Beneath a Steel Sky

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!