His name is Murphy - Tex Murphy - PI in SF circa 2033 - and he's a hard-boiled gumshoe in the Mike Hammer mould. Some egghead took a flying lesson off of the Golden Gate and his daughter smelt a rat. She wanted Tex to find out the truth. Was it murder? The answer lay on the Mean Streets of San Francisco, lurking in some smog-filled corner like a frightened rat. It was time for Tex to play the piper.

Tex had all the latest high-techn 'tec extras, like a hover car complete with fax, a video phone and a Colt '45. Machines, however, can't solve crimes, so he had to hit the shoe leather to track down the slimeball who'd jumped Carl Linsky.

There were five obvious places to start, five people who knew the guy, five goons to bribe and threaten into telling the truth. All Tex had to do was punch in the correct navigation codes (each address in the state has an address code) and let the auto-pilot take the strain. Gone were the days of incriminating telephone numbers on matchbooks, now it was all about Nav codes.

21st century travel still took time so Tex always used the 'phone to gather some background dirt on suspects while in transit. Vanessa, his secretary, was a smart dame. He'd lay one Vid call on her and minutes later she'd fax the info back. The, of course, there was always the stunning Lee Chin, his grass. Lee Chin by name and leeching by nature - any street talk she passed on cost an arm, a leg and a few other body parts besides - but that's another story.

Interviews were just a stagger in the park to Tex. He slobbed through the door and got grilling. Tex didn't exactly have the gift of the gab - he made Hemingway look wordy. He'd only ever ask "What do you know?" then threaten, bribe or leave. All he ever tacked on the end of his questions were full names, company titles or places. Blunt, brutal and effective, just like Tex.

Tex also loved searching suspects' homes. People invariably had some dirty laundry tucked away and rooting through it was like taking a holiday in the dark side of their souls. He always kept any hard evidence he found - he also kept any hard cash.

Tex walked the Mean Streets packed, his one constant companion a '45 automatic. His cannon was the one partner who wouldn't walk out on him after a fight. In the nether regions of California where law and order seldom dared to tread, and if it did it ran quickly, he needed his persuader.

Pimps, pushers, pros, perps and perverts just loved to take pot shots at 'tecs. Tex either shot back or hid behind the crates, slowly working his way across to his destination.

One slip was near deadly - a few hits and he'd have been vulture bait for certain. But these shoot-outs were always good practice for bounty hunting, a fun task that kept the wolf from the door, the rent paid and the State Coroner on overtime.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

Mean Streets has style. It's Blade Runner meets Mike Hammer, space age slimeballs with a nice line in downtrodden urban junk. The digitised pictures are animated and ooze sleaze, giving the characters real, solid personalities. The searches are easy - the large animated houses are easily scoured using the joystick and menus. Even travelling to and from places is smart thanks to the great 3D car-flying option.

The music evokes the right sense of late-nite TV and bad Marlowe remakes. The car sections are annoyingly silent and this ruins what could have been one of the game's strongest points. Throughout the interviews and searches, though, there is some well-thought-out digitised speech, which adds atmosphere and humour. Mean Streets alternates between neat samples and total silence, but when there is noise it's good stuff.

LASTING INTEREST

Mean Streets is packed with clues, locations and suspects. The first few encounters just serve to make you aware of how vast the mystery surrounding Carl Linsky's death really is, with political pressure groups, ditched fiancees and leads by the bucket load. There's a large map to explore and bounty-hunting shoot-outs as a sub-game. The various styles combine well to make this an absorbing adventure.

On the down side, though, there are two main sticking points. Firstly Tex spends too much time in transit, espaically when the call of duty takes him down the coast. Secondly, as seems to be the case with most graphic adventures, there's just too much disk-swapping for the single driver player.

JUDGEMENT

Mean Streets is a tough, hard-nosed adventure. It's not a game you take on and beat in a few hours. It has slow moments and requires the usual pedantry to ensure success, but the satirical bent more than makes amends. The detective character is well designed and well-defined in what he can and cannot do: so when conversing with suspects, he doesn't spend weeks trying to find the correct syntactical form to elicit an answer.

All aspects of the game follow logical detective patterns, which helps in piecing together the scattered notes and solving the crime. Evidence pops up regularly enough to keep you interested while the plot is complexly vague enough to maintain real suspense.

CD-Rom systems are using their vast memory and real sound capabilities to produce games which are more like films than conventional software. Standard home computers such as the Amiga don't much of a chance of matching a machine which can access over a hundred and twenty megabytes of information as well as recorded music, but Mean Streets is a very good attempt to mach this new phenomena. Whether it wants it or not, this is the comparison which will be made.

Tech's, Pis, Dick's, call them what you will, but for some reason they all seem to wear beat up old flasher's macks, bashed fedoras and carry a .38 special tucked under their shirt and braces, and they always talk to themselves. In Mean Streets you play such a private investigator, Tex Murphy, only he's sleuthing around in the twenty-first century.

Your case starts with a rich, young attractive broad stepping into your office and offering you a ridiculously high fee to investigate the mysterious suicide of her father. It's a job you can't turn down.

As in the film Blade Runner (which the environment of the game resembles) ground vehicles are no long the common mode of transport. The hover car has revolutionised transport, and it just so happens you own one.

Instead of using addresses or co-ordinates to guide you round the city all key locations have navigation codes. When you enter one of these codes the car's computer shows you where to fly and how far the location is. Then you can fly manually or use the auto pilot to get you there. The game starts you off with six navigation codes, which is enough to get you into the game and give you a few good leads.

Finding out about people can be costly. You have your secretary, Vanessa, who can find out basic facts, but for more personal details you need to go to Li Chin, your informant. For a small price she'll dig up all the available dirt on a character. You'll find yourself going to her quite a bit as she is a constant source for Nav codes.

Money is important. It's the best way to loosen tongues, violence also works, but occasionally you get flattened instead. To make more money you can take a trip to the lawless zone, the games arcade sequence. Tex is now on a left to right scrolling screen, armed with his pistol and facing hordes of on coming criminals. A bounty is awarded for each criminal killed. This section's quite primitive, old idea, average execution, but fun all the same.

Mean Streets manages to find a fairly distinctive brand of game play. I personally would like to have wandered round the streets a bit thus expanded the games features but that's a fairly minor quibble. Absorbing, atmospheric and clever, Mean Streets gets serious high fives from me.