get to watch it happen in a pretty cool CGI sequence.
  • End-Game Results Screen: Tesla Effect assigns you a rank based on your score at the end. Getting the highest rank after completing the "Somewhere I'll Find You" story path is an alternate means to unlock access to the storage room in Tex's Office if you fail to find all the Mike and Ike Hammer comics.
  • Faking the Dead: For most of Tesla Effect, it's assumed that Chelsee has been dead for a long time after the events of Overseer. However, it turns out Margaret and her allies faked her death to protect her, due to her actually being Margaret's daughter.
  • Easy Amnesia: Subverted. At first Tex thinks his memory loss is caused by the bullet that grazed his head, but a doctor points out it doesn't work that way.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Trance Inducer chemically erases selected memories.
  • Long-Runner Tech Marches On: A few of the things that seemed impossibly high-tech when the series started are now obsolete, but preserved in the game for continuity. Okay, Tex still having a fax machine is a joke and entirely plausible, but the vidphones seen throughout the game are considerably inferior to any iPad.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Chelsee is Margaret Leonard's daughter.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: Most deaths go to a quick RIP sequence and oftentimes the cause of death is not even explained. Some, however, have special FMVs. For example, if Tex throws the Tesla Egg out of the Coit Tower, instead of giving it to Slade.
  • Permanently Missable Content: One of the collectible comic books is on top of a shack in the swamp. If you remove the ladder before grabbing it, there's no way to get it.
  • Relationship Values: Tex's actions will determine whether he ends up with Taylor, Ariel, Chelsee, or none of them because he was too indecisive.
  • Schizo Tech: Tesla Effect makes lots of references to 2000's technology, yet Tex still has a fax machine.
  • Sequel Hook: Tesla Effect seemingly ends with the Big Bad and his Dragon escaping (although the Dragon is seemingly dealt with in the "bad" ending), and ends with a news report of the Nights Templar getting killed. There's also the sub-plot regarding J.T. Donnelly and Anastasia and the White Russians, which is indicated to be entirely separate from the Translator's plot and is never fully resolved. Tex mentions in the closing scene that it all seems to be part of something bigger, and he'd better be ready for it.
  • Shout-Out: The fact that Kevin Murphy voices the Exposition Fairy doesn't go uncommented upon. When examining a gum-ball machine, Tex muses that it would nice to have a talking one of the kind as a sidekick.
  • The Starscream: Slade who tries to cash in the Tesla Egg, but he gets killed by a vengeful Mantus.
  • Time Skip: Seven years have passed until the beginning of Tesla Effect.
  • The Tunguska Event: The event wasn't a meteorite impact, but the result of a trial run of Nikola Tesla's Death-Ray.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: The Translator wants to merge the living and dead realms into one. This would hedge into Blue-and-Orange Morality territory if every reliable source wasn't certain that all he'd accomplish would be blowing up the planet by accident. He doesn't even do much to directly harm Tex.
  • What Did I Do Last Night?: What did Tex do for seven years leading up to Tesla Effect?

Alternative Title(s): Under A Killing Moon, Mean Streets, Martian Memorandum

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