Tex Murphy - The Character

The Character

Tex Murphy is a hard-boiled PI. Tex is a member of the portion of the population born without any genetic defects making him a normal human (referred by in-game characters as a "Norm"). He is an avid fan of the classic film noir films of Humphrey Bogart. As such, he does his work in the style of archetypal film noir detectives such as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. He has remarkable skills of observation (always punctuated with humorous internal monologues); when examining objects or features, he hardly ever misses an important or unusual detail. However, he is also occasionally a bit clumsy and naive which gets him into trouble from time to time, as does his sarcastic wit.

Tex is honest and generally a good-natured fellow who suffers from a bad back, a little too much alcohol (Bourbon...neat, preferred) and a few too many blows to the head. He runs his private investigation business out of his apartment at the Ritz Hotel on Chandler Avenue in Old San Francisco "among the mutants and the destitute" where several businesses and friends reside, including his love interest, the mysteriously mutated newspaper stand owner Chelsee Bando. Aside from wishing for a respectable, not to mention high-paying, client all he'd like to do is earn her love and respect if he can just refrain from placing his admittedly not too bad smelling foot in his mouth.

In 2011, NowGamer ranked him as the eighth-best game detective, calling him "the epitome of the hard boiled flatfoot detective", but wondering why he "dress like a cross between an alcoholic Indiana Jones and Deckard from Blade Runner."