Beneath a Steel Sky – Truly one of my favorite shining stars, Beneath a Steel Sky came to my attention after playing games like the Secret of Monkey Island and Loom for PC back when the SCUMMVM was a solid foundation for developing games. BASS, much like Monkey Island and Loom, stole my attention for hours on end with its simple to use interface, decent sound and comic-book style game-play. Recall that many games at the time were being developed for the booming multimedia systems such as CD-I and 3DO, boasting the latest in “revolutionary graphics” and “crisp, CD-quality sound” (and I’ve played Burn: Cycle and Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller, trust me, there are no crisp graphics and sounds to speak of, only mediocre actors on sub-par blue screen sets).
This adventure game was an awesome addition to this stable.
My first attempt at playing this game was on an already dwindling system, and came to me in the form of a zip file that may or may not have had all the pieces it needed. It ran alright as long as you remembered to turn the scroll lock on, otherwise the game would crash, and it was a headache to get a ways in without saving, only to go to the next screen and find out you’d slipped up on that, then had to start all over again. It became vastly easier once I found the core SCUMM Virtual Machine to run the game on, and this time I managed to see the comic
book-style opening, the way the game was meant to be played.
In this mode of play, the sounds were clearer, the images were beautiful and the game didn’t have the tendency to crash as it used to. I found it to be a terrific example of a cyberpunk game that didn’t put the “film noir” aspect right in your face, instead relying on witty dialogue and intriguing game-play to keep the player motivated.
Like all standard futuristic heroes, Robert Foster finds himself with little memory of who he really is and what he’s doing here, yet at all times finds himself hunted by security. With a little on-screen detective work, you manage your way past the first few guards to team up with Joey, your (somewhat reanimated) robot pal and fellow wisecracking detective. Many of the adventure syle point and click puzzles the two of you will have to solve are based on inventory collection, some on wits and others on sheer luck or really superior timing.
Unlike games like Secret of Monkey Island and Loom, Foster has the very real chance of being killed, so it’s recommended to save often. A few puzzles frustrated me (mainly due to timing), but overall it makes for a fun afternoon. I give Beneath a Steel Sky 8.5 out of 10.
