BottomLine @ the top: This game has aged better than Mean Streets but was still a pain to play. Recommended only to P&C historians and people who want to see the progression of the Tex Murphy series.


Pros
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-The main pro of this game is its nostalgia factor. I myself did not play this nor any of the other Tex Murphy games in the 90's. However the style of the gameplay and its various 90's in jokes and takes on the future (things like an aerobics studio on Mars, a novelty wave machine in the background of an apartment, an IBM PC as a workstation, and referring to an under construction skyscraper as "The New Sears Tower”, and your car being a flying Dodge Daytona) are enjoyable for me.
-This game is from an era where video games were nowhere near the major industry they are today. It gives it a kind of anything goes feeling. You can tell the developers had fun with things like character designs and how the overall story lacks a serious tone.
-This game came out 2 years after Mean Streets and it is a marked improvement across the board in terms of interface, graphics, music/sounds, and animations. This game has much more of a "point and click feel" to it than did Mean Streets.
-Unlike Mean Streets save slots can be given typed in descriptions instead of just "GAME001, GAME002, etc.".
-Also, lots of save slots. There are P&C games today that still don't get this right.
-Early use of an item location/info "help" button
-Updated the "futuristic" in car fax machine to a "more futuristic" wrist mounted fax ;).
-No stupid arcade style car flying like Mean Streets
-No stupid arcade style action sequences like Mean Streets


Meh.
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-The voice recordings and short video animations were probably very impressive back when the game came out. Today however they are very low quality. They also only play for some dialogue and characters.
-Dialogue tree choices are frustrating but are more interactive than Mean Streets was.
-Writing isn't amazing.


Cons
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-Setup was a pain to get this game to work right. Mouse control is glitchy and not smooth at all. If you're a DOSBox expert it might be fixable, but I just decided to deal with it.
-Extreme pixel hunting and backtracking.
-The "goto" command is clunky and utilized inconsistently. Sometimes you can just walk to a new screen/room. Other times you must use the "goto" command.
-Same inconsistency when interacting with objects. Sometimes you must be right next to an object to pick it up, other times it could be on the other side of the screen and you can pick it up without having to be next to it.
-Unforgiving game. Easy to forget an item or screw up a dialogue tree.
-Puzzles like the quicksand, laser maze, and ductwork maze were most likely very frustrating back in the day. They still are.
-Restarts to the beginning of the game upon death instead of offering up a reload game screen.
-Text is hard to read when written on the background instead of a solid color text window.
-Very anti-climactic ending.


Overall, I struggled to finish this one. I just wanted it to be over so I could move on to the next Tex Murphy game which is apparently more in line with the overall FMV style of subsequent titles. I stuck to the walkthrough and hammered it out, not wanting to deal with the pixel hunting, backtracking, and multiple dialogue tree dead ends. This game should only be picked up on sale and played by p&c aficionados who appreciate the history of P&C games who don't mind dealing with the same frustrations gamers in the 90's did. Even though this was a slough to get through, I am still looking forward to finally playing Under a Killing Moon!

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Get Ready for a Blast from the past.... Tex Murphy is an old school private eye, a man from the past living a cyberpunk detective noir life in the future. The text in the game reads like a cliche 1940's detective movie which makes for a cool atmosphere. Your case is to find the CEO of Terraform's missing daughter, and some other thing which the CEO doesnt name, but its a thing.

This game is a point and click adventure, you choose an option at the bottom like, use, or move, and then click something on the screen. I've noticed its always best to look at everything, just try to use your imagination with the pixels, this is old school, its a fun game once you get your imagination fired up you lose sight of the pixelated visuals becoming the flatfoot private eye Tex Murphy. When talking to people you see this old school computer video with audio dialog of them talking, its old school look makes the game actually feel gritty like a cheap detective novel. Going through dialog trees sometimes over and over you can ask questions to get a raging clue going about how to solve the case.

*This game is unplayable, there is a bug with Max Malden, he asks you to help him solve the "Andretti case", which should result in a new dialog option with others about Angelo Andretti, however in the steam version this never occurs. This ends progression in the game since you cant continue without finding out about "Angelo Andretti"

Will this gamebreaking bug be patched? Who knows so Buyer Beware! Even broken its worth checking out to see what gaming was like back in the day.
Rating: 1/10 Value: $0.99

The second game of the Tex Muphy series did less genre crossover and had a great strength with its LucasArts-era classic adventure design. Graphically it's a solid retro adventure FMV mix, the only downside being missing hotspots: even when hovering the mouse over interactible objects there is no cursor feedback whatsoever which made and still makes the game terribly hasslesome on a first playthrough due to easily missing out on interacting with key items on the quite blurry screen. A walkthrough or a frustration tolerance made out of steel might be required for new players. Truth be told, the entire gamedesign is extremely oldschool due to the inherent actual age of the game and it might prove too much of a bother altogether to newer gamers.

Personally it took me way back and having a nostalgia bonus it was a lot of fun revisiting this nigh forgotten gem. It's not the best entry of the series though, things really started picking up with The Pandora Directive, but that's something to tell for another review.

Martian Memorandum has a great story and it removes some of the useless gameplay features from Mean Streets (the flying between locations and the gun fights). This time the new informations (people and places) are stored by the game, so you don't have to write them down.
However, there are two big cons :
- some of the puzzles can be solved only by trial and error
- you can reach a point where you can no longer finish the game : if you get to Mars and while you were on Earth you didn't find out about a certain character, then you can no longer progress.

