Beneath a Steel Sky

aka: BASS, Beneath a Steel Sky: Remastered, Beyond The Abyss
Moby ID: 386
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

In futuristic Australia, there are giant cities owned solely by corporations, separated by a giant wasteland known as The Gap. When Robert Foster's Gap-dwelling tribe is killed by soldiers from Union City who capture him, everything changes for him. After a narrow escape from the helicopter bringing him there as it inexplicably crashes, Robert and his droid Joey must search the decaying city, attempting to befriend both the snobby rich and the frustrated poor as the two attempt to get out of the city, but in the middle of everything they uncover the dark truth about LINC, the bizarre computer which makes the city tick.

The game uses the Virtual Theatre engine from Lure of the Temptress, which allows its characters to move freely independent of the player's input, making the game world more dynamic than it is usually the case in comparable games. Otherwise, the engine provides traditional point-and-click adventure gameplay.

The iPhone version introduces a touch-based interface, new animated movies by Dave Gibbons, a context-sensitive hint system and a remastered audio track.

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

44 People (41 developers, 3 thanks) · View all

Game Design
Programming
Script
V T System Concept
V T System Design
V T System 2.0 Implementation
Music
Music Conversion & Sound Effects
Comic
Background Screens
Background Paintings
Computer Graphics and Animation
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 85% (based on 54 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 274 ratings with 17 reviews)

An adventure most british. Dark yet witty and interesting.

The Good
A not-so-well-known adventure classic by most accounts. BASS combines a gritty Blade-Runerish ambience, with a setting ripped right out of Metropolis with a lot of black humor to deliver an adventure game that gives us great ol' fashioned point-and-clicking goodness.

The storyline is pretty much a ripoff, but still it is made fresh by the use of a lot of sarcasm and black humor. Really, the comedy writing is very good in this one, tough a little dry at times (as most British comedy). The puzzles are rather average but regardless of their difficulty, they are very well laid out and follow logical paths, (even the ones that require specific timing) so they never become frustrating. In fact, most will be solved quite easily, tough not in the "use-hammer-with-nails" fashion, but in ways that require moderate neuronal use.

Graphically speaking the game is pretty good, not groundbreaking but still nice to look at, and the sound fx are accurately cyberpunkish and moody.

The Bad
Not much to write here. The only thing I noted a little of key in this game was the subject matter. More specifically, it's treatment. You see, for as much comedy as it has, the story is pretty dark at heart and has lots of serious moments. Now, I don't have anything against games that switch gears like this, in fact I love them and respect them as very ballsy products, but it seems to me that BASS switches gears a tad too fast. For instance: one second you are goofing around with a character, like you were Larry or Guybrush, the next you find her dead body courtesy of a conspiracy murder, the next your buddy Joey provides some comical relief, the other you are supposed to dethrone a cybernetic entity that has some pretty bad plans for your brain and civilization... but before you had to go through a puzzle that involved having fun with a little cutesy dog!... etc. etc.

The Gabriel Knight games managed to combine everything evenly, spacing out every "serious" element from the comedic ones, yet BASS seems to mix them all together and just throw them your way... It's not really a game-crippling mistake, but it's enough to start making things fall apart as you get further in the game.

The Bottom Line
Real funny game based on a Blade Runner/Metropolis setting. Not the best adventure game ever, and the humor is not always easy to get, but it still has plenty of puzzling goodness, and some excellent writting. Very playable, very indeed.

DOS · by Zovni (10504) · 2002

One of the best adventure games ever made

The Good
Just about everything about this game is superb. The comedy, the puzzles, the graphics (for its times) and most especially the STORY! Another perfect game by Revolution!

The Bad
Some of the puzzles (like one or two) are really annoying.

The Bottom Line
Cyberpunk, intelligent, funny (and not in a silly way either!) and utterly, utterly brilliant! Almost impossible to play these days, but if you ever find an old PC in the attic, put it to good use before you throw it away and play this game!

DOS · by Johnny "ThunderPeel2001" Walker (476) · 2003

A point-and-click you shouldn't miss if you're a PC adventurer

The Good
Beneath a Steel Sky is, in a nutshell, both an excellent point-and-click adventure, and a work of art. The background graphics are all hand-drawn and look excellent, with lots of attention to detail. The game itself is very detailed and well made. Good plot, memorable characters, lots of objects to interact with, multiple scenes/events that take place during the game and extend the plot, and the puzzles bring a good challenge from start to finish. The game length is reasonable as well; not too long or too short. Dialogue is extensive, and often witty and humorous, while also crucial to solving some of the puzzles.

The Bad
The voice acting from the CD version could be described as somewhat cheap and boring, creating more of a budget feel. I personally thought that some of it was just flat out horrendous. Although the music isn't bad, it can get stale and repetitive if you're in a certain area for a long period of time. Some parts of the game may require a walkthrough, and/or a dozen saves.

