Summary
Derivative adventure game which is neither deep nor amusing
The Good
Well, I suppose it's nice that characters move around instead of being stuck at one place... It doesn't have any real impact on the gameplay, and it was first introduced in
Lure of the Temptress, but there's nothing wrong with this feature.
The introduction sequence is cool. I imagine lots of players were hooked by it and admired the game just because of this promising comic-book style. For the record, the rest of the game looks nothing like this intro, and actually doesn't match it at all in its graphical style.
And it's freeware. I wish better games from the same time period were released for free... it's time to make those old games more accessible to those who didn't buy them when they were still sold in stores.
The Bad
I seriously don't understand why this game received so much praise. It can't be only because of the beautiful intro sequence, can it? Because honestly, I cannot find anything outstanding about this game either in gameplay or story-telling departments. What's more, it has an infuriating attitude that really ruins it.
I won't comment much on the graphics and music, although their technical quality is hardly above average. The graphics are somewhat dry, but I suppose they do their job well enough. Not so the music. It is one of those rare cases when a video game soundtrack really made me
angry. The music in the game is mostly composed of upbeat, comical tunes, which sound like background for a circus performance. It is absolutely ridiculous. It is one of the many components that make out the game's horribly incoherent style. Here you are, trying to escape a complex of sinister factories, to rescue your father, and to solve a mysterious conspiracy, accompanied by music that would be very fitting for a "hidden camera" TV show. I almost expected a burst of laughter from an "audience", although there was nothing to laugh about. Boy, this music was really, really
stupid. And unfortunately, it's just a part of the bigger picture.
This game is one of the worst examples of stylistic inconsistency. It is the same kind of repelling approach to humor that brought us such distasteful games as
Simon the Sorcerer II or
Feeble Files. Is it typically British? Because I don't think it is a coincidence that all those games were made by British developers. What we have here is a serious problem with the sense of humor. Dark humor is fine, but then it should be really dark, macabre and ironic. There is nothing of this kind in "Beneath a Steel Sky". There is no sarcasm at all. On the contrary, most of the jokes are surprisingly harmless and "lukewarm". And they are not amusing. I never even smiled once when I was playing the game. And I
love comedy and want to believe I have a sense of humor myself. Really, the jokes in this game are not funny. But they are there. Almost at every moment it is visible how the developers
try to make it funny. What's left is a rather weird impression, because unsuccessful attempts at humor are rather pitiful.
The big problem is that even if some of the jokes were better, they would be still out of place in this game. Such a game should either be completely serious, or include another kind of humor, maybe something like the bitter, subtle irony of
Gabriel Knight games. There, most of the humorous remarks were directed at the hero, creating a picture of a lovable, yet flawed person. I know it is hard to combine serious stories with good humor, and Gabriel Knight games were really among the few who did it right. But "Beneath of Steel Sky" goes way over the top here, crossing the limits of good taste. We have a supposedly serious, even tragic story, set in a dark, sinister futuristic world. At least that is our impression from the opening cut scene. But the moment we begin playing the game, we are drawn into a ridiculous light-hearted style which is quite silly even taken as it is, and which becomes downright annoying when combined with the serious premise of the story.
Don't think for a moment that you'll be immersed in a macabre futuristic world. Everything is destroyed the moment you see how utterly shallow the style is, and how the developers are unable to take the whole thing seriously. Sometimes I almost felt that the creators of this game were feeling contempt to it. A good idea is simply being abused. Instead of a romantically dark adventure you get a silly light-minded journey through unoriginal puzzles and boring conversations.
There isn't much story in the game. In fact, the largest portion of it involves descending to the ground level. If you thought you'd be exploring a huge futuristic city, you will be sorely disappointed. Most of the "action" takes place indoors, in uninspired locations full of standard sci-fi cliches. What you learn about your future adversaries is totally predictable. This type of story was recycled millions times before. You could still do such a story well, but "Beneath a Steel Sky" delivers nothing of what it promises. There is hardly any development in the story, it all boils down to "reach the ground and rescue your father". The background information you receive about the plot is lost among silly dialogues and menial tasks.
The game has no interesting characters. Nearly all of them are there just to be a part of a puzzle or to provide you with clues. Nobody has a distinct speech style; nobody has a strong personality. The dialogues are dull and very cold, with nothing resembling emotions in them; and I mean the lines themselves, not the voice acting. The protagonist of the game has no personality, no own judgment, no interesting thoughts to share; he is dumb and unappealing, and controlling him is really boring. He never reacts to what is happening around him. He is never excited, or scared, or angry, although he certainly should be. He is indifferent to everything. Characters would die in front of his eyes, and in the next moment he would exchange another silly joke with his irritating side-kick Joey. This coldness of the character goes so far that at some point I thought that maybe he was a robot and there was a plot twist coming ahead, but nothing like that was ever explained. We have to accept the fact that the protagonist is just an uninteresting human being without emotions.
If you thought that at least the gameplay was spared, you thought wrong. The gameplay is on par with the rest of the game: it is incompatible with its concept. You'd expect that such a serious adventure game would rely primarily on conversations to advance the story. Instead, it relies almost exclusively on conservative inventory-based puzzles, which were used thousand times before in countless other games, mostly in comedy adventures. You'll use crowbars, wrenches, ID cards, and other standard accessories of adventure games. There was a hardly an imaginative, original puzzle in this game. And its approach screwed up even the gameplay. Many of the puzzles involve you, the protagonist, stealing and destroying things to get a desired item, as if you were Guybrush Threepwood in a
Monkey Island game. Once again, it creates a big discrepancy between the game's overall idea and its actual content. Instead of solving a mystery, you'll be busy stealing sandwiches from workers...
The Bottom Line
+ A promising introduction...
- Terribly inconsistent style
- Average story line that delivers much less than it promised
- Uninteresting characters and cold dialogues
- Uninspired gameplay
For some strange reason, this game has gained somewhat of a cult status over the years. This is one of those cases where such a status was certainly
not deserved. "Beneath a Steel Sky" is just a mediocre adventure, with derivative gameplay system, average plot, and really irritating attitude. It's neither serious nor witty; the stupid jokes are totally out of place and destroy what could have been a half-way interesting dark story. By no means comparable to
LucasArts' classics it tries to imitate, "Beneath a Steel Sky" is anything but a great adventure game.
