Beneath a Steel Sky (1994)

I was 11 when this game came out. I remember trying the demo (possibly shoved on the 'cover disc' of whatever ancient issue of UK's PC Zone (RIP) it was sellotaped to. I remember that trying the demo I simply could not figure out how to get off the first two scenes in-game. Ridiculous what you remember from your gaming past. As a pre-pubescant boy, I remember rage-quitting as for the 15th time I took my character to the ledge outside, on the factory level, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do. Nineteen long years later, and it was here, still waiting for me, on Gog.com for free. So I downloaded it, and completed it. A wonderful game, with - by modern standards, horrific graphics, but heart-warmingly good. WIthin minutes, the character and charm of the game will suck you in and you forget the blocky, ugly looks and remember the simple craft that went into the old point-and-click adventure classics like this, Monkey Island and Broken Sword. Classic gaming that rattles along at decent pace. Honestly, you play Skyrim and then you stumble over BASS, and wonder; "Jesus, where did the time go!" Bon chance, fellow veteran gamers. You know who you are!

When people say that old ways are the best ways, they're talking about things like Beneath a Steel Sky. With its pixelated low-bit atmospheric art, its limited but evocative locations, and its long-enough and not-tedious story arc, the game is a real pleasure to play. There's some real talent under the hood, and the canny design team makes sure that the game serves the story throughout your exploration of a small section of the computer-controlled futuristic dystopic city. This is a free game! Play it. It isn't splashy-fantastic and gloriously rendered, but it's a classic example of how much fun you can have with a simple premise, executed well.

Beneath a Steel Sky is pretty good game for those of us who enjoy adventure games, or just like entertaining dialogue. Overall, it's nice, but there are a number of factors which keep it from being a 5. WARNING: MINUTE SPOILERS AHEAD. VISUALS; 5/5: Great for the time period. I especially like how there's a unique animation for each and every single thing that happens to Foster, the main character, something which isn't always seen even in modern games. The backgrounds and artwork is all around good. SOUNDS; 4.5/5: The music is pretty good (Ambiance! Ambiance!), the sound is excellent, and the voice acting is just shy of perfect, with emphasis on "Just Shy." The game is not fully voice-acted, and it can be a little jarring sometimes to see text appear over someone's head when you expected him/her to speak. Also, it sometimes seems like the main character's dialogue lacks appropriate emotion; in particular, Foster doesn't do a good job expressing shock or horror. He does a great deadpan, though. WRITING/STORY; 4/5: The overall story is pretty good, and the normal dialogue with the characters is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. The interactions between Joey and Foster in particular will be remembered fondly, as will the courtroom scene. However, there's a certain problem in that bits of the story seem disconnected with eachother (see "GAMEPLAY."). GAMEPLAY; 3.5/5: I realize that this last complaint of mine might just reflect how much I suck at adventure games, but I often felt that the lack of defined objectives in the game made it difficult to advance. The only instruction you're ever given is "Get to ground level," which is woefully insufficient when you consider all the different factors involved in advancing from one area to the next. I had to refer to a walkthrough often because I had no clue about what I was supposed to be doing. On top of that, the game is a bit inconsistent about how it judges your forward progress; sometimes it's not possible to advance to the next area until all the relevant objectives in the area you're in are met, while at other times you can just about get away with missing something really important. On top of that, several of the names of the objects in your inventory have changed from the original version; the "Metal Bar" for instance, is actually a Crowbar, and it is often used like a crowbar. However, since it was called "Metal Bar," it often didn't occur to me to use it to pry anything open until I looked up the answers. This game also suffers from a serious case of "Featureless Blob Syndrome." FBS is a common ailment among older adventure games, is is characterized by a recurring lack of ability to discern important objects in the environment from the background environment. With that said, the game interface was generally pretty easy to use and I never had any difficulty doing something once I understood what it was I had to do. VALUE FOR PRICE/OVERALL ASSESSMENT 4/5: Given that this game is free, I can't recommend it more highly. Just be aware that it's an old-school game, and therefore very unforgiving.

