This is a great classic adventure game. I first played the Tex Murphy series when I found Under a Killing Moon and Pandora Directive in one box together for $30. What a steal! I spent countless hours playing those games. I eventually played Overseer as well. I had heard that Overseer was basically a remake of Mean Streets so I was curious.
The first thing I noticed is that the actress who plays Sylvia Linsky in Mean Streets is 100 times hotter than the one who played her in Overseer *pant* *pant* *pant*.
Gorgeous.
Personally I kind of like the simplicity of Mean Streets. Don't get me wrong, overseer is fun too, but Mean Streets felt like a simple wee jaunt through a detective story.
The game is set in post-world-war-III San Francisco in 2033. You start out by reading the story in the Manual where Sylvia walks into your office and hires you to investigate the death of her father, who the police say committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. The manual also gives you a few leads including the investigating detective, her father's fiancee and the insurance agent.
The game is fairly simple and linear from that point. You get 20 to 25 subjects to interview which range from mutants to detectives to CEOs
to hitmen. You get about 8 "rooms" to explore which range from apartments to warehouses to secret labs in caves. You do get into several gunfights where you have to play a short arcade game. I stink at arcade games and I was able to get to the point where I never lost gunfights pretty quickly.
I don't want to give away too much of the plot because it *is* full of surprises. Just in the first half of the game you find out that Sylvia herself is a suspect because there was a million-dollar life insurance policy on him of which she was the beneficiary. You find out he was seeing another woman, making his fiancee the suspect. Co-workers become suspects, CEOs, mutants etc.
You don't have to solve the problems yourself really. You just go from location to location and it pretty much spoon-feeds you the story. Really, it feels like you're watching a movie that makes you click to get from one scene to the next.
Well, I hope you found the review helpful. This is a great game and truly worth playing.