The Bottom Line
Like I said in the review title, Beneath a Steel Sky is a point-and-click adventure you shouldn't miss if you're in to the genre, especially since it's freeware now. It has its flaws, but whatever, I'm willing to forgive and forget. Go and download it now, either from Classic DOS Games or GOG.com, or if you're a Linux user, look for it in the package repository for your distribution. You won't be disappointed. One word of advice, though: you might want to look for the walkthrough on the Internet, if you find yourself stuck on a ridiculously hard puzzle. Also, don't forget to save often.

That said, you're in for a uniquely good experience if you're playing this for the first time. Highly recommended.

DOS · by OrcishGrunt (114) · 2014

[ View all 17 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Beneath a Steel Sky appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Amiga version

Programmers of the Amiga version left the following information in the main "exe" file. The information describes big problems the programmers had with deficient Amiga hardware when developing the game:

At the beginning the programmers were happy and did rejoice at their task, for the Amiga before them did shineth and was full of promise. But then they did look closer and did see'th the awful truth; it's floppies were tiny and sloweth (rareth was its hard drive). And so small was it's memory that did at first appear large; queereth also was its configuration(s). Then they did findeth another Amiga, and this was slightly different from the first. Then a third, and this was different again. All different, but not really better, for all were pseudo backward compatible. But, eventually, it did come to pass that Steel Sky was implemented on a 1meg os-legal CBM Amiga. And the programmers looked and saw that it was indeed a miracle. But they were not joyous and instead did weep for nobody knew just what had been done.

CD-ROM release

Beneath a Steel Sky was also released on CDROM featuring full speech.

Comic

A comic book drawn by Dave Gibbons was included in the box in the original release version of the game and served as an introduction to the game. As of 2000, the comic book can be read online at Revolution's website.

Development and release

Beneath a Steel Sky was originally started for Mirrorsoft, back in 1991. When the game was entering its final stages, Robert Maxwell, Mirrorsoft's owner died in a yachting accident, and the powerhouse publisher went bottom-up in December of that year. The result was that the game was put on the back burner for a while.

In March 1992, Revolution approached Virgin and asked the publishers if they wanted to take Underworld, as it was called then, as well as Lure of the Temptress. This was agreed on the provision that Revolution used the Virtual Theatre 2 system - an update of the original Virtual Theatre engine used in Lure of the Temptress. Underworld became Beneath a Steel Sky after the launch of Ultima Underworld.

It took about £40,000 to make the game, a huge amount for the company at that time, but the game sold extremely well at retail, managing between 3-400,000 copies, almost all of which were from Europe.

Freeware release

As for Aug 02, 2003, Beneath a Steel Sky became officially freeware. The creators of ScummVM, a gaming interface written to make old adventure games playable on modern operating systems (only when you own the original software) asked developer Revolution if they were allowed to take a look at the source code to be able to fully support the game in their interface. They got more than they expected when Revolution made the full game (CD version with music and speech) available to everyone.

GOG.com release

The GOG.com release uses the cross-platform virtual machine ScummVM to make the game available for Windows users.

Swears and nudity

The little robot Joey during the game say Bull S**t which was a very big deal at the time. It also has pictures of women's breasts in the plastic surgery room.

Awards

  • Amiga Joker
    • Issue 02/1995 – #2 Best Adventure in 1994 (Readers' Vote)
  • PC Powerplay (Germany)
    • Issue 06/2005 - #1 Likeable Secondary Character (for Joey)

Information also contributed by B.L. Stryker, game nostalgia, Matthew Bailey, Roger Wilco, Sciere, Swordmaster and Xoleras

Analytics

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Related Sites +

  • Beneath a Steel Sky - FAQs and Guides
    Various files including walkthroughs and strategies posted on GameFaqs.com
  • Freeloader.com
    You can now download Beneath a Steel Sky for free.
  • Game Nostalgia
    Provides extensive background info for Beneath a Steel Sky, pictures of the cast and examples of voice-overs, full credits with shots and info about the design team, a demo of the game, specific details about the game, various goodies, all musical themes, shots of every location in the game, saved games, a list of reviews, including a "nostalgic "review and tech specs.
  • Hints for Beneath a Steel Sky
    Hints by Jason Strautman will nudge you along so you can solve the game yourself. Final solutions are included.
  • ScummVM Homepage
    An open-source project allowing players to play Beneath a Steel Sky on a wide variety of platforms, such as Mac OS X, modern versions of Windows, and the Sega Dreamcast. The site also provides a free, public-domain download of the game for use with ScummVM.
  • Steel Sky Walkthrough
    Full solution posted on Revolution's web site
  • dcevolution.net
    Since this game has been released as freeware, and ScummVM has been ported to the Dreamcast. You can download a Dreamcast version at www.dcevo.com for free!

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 386
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Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Baxter.

Windows added by Picard. iPhone, Macintosh added by Sciere. Amiga CD32 added by Kabushi. Linux added by Iggi. Amiga added by Syed GJ.

Additional contributors: Brian Hirt, Macintrash, Shane k, Jony Shahar, Jeanne, Zack Green, Sciere, Darksaviour69, martin jurgens, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, theclue.

Game added November 5, 1999. Last modified January 28, 2024.