The game's biggest appeal is the very well-written plot that is full of many unexpected twists and turns. You play Tex Murphy, a PI who is trying to make a living in 21st century San Francisco. Your first case, brought in by the beautiful, seductive Sylvia Linsky, is to investigate the purported "suicide" of her father Carl, who supposedly jumped off the Golden Gate bridge. Until his death, he has been working on a classified project with a company called MTC. A suicide note and an eyewitness have convinced the police to close the case. Sylvia, of course, is not too happy about this. She cannot believe that her father would kill himself for no apparent reason. She is equally displeased about the fact that the insurance company will not pay her the one million dollars of Carl's insurance...

Mean Streets was one of the first adventure games to truly take advantage of the full 256-color VGA palette, and the results are impressive even though most background shots are grainy and characters are poorly animated (Tex walks like a pair of wooden chopsticks). But great graphics alone don't a great game make, and fortunately Mean Streets has enough good ol' inventory and deduction-based puzzles to satisfy fans of traditional adventures. Depending on whether you like action sequences in adventure games, the quasi-3D environment where you navigate your speeder around San Francisco can be either a highlight, or a nuisance. Although flight dynamics are much simpler than Access' earlier classic wireframe space sim Echelon, the graphics in the flight sections are quite impressive for 1989: San Francisco landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Transmerica tower stand out from the surrounding landscape. Besides this mini-flight sim portion, Mean Streets also contains a simple shoot-'em-up arcade in which you must advance along a long corridor and shoot down the thugs who try to stop you. Again, adventure fans may frown at this distraction, but it is forgivable considering the game's strengths. Luckily, you can set the difficulty level to the lowest, making the fights effortless to win. Another innovation that Mean Streets brings to the genre is the interrogation/conversation interface. Talking to a character brings up their close-up digitized photo, and an array of approaches you can take – ranging from friendliness to bribery and outright threats. You can get "stuck" forever if you choose the wrong approach for a character, so it's best to save before talking to anyone. Most characters just offer campy, canned remarks, but a few are quite interesting, with a personality to match Tex's ego.

With a long list of innovations and a captivating "noir" plot (although it could be less campy and more Chandler-style), Mean Streets deserves to be called a "revolutionary" adventure game. Purists may wince at the inclusion of flight sim and arcade portions, but the pros more than outweigh the cons, as Tex beckons, and slowly draws you into his hardboiled world. A must-have, without a doubt.