Talented and creative developer Access Software, Inc. released Mean Streets in the year 1989. The game was new, challenging and very engaging. Play it again online here.
"So you are the same Tex Murphy?"
"In person", I replied. "Miss?..."
"Lynskey, Sylvia Linsky." On the girl's face seemed suddenly ran a shadow.
"My father... I want you to investigate his death."
About such dialogue starts the game Mean Streets, provided of course that you, like any good detective, begin the game with reading the manual. Yes, the plot of the game is presented in the form of a short story - no you prerendering savers or, God forbid, commercials on the game engine.
So you downloaded the game, successfully launched, and you can't wait to start the investigation. Where do you start? For a start, look around: you are in your car, but not simple, and flying (and, apparently, Diavolski similar to the De Lorean from the movie Back to the Future), - it is called speeder. Movement between locations is done either in manual mode (but to navigate in this mess of green pixels, in my opinion, impossible), or using the autopilot. For this you need to drive to the browser (invoked by pressing N) the coordinates of the point of destination and turn on the autopilot (press A). Generally speaking, the whole gameplay is built on finding new coordinates. The first of them you will find in the manual is such a kind of copy protection, and in the future will have to learn them in the process of talks, of fights, shootings and searches - a typical job for a private investigator.
The dialogues built on the principle "enter the desired word to advance the plot". This is mainly names and corporate names. Most importantly, we must keep in mind sitting behind Mean Streets, in the game there is no log in which were recorded all your conversations and information received. The results of your investigation, you should record yourself or rely on your memory. I personally played with a pad, wrote down all the names, coordinates and important, in my opinion, the details - and believe me, it helps a lot.
But if you did forget some address or just don't know what to do next - you can always count on the services of your Secretary and informant, who, incidentally, are the only voiced animated characters in the game. The difference between them lies only in the amount of available information and its price. The Secretary of the Teks will provide us with any information for free (well, not free, the salary is something she probably gets the time), and with the informant, and other times will have to bargain.
And finally, I will mention a couple of mini-games. The first of them - "Search the room": the management here is fairly trivial, I recommend to read the manual, or at least to cause the information about the governance of F1, and the second is "Protect yourself": here the point is to get to the right edge of the screen, spending less ammo. You can Crouch, shoot and move left/right.
Here's egregore, in the best traditions of Sid Meier, but not from Sid Meier. Who is worth playing? First and foremost, fans of Sid Meier's Covert Action. But in General it should appeal to all fans of detectives.
Not sure how to pass your time, why not play our classic videogame Mean Streets online? And the best part, it is for free!
Source: Archive.org, Mobygames.com
Try to play some games from recommended games section.
