Beneath a Steel Sky (1994)

Some games grow on me. This one withered. I started out liking it--interesting comic book opening, a witty robot companion--but increasingly found myself getting angry. A poor plot and poor design both hamper this game. A sign of poor writing is an inconsistent tone and the tone in this game changes constantly. You're supposedly playing in a dystopian industrial city like Blade Runner, but most of the game is so lighthearted, full of bright colors and carefree music and jokesters, that you'd never know you were supposed to feel oppressed. Even your robot Joey is inconsistent: he starts as your witty companion, talking back to you and attacking everything with his welding torch. Then he disappears for half the game and reappears as a subservient android who acts like a cocker spaniel. What happened to his personality??! And don't get me started on the ending, which doesn't even make sense, but does make you look like a dick. The gameplay is off, too. Several sequences are beyond unintuitive (I have to talk to the gardener before I can walk into the courtroom? Of course!) and there are puzzles that *require* you to change the game speed to proceed. Who in their right mind makes a game with off-screen events that will time out unless you *happen* to know to adjust the game speed?! The wrench cabinet, the steam valve and the cyberworld all suffer from this--you could do every action correctly and still never get anywhere because some hidden event timed out. You could never ever ever finish this game without the hint book to tell you how to get past these moments, and there are several of them. Moreover, the graphics are bad enough that they get in the way of gameplay. The game features a comic book style intro, and then abandons it for the rest of the game. The screens often have items that are so tiny that you could look at them a hundred times without noticing a critical item. How am I supposed to notice the metal plate on the wall when it's dark grey on darker grey in the background and only *six* pixels large!! Add to this the fact that there are several easy-to-find red herrings and you'll pull your hair out trying to figure out why all the stuff you found doesn't work, when the stuff you actually need is so obscure you can't even see find it. And the plot! Your reward for all this obtuse and inconsistent gameplay is an ending that doesn't even make sense. [SPOILER] You end up looking like a dick to the dying man, and then fly off to the wilderness to... hang out with your destroyed tribe and die hungry and alone? Did anyone proof read this script!?!

I'd never played this, even when these types of adventure games were less of a rare animal. It surprised me with it's intense and unrelenting charm - I profoundly LIKED being in the weird world the game presents, and I LIKED meeting all the characters. I even liked the little "shrugging" animation of the main character when you try to execute something that doesn't work (which happens often). After giving Gemini Rue a play recently, that fact was refreshing: in Gemini Rue, the character demeans the player often for not doing the correct action - but in these games, the "correct action" often amounts to "what am I thinking", and can be totally arbitrary - but when your characters and game world is relentlessly likeable and fun, you can forgive it! Another thing this game does well is the exploring. There are lots of interesting new areas, and it understands the true payoff in games like this - getting into a new area and getting to explore. I had to look up a walkthrough for two or three bits, which were annoying - don't give the player a metal bar AND a wrench when it just means you have to try TWO objects out on everything because they often do the same thing. One door in the game is locked - Foster, the protagonist, comments that the lock on the door is one of the old fashioned kind. I figured that explicitly meant DON'T try the digital keycards on the lock.... I would need another old-school type key or something. But no, after 30 minutes of wandering around, it turned out he uses the keycard to pick the lock.... seriously? There are one or two misleading puzzles like that which are arbitrary and flow-killing.... ...but the game nicely picks up pace as you progress. That was a great feature as well - the huge payoff as you advance the levels and story. Excellent, unique, fun game. It shows exactly what's wrong with some of these modern, nostalgia based games like Gemini Rue - they forgot to be unique and charming, and, you know, FUN. Jump in!

I love playing point-and-click games and I, in general, enjoy it more if it’s hard and frustrating. But there is a fine line between frustrating and absolutely impossible and unfortunately, this game crossed the line for me. I’ve tried twice and I haven’t finished the game yet, here is why: As mentioned before, there is, apparently, no logical connection between the puzzles and I often stumbled around clicking randomly on everything, hoping it would work. It didn’t I had to get a walkthrough, booo me. On the other hand, some of these puzzles are ridiculously easy that I probably shouldn’t call them puzzles at all. The hardest puzzle of them all was figuring out how to actually save or quit (hint: press F5). Also, I didn’t feel very motivated to even finish the game. It starts with super interesting plot, but it all disappears when you start playing. You’re a wanted man, yet you can freely talk to local police. The feeling of danger and oppression just isn’t there. It’s all very slow paced, there is no action (I’ve read there are some timed sequences, but I haven’t gotten that far) and it feels like you have all the time in the world, because there isn’t actually anyone searching for you after first few minutes. On a positive note, I really like the graphics. Yeah, it’s sometimes a bit of pixel hunting, but thankfully my eyesight is still pretty good. I also like the humour, but it doesn’t really save (for me) really slow-paced dialogue. Plus it's for free, which is a great plus for obvious reasons. To be honest, I will probably give this game another few tries in a future, because I want to believe that all those great reviews aren’t just a joke and I really can't let anything lie around unfinished. TL;DR: Download this game as long as it’s for free and you’re extremely bored / don’t have anything else to play. However, if you want something similar that will make you want to keep playing, I’d suggest Primordia (also available on GOG).

I did enjoy it, great story and nice graphics, it's 1994 so music fits but sometimes it's too loud and even turning it off don't help, it goes back to loud in next room but it's not a bad problem. Game is good and if dated gfx is not a problem for You, try it.

Beneath a Steel Sky was sitting in my account for years before I got around to playing it--it was added into my account for free and I just forgot about it. It turns out it was a hidden gem sitting there quietly all these years. It's actually a surprisingly relatable dystopian story where corporations rule what's left of human society, people's civil liberties are restricted depending on their social caste or rank and human lives are deemed worth less than whatever the factories are manufacturing. Relatable indeed. Visually the game is pleasantly colorful and yet atmospheric; there is the gloom of the factory floor, the somewhat sterile and fake cheerfulness of the residential areas, and the creepy underground 'lair' of the evil supercomputer. Despite all the doom and gloom, the game doesn't lack sense of humour, primarily but not exclusively in the form of the robot sidekick Joey (I'm a sucker for robot sidekicks). One of my favourite moments in the whole game is when Joey gets a new body and is so excited about it that he starts imitating a Dalek. EX-TER-MI-NATE! EX-TER-MI-NATE. In a perfect Dalek voice, too. I would probably replay the game just to see that scene again. Fun times.