Beneath a Steel Sky

The Good
It's games like this that remind you that a good adventure game should have a good sense of humor, and boy did this game a lot of that. Robert Foster, the hero of this game must be related to Guybrush Threepwood of Monkey Island.

GAMEPLAY Now I know where Max Payne got it's inspiration in creating a "comic-like" introduction.

The game is quite easy, not big time hard puzzles which I totally loathe...thankfully the game is all about adventuring and less puzzle solving. It may be a turn off for hardcore puzzle solvers, but for people like me, I enjoy the simple cruise.

ACTING Now this is one adventure game no one will soon forget. This game has got to be one of the best actors you can find! The whole bloody place is fulled with half-wit Brits (excluding a French and an Australian), but boy do they give a Superb act! Their dialects are soothing and funny, the script "almost" rivals that of Monkey Island...you gotta love those British accents...

MUSIC This game has one of the best Jazz melodies you can find. Dang shame you can't play the music separately like in other games (if someone knows where to get the music of this game...let me know will ya...thanks!). I even saved in areas where the music is good, just so I can listen to alone...come to think of it, it's just the perfect kind of music to have with a girl and candle light dinner...

The Bad
Sometimes if you click to fast during a dialog, the you didn't read much less hear the dialog. This means you have wait for the dialog to end. But sometimes your finger gets a little trigger happy...and accidental clicking occurs.

But the biggest dissapointment to me was the ending. It so much expected a lengthy cutscene...more on the aftermaths. But you don't get any...barely a few minutes and bye-bye. Thankfully, the ending music is sooo goood, so that kinda soothed my mood...a bit.

The Bottom Line
Well it's a great adventure game, I'll give you that. And that's all that matters.

Dang the music's good!

The Good
Beneath a Steel Sky is a very entertaining story about Rob, the character you control, who is kidnapped from his home in the wild outskirts known as the Gap, into the big hostile city in which the game takes place. After staging an escape, Rob must discover why he was brought here and find a way back to the Gap. Like almost all good adventure games, BASS has a great story with a lot of mystery and suspense which will keep you interested right up to a surprise ending. The game also has some good humor mixed in as well. Its not as off the wall as Monkey Island or Grim Fandango(which is good because BASS' story is meant to be a serious) but Rob and his robot Joey add some much appreciated levety to the rather dark story. The artwork and environments for the most part are rather well done(considering the age of the game) and add to the game's dark atmosphere. The simplistic two button control scheme didn't really hinder gameplay. I didn't really like it or dislike it. I guess to newbies of the adventure genre its probably a plus.

The Bad
The music is a different story. There was a few good tracks but I found it corny for the most part and it took away from the edgy mood. While we're on sound here... Am I the only one who noticed that Rob and Joey are the only ones without British or French accents. I guess Virgin Interactive didn't feel the need to "Americanize" all the other characters when bringing the game over to the States. Oh well. My biggest gripe with BASS is its lack of quality puzzles. There are very few puzzles that aren't of the "Use this item with this item" variety. When I did get stuck in this game the solution was often to go to a previously explored area and trigger an event that didn't make much sense. The lack of challenging puzzles will leave veteran adventurers bored and will make the game seem shorter than it is.

The Bottom Line
A good game to try if you've never played an adventure game before. It's certainly not a classic adventure game, but those who have enjoyed LucasArts' adventures will find the same strong story and and witty humor here. I just wish BASS would provide the same depth as far as puzzles go.

The Good
Where do I start?

Interesting plot and nice twist plots, not so great as the Gabriel Knight series plots but nice.

What concerns gameplay... Having your robot side-kick to use it in different ways expands the game's puzzle possibilities.

The graphics are good too, the sprites are cool I liked the backgrounds very much, they depicted very well the division of the metropolis into parts.

The Bad
Not much flaws, but the following can be disappointing for adventure game hardcore players: It is ridiculously easy! I finished this game in two days.

Some of the music was repetitive, except for the main theme, which was good.

I also experienced some bugs with the ScummVM interpreter, but the game ran nice when I played it on DOS. Not much

The Bottom Line
If you liked books like 1984 or Animal Farm by Orwell you will like the plot of Beneath the Steel Sky, but If you don't care about that you will find in that game a mediocre adventure game.