The Steam Machine PC Gaming Podcast · Dalton Suter, Willie Eaton, TeamRetrogue

Tex Murphy: Under A Killing Moon

·1 hr 31 min·5 clips

Oba Femi manhandles Brock Lesnar and ends by pointing at the WrestleMania sign.

The Steam Machine Podcast opens with a loud, joke-heavy welcome and settles quickly on Tex Murphy: Under A Killing Moon. The hosts know exactly how old the game is, and they treat that age as part of the charm. They riff on the intro, the music cue, and the fact that the game predates Zoomers' lives. From there they start unpacking the weirdness with obvious affection. They talk through the way the game keeps sending the player into bizarre trials. One stretch involves getting your throat slit and still somehow continuing. Another has the player helped back to town by a fisherman. They describe the town flow as a string of pointed errands and strange encounters. You talk to people. You beat a guy at arm wrestling. You hand a coin to a beggar. That beggar answers with cryptic nonsense, turns to gold, then disappears. The crew clearly enjoys how little sense it makes at first glance. They also bring up a girl trapped in the sewers who needs saving. She blesses the player and disappears too. The whole thing feels like a chain of tests, as if the game is checking whether you are worth trusting. The hosts keep returning to the scale of it. They note the huge spaces, the skybound location, and the sense that movement takes time because the world is built to be walked through rather than rushed. They also call the art style beautiful. That matters to them. The presentation gives the game weight even when the logic gets ridiculous. They keep circling back to how MMO-coded it feels. One host points out that it seems like it may have MMO roots, or at least the bones of one. That idea hangs over the discussion and gives the episode another layer of curiosity. The panel stays playful the whole way through. They interrupt, laugh, and steer each other back on track without losing the thread. Even the weirder bits land because everyone is clearly having fun with the story and the old-school PC flavor. The episode closes out with the usual loose end-of-show energy and a tease for Claire Obscur Expedition 33 next time.

As heard by us

A loose, funny pass at an old game that still feels strange and memorable.

The Steam Machine Podcast spends much of this episode on Tex Murphy: Under A Killing Moon, with the game's age, odd pacing, and broad scale treated as part of the pleasure.

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