Beneath a Steel Sky (1994)

I first learned about 'Beneath a Steel Sky' just shy of 25 years ago in a computer game magazine ad. I didn't think much of it at the time because I was starting to drift away from point-and-click adventure games. Now, I get the chance to experience a game that many critics raved about. 'BASS' did not age well. Getting it to scale properly even with the help of ScummVM was challenging. However, once I got it running optimally, I was hooked right away by Dave Gibbons' introductory artwork and the game's premise. The user interface was clean and simple, but it limited the variety of interactions you could have with objects and surroundings. Keyboard controls were not intuitive, but it was no deal breaker. I believe the technology back in early and mid-1990s truly limited the developers' ability to achieve their ambitions for 'BASS'. The graphics looked nice, but there were a good number of occasions when pixel-hunting was required, including the first playable puzzle. The backdrops were nicely drawn, suggesting a grander world waiting for you to be explored. However, the explorable areas were rather limited and you had to go back and forth often. Any sense of scale, grandeur, and relations between locations to help you immerse in the game world was hindered by the lack of scene transitions. While it was nice to see a few non-playable character go about with their daily routines, the world in 'BASS' was strangely sparsely populated. There were very few background characters that existed for the purpose of scene setting, for many of them were put there to move the story along. The story itself was interesting, but with objectives of puzzles sometimes unclear, you don't really get the satisfaction of slowly unraveling a mystery and experiencing a suspenseful build-up to the climax. Instead, what you get is a shocking conclusion that gets dropped on you. Honestly, I would not recommend this game, especially when there are many great adventure games from that era, including the developer's next project, 'Broken Sword'. It's worth a try if you want to experience a slice of PC adventure game history; otherwise, there are plenty of games for you to play from the GoG catalogue.

Really not a great game. The art is sometimes charming, but that's pretty much it. The writing is really annoying and unfunny, with this self-satisfied, tongue-in-cheek tone where you know the author really thought it was great stuff. A lot of dated cultural references and one-liners that aren't even worth a sharp exhale from the nose. It would honestly be an improvement if it wasn't trying to be funny at all. In the realm of comedy, trying and failing is way worse than not trying at all. Others are saying the puzzles are logical for them, I don't know. For me, they were really dumb and specific, i.e. you have to talk to this character and exhaust all options before you can move ahead, despite the fact that you are ostensibly trying to keep a low profile and doing so would highlight a lie you've told or force you to confess outright. Generally, for me, there was an extreme lack of verisimilitude in the way that people interact with you, the main character. Couldn't play more than a couple of hours before giving up. I really doubt the juice would be worth the squeeze. If this game is "like reading a book", as another review put it, the book in question is of extremely low quality and value.

super

Sheesh. Back off on the review requests, ya vultures!

I don't want to give it high marks just because it's free. It's not bad, and it's thanks to this free game that I finally broke down and created a GOG.com account (and subsequently bought another game). So good job to the GOG.com guys for hooking me! The game is interesting, but lacks the humor, depth and challenge of the Space Quest games (well, all Sierra Adventure games for that matter). I really hope the guys at GOG.com are working to get some of these Sierra classics. I'd buy them without hesitation!