Beneath a Steel Sky is a point-and-click adventure that manages to escape many of the pitfalls common to other games of its genre and era. It looks good, plays sensibly, and even has a good story to carry it. VISUALS and AUDIO: BaSS looks really good, for what it is - the backgrounds are nicely designed and well-painted, characters and scene elements with which you will interact are clear and well-depicted, and the overall look & feel is consistent with the story. The visuals really add to the atmosphere of the game, and everything looks right. Many scenes have multiple levels, and characters look appropriately near or far when in different areas. On top of all this, there are lots of these locations, and none are throwaways - there's something to do everywhere. The entire screen is used for graphics, with a drop-down visual inventory and characters speaking via floating text - there is no clutter to detract from the art. The entire game is fully voiced, and each character sounds distinct enough to be immediately recognizable. The speech diverges amusingly from the text at times, generally replacing British vocabulary and expressions with American. (eg "Well it's smart!" => "It's totally cool!", in reference to your jumper, aka sweater). Each area has a soundtrack, which is low-bitrate but can be charming. I particularly liked the cyberspace theme. Some scenes are populated with clanking machinery, beeping computers, or an excessively friendly jukebox; everything sounds like you would expect. Again, this attention to detail helps to bring the world to life and add to the excellent atmosphere. STORY/ACTING: As mentioned above, the entire game is fully voiced, and each of the many characters has a distinct accent, mood, and personality. When you tick someone off, you'll hear it! The writing is unexpectedly good, not only in terms of dialog quality and characterization, but also the overall story. The failed-utopia / machine-intelligence-run-amok theme may be cliched, but the world is filled with enough detail to have an unusual amount of depth and atmosphere. Given the limitations of the genre, I don't think it could be done much better than this. CONTROLS and GAMEPLAY: Beneath a Steel Sky's controls are fairly typical point-and-click adventure fare, with look via left-click, interaction via right-click, and item use via selection from the inventory followed by clicking on the target. It is a pretty intuitive system, and clicking wrong will just result in re-hearing a description or Robert shrugging at you. As mentioned above, environment elements are generally clear, as are items in your inventory, so you're never stuck playing guess-the-pixel. The cursor helpfully changes to indicate objects, so you can quickly check all the control panels and cabinets in a scene. Descriptions often contain helpful hints (eg "there's a grate in the way" instead of just "you can't reach it"), again reducing unintentional mystery. Unlike many adventure games, where trial-and-error exploration mix with "try every item on every other item" puzzle-solving, the clear descriptions of items and scenes generally make it clear what you must do next, and with a bit of exploration you'll find what you need to do it. Puzzle solutions are very logical (and sometimes humorous), in a splendid departure from the norm. Usually in this genre the best you can hope is that a solution makes sense in retrospect, but here when you think of an approach to a problem using the materials at hand, it's probably correct . . . but you might be missing a step. If you fail in your attempt, it's usually clear what went wrong, and that information should lead you to the correct solution. DIFFICULTY: Thanks to the good puzzle design, the usual "what the heck were the devs thinking" fake-challenge (or at least unfair) so common in the genre is mostly absent. You will find some puzzles reject your initial attempts, but there is generally a hint as to why, pointing you in the right direction to fix your mistake. I rather liked the two puzzles in the last area - lots of steps, each of which made sense, had hints, and could be figured out from initial failures. Beyond that, there are a couple of timed segments, but no combat or other out-of-place twitch reflex tests. LEVELS, STRATEGY, and OTHER ELEMENTS: This game is quite short; I finished it in an afternoon (without ever consulting a guide), despite repeatedly reloading in order to explore different dialog options and death sequences. On the other hand, it feels a lot bigger than its also-free-here predecessor Lure of the Temptress - there is a lot more content here, and much less time is spent faffing about chasing NPCs or waiting. This game also uses the Virtual Theater engine (where off-screen NPCs are still active and move around), but it's virtual theater *done right*. Only a few of the NPCs move, and they follow predictable paths, livening up the game world without making them hard to track down. You can order characters to assist you, but this is done via normal dialog options rather than painful verb-menu construction, so it's not unwieldy at all. In keeping with the excellent puzzle design, it is quite clear when you need help, so the appearance of a request for assistance in dialog options is not a giveaway or a surprise. THE VERDICT: This game really does nothing wrong, and it's pretty fun. That said, while it's an excellent example of everything done right within its genre, it's by no means an earth-shatteringly amazing experience, and the short length makes it no more than a pleasant diversion for an afternoon or two. Still, the length is quite acceptable given the genre, and with everything else solidly above average, BaSS earns 4 stars.

One of the best adventure games I've ever played. The story is great, and the whole atmosphere is immersive and enjoyable. Love it!