The second in the Tex Murphy games, Martian Memorandum sees you once again as PI Tex Murphy, down on your luck despite your success with your previous case, Mean Streets. You need a job, and you need it soon. Lo and behold, Marshall Alexander, CEO of the TerraForm Corporation, hires you to find his daughter, who was abducted -- and something "else" . . .

Gone is the dialogue puzzle of the previous game, which disappointed me a bit. There are times when you need to do more than just talk to people in these screens, such as give them items in order to move the story along, and I didn't realize this until I read a guide. Granted, it's entirely possible that such was clearly mentioned in the manual that would have come with this game if you bought it hard-copy (in 1991).

Also removed from this game is the driving mechanic from Mean Streets, which was difficult at best and caused you to miss out on a lot of the previous game's flavor. Another mechanic taken out is the side-scrolling shooting gallery. I am pleased that neither of these mechanics made it into Martian Memorandum. That said, the game then becomes rather linear, but it's still a pretty neat story even today.

(NOTE: There's a portion of the game that you can actually skip because it was so mind-bendingly difficult. Google 'Tex Murphy Martian Memorandum Guide' and any guide worth its salt will explain further)

People who are genuinely interested in seeing what constituted gaming in the early dawn of the industry should have this in their library. That's the only reason I do. I grew up in the 90s, and there's nothing wrong with taking a trip down Memory Lane.

It feels and plays like any other Tex Murphy game, but this time you don't need to write down anything on a paper or type any names like in the first Tex game, which might not be a good thing because it made you feel like you were doing some real investigation work as you had several papers full of names and information. Otherwise it's the regular ask all the things on the list then continue to some location to find items. The story is corny scifi but it works great like always. There are games that are good only to be look back with nostalgia but when actually played you realize it isn't that good like you remember, but Tex Murphy is not like that, Tex was good when it was released and it is good game today, the graphics can cause a little problem if you play with big screen, because you need to spot all these little items, so I reccommend you to play with windowed mode in native resolution or with 15" screen.

Thoroughly enjoyed, had skipped this title in my childhood - When you die it sends you straight back to the first scene of the game. Get used to seeing that apartment. Also its quite odd not being able to look at your items once you've picked them up. By the end of the game you have an inventory full of items of long forgotten origin.

This game is quite a nice - early generation - adventure story.
The environment has some nice (sometimes) hidden interactive elements.
You have to follow the storyline quite well. Also remember names and places and distinguish characters and such which often makes a good adventure game.
The graphics and sound however are really old and are just acceptable for me. Although I played games during the 90's, I am used to modern graphics. On my 20" Flatscreen monitor the game looks awfully pixelated.
However I bought this game with a nice discount offer from its usual price, so I am happy with it.
I may also buy 'Under a killing moon' for the story and review score on steam and adventure game review websites.

Loveable nostalgic experience! Game runs on DOSBOX and is like 27MB in size. Classic point-and-click adventure set in a dystopian post-WW3 era. You play as Tex Murphy, private detective. It absolutely feels like a mixture between Blade Runner and Total Recall and I love it! It borrowed heavily from these two movies but offers enough unique content to stand on it's own.

Martian Memorandum features a very simple interface with big buttons on the bottom of the screen. Just click on either "LOOK", "OPEN", "USE" etc. and then on the object to interact. Unique for it's time is the usage of some FMV sequences starring real actors. Dialogue sequences play a big role in this game. Chosing the wrong dialogue option leads to uncooperative behaviour. There are also a few "action sequences" like using a hoverboard to pass through a security area with pressure plates and lasers or traversing a ventilation shaft in full 3D!

What I didn't like:
- most of the music tracks don't fit the atmosphere at all and are somewhat upbeat. Some tracks feature some smooth synthesizers though and give off a nice cyberpunk feeling. But, like I said, most tracks don't fit. The very basic SoundBlaster 16 emulation in DOSBOX doesn't help either.
- the mouse controls are somewhat clunky.

I very much enjoyed this game and recommend it to anyone who is fond of adventure and / or retro-games.

Game soft locks! Do not recommend.

The sequel "Martian Memorandum (1991)" is a huge improvement but still a very weak game.
Just proves how objectively horrible the first game was. Tex Murphy games will only get good in the next game.

The conditioned retro community is engrossed with these early Tex Murphy games, but from what I saw it is miles behind point & click games like "Beneath a Steel Sky (1994)".
I can see how they wanted to make an interactive movie, the technology of that time was the issue, and I applaud this little 10 floppy disks game for trying but sadly this stone age retro game is hardly playable.

Eye-shattering pixel hunting as well as horrible dialogue tree conversations.
The conversations become frustrating trial and error as they are not obvious and have only one correct solution. So you have to replay the unstoppable little cut-scenes over and over.
If you are missing an object you don't even know you need, you are literally hitting your head against the wall in vain.
THE WORST OFFENDER are the dialogue trees that end up in failure and SOFT LOCK the damn game!
The poster girl of this entire game, Rhonda the shmexy secretary, if you fail her conversation you miss out on critically crucial information and can't progress further. The dialogues for some reason do not repeat with her, so you are stuck!
If you forgot to make a Save before talking to her, then START the whole game over sucker!

It is clear the developer hates its gamers and does not respect them enough to MAKE A FIX AFTER even after 34 years!!!


SKIP the first two games and jump into the humorous "Under a Killing Moon" and "The Pandora Directive" instead! You won't miss out on the story: Tex Murphy is a completely different goofy character, the world is finally fleshed out and takes a proper shape.
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(thank god I only played it for 1h while the other playtime comes from sleeping. Haven't reached Rhonda's scene but thanks to Space Quest Historian for the warning in his video!)
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Any game that soft locks and mistreats your time like that is absolutely not worth it!