Beneath a Steel Sky

The Good
I liked pretty much everything, and the voice acting was superb for its time. BASS was made by Revolution Software, and that was not a very well known company back then, and to say that BASS could be compared to Lucasarts adventures is to say that they are pretty damn good at what they do!!!

The Bad
My copy of the game had a bug in it (which was probably why I bought it for $10), every 5 mins or so the game would come up with a blue screen of death and quit, so I had to save every 2 mins or so. Other than that it was fine.

The Bottom Line
If you like Lucasarts, then get this!!! This is very much like Lucasarts games.

The Good
Most of this review you'll find it in the "the bad" section. It's difficult to discover something good and prominent in an adventure that is very poor in every aspect. Maybe the best thing is its comic-book-style introduction, well narrated and illustrated, but short. Sadly, there isn't any vestige of that comic style in the rest of the game. I suppose a few pages of comic book won't convince to someone about this game, …or yes?

The Bad
I'm not a guy who is on pursuit of every "over-hyped" game, in order to then join to the adoration with rest of people. Neither I'm of those that hate this games before play them. So, I approached to "Beneath a Steel Sky" with a moderate expectation, but with intention of enjoy it, such as with every adventure that I play. However, other than a promising preface (its comic-book), it took me no long time realize this game is of those that gained good reputation because of to have a nice title and a little of good luck in the law of "chain reaction" acceptance of gamers, even though in its essence is rather ordinary and lacking of personality.

As I said, the start is attractive, but I lost that interest immediately because of the important thing about the game is to solve frustrating and not very clever puzzles, which don't fit very well with the main story. Puzzles are of type (but not quality) of Lucas Arts's games. Perhaps I might have tolerated that if the story's unfolding had been attractive, but not: the unfolding is very, very superficial and simple, what confirms far more that the important thing is to solve un-intuitive puzzles.

The atmosphere is very poor: the graphics don't convey any feel of to be in a huge futuristic city, since they are so static and unoccupied that sometimes seem cardboard backgrounds. The music is practically one song, plain and monotonous. The (few) characters aren't interesting or important, in part due to hollow dialogues that we have with them: they inform very little about situation, background story, other characters, etc. They're there just because they're an ingredient of some annoying puzzle.

In its "comic"' introduction, the game shows a dramatic tone. However, that is an illusion. The main character jokes with everything, and in general, he doesn't take anything seriously, although there is blood and deaths during the plot. This attempt of comedy, plus its puzzles, did me feel as if I were playing a Monkey Island, but with deaths, little humor and boring puzzles. It is a confusing blend.

The Bottom Line
I don't understand why so many people consider it a classic adventure, raise it at the level of TRUE classics, like lots of Lucas Arts and Sierra's adventures. But, is it that they don't see (or feel) the huge difference? BASS is not a complete waste, but like sci-fi story, it's void and simple, and like a game, it's boring and frustrating. That's not to be a good game. And much less a classic.

The Good
The best element of this game is the scenario...

This is definitely Sci-Fi at its best. The scenario is so good that some ideas from the game have been ruthlessly plagiarized in Hollywood movies.

Then there is the humour...we're talking about real entertainment bordering on the hilarious. From the cockney accent of some characters to the unbelievable attitude of Joey, this very strong aspect of the game also creates a balance because the hero sometimes finds himself in depressing and unfavourable situations.

I also liked the puzzles, which were very logical and of medium difficulty, with some of them being fairly easy...

The music and sound effects are good and the graphics should be probably considered as artwork back then in '94.

The next positive point for this game is that the developer company promoted it to freeware status! Revolution actually gave the source code to another team of developers who made it work even on WinXP!

The only thing you have to do is download the CD-talkie version of the game so that you don't miss out on the funniness of the dialogues, and then the ScummVM interpreter that makes the game run flawlessly without crushing. The copy-protection has been disabled. I also suggest that you grab the manual (the one compiled by the Underdogs!)

Oh...one more thing. About this mature content parental advisory...

The game contains some gory scenes, but any of the military-style execution FPS games would surpass this.

Then there are a couple of nude pictures which are definitely not provocative, but rather amusing, asking a cool chick out on a date, the probability of the sexual harassment of the hero by an old widow that actually never takes place...and donating your testicles to science at some time [after your death].

The language of the paranoid and anti-social inhabitants of the game is blunt and inevitably coarse at times but it’s definitely not swearing. For example...'How many times did I tell you not to disturb me LAME-BRAIN?'

This is about how offending this game can get. Actually I found it very funny...Nobody had ever called me a lame-brain before :))

The Bad
The only drawback is that the adventure is linear, which inevitably makes the game seem smaller than it really is and also affects the re-playability in a negative way.

The other thing that bothers me is why there has not been a sequel to this great game...

The Bottom Line
Well, how do YOU feel when your day really sucks right from the start?

First, there were these Gestapo-like goons that abducted me and then murdered my foster father and the rest of the townsfolk. And then our transport crushed inside the city!

Probably you won't believe me but this was my second helicopter crash in one lifetime! Even if I joined the air force I'd be safer than that...

...and now I'm a fugitive in this nightmare city. The architect was probably depressed when he designed this dump...and he didn’t have any idea about sustainable development either!

At least I have my friend Joey with me, but he's not much help. All that's left of him is a piece of motherboard with some chips on it. Hang on in there robot pal...I’ll find a way to fix you alright.

Then I'll be ready to dispense some justice on whoever is responsible for this madness!