Beneath a Steel Sky (1994)

This game has a way of pulling you in with its charming style. It sets the tone with a comic book style intro and throws you in the deep end. You can tell the game is a quarter of a century old by now by the logic one need to use to solve the puzzles, but I still found it enjoyable enough to keep going for the story. Definitely give this one a go if you're into point and click adventure games. Heck, find a walkthrough if you just want to experience the story, it's definitely charming enough to warrant that at the least.

I've completed this game in 9 hours, most of the time I was stuck was due to items being "hidden", i.e. disguised as part of the background or very small. Once you find the objects, it's pretty straight forward what you need to do with them. But for casual gaming, it's a really nice pass time.

Overall a fun and interesting game. I had not played any point and click games before this one except for a few by Wadjeteye so I'm very new to the genre. The game has a few problems. A lot of the puzzles make absolute zero sense. Sometimes you just have to try to give random items to random characters and hope to find the right combination of character and item. Often, it makes no sense at all but has to be guessed. I wouldn't even count it as real puzzles, just as obstacles to progress. A lot of the gameplay feels dated. The game has a nice vibe, good design, nice dialogues and a good story. Puzzles and actual gameplay can be frustrating. It's really old too. Somehow it makes it a bit more interesting. If it was a 2019 title I'd probably give it a 2. Same goes for if i hadn't had a walkthrough. I'd recommend it to anyone curious about the genre. I'll continue with some newer one's though.

Story: 4/5 Worldbuilding: 4/5 Art Design: 5/5 Graphics: 4/5 Sound: 4/5 Gameplay: 3/5

I remember these point-and-click adventures of old. Growing up, I played Monkey Island, King's Quest and several other games in that vein, and I was never good at them. I always end up wandering aimlessly searching for the way forward and then lose my patience. Honestly, I wouldn't have tried this game if it wasn't for the fact that I stumbled across Beyond a Steel Sky and became intrigued, and decided to play the first game before venturing into the sequel. With that out of the way, Beneath a Steel Sky is a unique game. The world building and dialogue is really quite good, so in order to experience the story, I've been using a walkthrough, because I honestly can't be bothered with the gameplay. It's been worth it, though, and my guess is that if you enjoy this type of game, you'll have a blast navigating Foster through this strange, dystopian universe. In short, the writing is good enough that I'll suffer through the point-and-click tedium just to see where this adventure goes.