Beneath a Steel Sky (1994)

This is a solid classic adventure from the makers of Broken Sword, however it is lacking the charm and polish of some of the best of that era and a muddled story + myriad bugs leave one slightly disappointed (even if it is free!). First, the good. It is free. It has a cool setting; sort of a mix of Mad Max and cyberpunk. Your character, Robert Foster, lives in "The Gap" a wasteland far removed from civilisation, before armed types arrive with orders to bring him to The City. En route your helicopter crashes and you find yourself stranded and hunted in a city with only your trusty but sarcastic Joey for company. Your aim: basically to find out what the hell is going on, who the hell you are and what the hell this is all about. Thus starts the game. Gameplay is of your standard point & click variety, with an inventory of items to use on your environment and various different characters to talk to and gleam information. One difference with most other games of this ilk: you can die very easily, so save often and do lots of seperate saves. Also, your sidekick Robot Joey can sometimes help with puzzles or information, though he has a tendency to incapacitate himself for certain chunks of the game, to much amusement. It must be noted though that this game is BUGGY. It is easy to break the game by doing a puzzle wrong, and sometimes characters don't do what they're supposed to. Puzzles are not too tough but it can be quite unclear as to their order of progression: some items and puzzles have no effect on the game, but there's no way of knowing this until you progress much further. Some items you use multiple times throughout the game, others you never use. Many of the puzzles are simply a case of interacting with your environment and don't require much thought. The story has a weird blend of elements: your character, Forster, is something of a blank slate. He knows his purpose in The City is something to do with his past, but he can't seem to remember much. There's stuff about a Council ruling the city with the help of a super-computer called Linc. There are Linc terminals throughout the game which you can access to learn a bit more about the city or manipulate your environment. There's even a few sections where you enter Cyberspace, which is visually interesting and cleverly done. There seems to be a lot of things going on and a lot of scope for a strong story, but as the game progresses the story gets narrower and a lot of the early detail falls by the wayside. Visually the game is good for its age, and the environments are colourful. The animation is pretty smooth and done with charm and wit. If you run the game through ScummVM you can up the graphics considerably (and also autosave), which helps with the pixel hunting. Ultimately this is a short but entertaining adventure, with some good writing and enough charm to keep you playing through some dodgy puzzles and an unfocused story. Worth a look for fans of adventure games but not of the same calibre as Broken Sword and the best Lucas Arts adventures.

Excellent game. Love the premise, the graphics, the atmosfear, the humour. Very quirky. Some puzzles are great, some are simply obscure. Puzzle's aren't as intuitive as Myst, and that's why it looses points for me.

This is a perfectly respectable, old-school point-and-click adventure game, with character death. Puzzles are typical of the genre in style, and fairly decent -- not obscure but not too easy either -- but also pretty few. It's just not a long game, and I felt the story suffered a lot of that. Generally, story is stock sci-fi stuff, as are the characters. The art is fine, depending on taste. The humor is a bit goofy, tending to the adolescent. In the end, I don't see what all the fuss is about. It's fine; a bit dated; a little bit charming. Nostalgia may make some bump up their scores, but that doesn't to it for me. It's not that deep; and kind of zany. Just fine, really.

Great soundtrack and art. Builds a world in just a few minutes that will have you fill the blanks, without thinking too much about it. The art also contributes to the great atmosphere that is both pleasing and scary. A game worthy of being picked up and played at random times of the year.

a worthwhile point and click adventure game, made better by the art of Dave Gibbons, as well as the best price-tag you could ask for :) give it a shot