As Altaïr the assassin, you are tasked with nine assassinations, which indeed can take only mere seconds or a minute or two to actually execute - but finding them and preparing for the assassination can take hours. One must investigate the areas, represented by the icon filled maps that Ubisoft has really grown to love, and only by securing your exfiltration route by pre-preparing the areas means getting to your target and just as importantly, getting away intact, is 90% of the game (think pacifying outposts in Far Cry games). The learning curve is short and the game has a very unique control system. You control Altaïr pretty much like puppeteers marionette as you need keys or buttons bound to eyes, feet and hands. It feels very strange at first but you'll free running over rooftops and eliminating sentries before long. Some of the games highlights, are scaling vantage points in the cities to reveal new map areas and looking below to see dozens if not hundreds of people going about their business. You will occasionally come across a Templar knight, they are quite unhappy to encounter you as evidenced by the fact that they will draw their blade and attack you on the spot and until you learn how to fight them, they can be dangerous foes (Pro Tip: Approach from above or behind). They're all mostly French, so are fair game and they shout French obscenities at you which remind me more of John Cleese in Monty Python and The Holy Grail than anything. But I think the most exciting part of the game is when you eventually have to cut and run; you've been discovered, the bells are being rung in alarm, citizens are screaming and running in panic, the music has ramped up in tempo and every guard in the city is after you, yelling in their native tongue. Eventually, you're so skilled you probably could fight them all, but it would take hours, running is the better and more exciting option - until you fall - so don't fall!
One of the principal draws of this for me is the collaborative effort of famous comic book creator Dave (2000AD/Watchmen) Gibbons on the game. Gibbons was responsible for the character designs as well as the backgrounds and had an extraordinary level of input including a graphic-novel style intro and finale. It isn't quite as slapstick as Lucasarts' point and click efforts but it was certainly more tongue-in-cheek than Sierra's offerings from the period. I would compare it far more to the Star Trek 25th Anniversary/Judgement Rights games in tone. While the plot is certainly dramatic and dark, the interactions and dialogue is absolutely ****ing hilarious and delivered with just as funny voice acting - including a turn from a young Jason Issacs. Puzzle wise, there were a few quite less than obvious solutions that I'll admit needing a walk-through for, and each time I had to I never felt dumb for not trying the eventual solution, but there are not many of these situations. Most puzzles/solutions are revealed by carefully moving your mouse around at anything that might look like it's vaguely interactive and most of the time it is, and there is a palpable sense of accomplishment when you do figure it out for yourself. Beneath A Steel Sky sports an exceedingly simple control system - you can select everything from right or left click and F5 brings up the save/load/quit menu, and that's it! It's certainly easier to play than any other point and click and that simplicity made it a more immersive experience. In fact when coupled with Gibbons' influence it was almost more like reading a comic book for seven hours than playing a game.
Before I lost my CD version I replayed Diablo a number of times. The dungeons were partly randomly generated lending itself to some level of re-playability and you never found the same equipment (apart from the quest-reward gear) twice. As the game was not available on a digital storefront, I attempted to install an imaged disk version of the game early in the Windows 7 lifecycle but I was unsuccessful and didn't spent do much time working at it. However when GOG surprisingly released Diablo in March 2019 it answered the prayers of those who longed to play it again or certainly, for the first time. I finally installed the GOG version of Diablo to mark it's 25th Anniversary and the rush of nostalgia was palpable. While it's not by any means a beautiful game when it's ancient graphics are displayed on a 4K screen, GOG's Direct-X implementation is quite satisfactory and flawlessly executed. The game is perfectly stable on Windows 10 and there wasn't a single hiccup in my playthrough. The new GOG launcher, which can be initiated through GOG Galaxy allows a few options, one of which can display the game in all it's original VGA-era glory. I declined the offer favouring the (slightly) new sheen on an otherwise quarter-century-old video game. It took me just over 15 hours to complete but with short play sessions as alas now in my 40's, I was in danger of developing RSI if I played more than a level at a time. The controls for Diablo may the simplest of any video game but the constant left click is likely to reduce your mouse's lifespan if not your finger's. Nevertheless the pros outweigh the cons and it was enjoyable to look back at and re-experience one of the most famous RPGs of all time. I would recommend anyone so inclined to relive the adventure as I have.
