Martian Memorandum

Martian Memorandum is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Access Software in 1991 for MS-DOS.

The North American company, founded in Utah, was famous for several sports games, such as the extensive Links series or even the Top Spin tennis game saga. In turn, Martian Memorandum was not the first incursion they had in the mystery genre, this entry is a direct sequel of Mean Streets and the second part of the Tex Murphy saga, consisting of seven installations.

This adventure is located initially in San Francisco during the year 2030. It is immersed in a dystopic future where the planet is still recovering from world war III. A part of the population is formed by mutants, victims of the radiation of the war, and the sun. The investigator Tex Murphy is hired by a multimillionaire businessman to find his missing daughter. Soon, the character finds several dark secrets that revolve around the disappearance of the young woman, which leads him to question all the people involved. After collecting several clues, he undertakes a journey to Mars, where the mystery continues.

The gameplay is quite simple because the game does not try to be anything else than what it is: a point and click adventure. The player must collect items and use them at the right time to solve puzzles. He also needs to ask a lot of questions because everyone has something to say about their peers. By doing so correctly, new dialogue options, new locations, and characters are increasingly revealed.

The turning point in this entry is found in the graphics and sound. The visual part is situated in a penumbra of colors where, as in many futuristic settings, warm tones with lots of shade predominate. This is often used to mark the decrepitude of post-war civilization. On the other hand, there is an excellent inclination to the use of gray in Los Angeles that is maintained when arriving at Mars, which gives these locations a vibe of vandalism very similar to that which is sought in Batman's Gotham City.

Similarly, far from the previous characteristics, the tremendous audiovisual success of the adventure are digitized images and voices. No character is drawn; they are all real actors, even if, in some cases, they go through an editing process to look like mutants. Also, the voices of the characters received a robotic tone that far from being accidental; it joins with the idea of the future that they had in 1991. For its part, the music was also a high point. The tones could go from generating an aura of mystery and even terror to having goofy and warm moments.

The reviews of the game were mostly positive. The only drawback was that it lacked puzzles compared to its predecessor. Among the things that stood out, the perfectly written script and the audiovisual digitization.

If you are looking for a classic point and click title that can maintain its identity as such, Martian Memorandum is your best option. Although it is quite long, it has a perfectly designed and engaging story. No matter how long it takes, you will be left wanting to hear those robotic voices anchored to those actors dressed as in the 90s.