Review of Beneath a Steel Sky by emric
a retro piece of british adventurey sci-fi goodness
This is definitely one of the better examples of retro adventure gaming! The puzzles are all pretty much inventory based. but like many adventure games of it’s time, it does suffer from some annoying pixel-hunting.
What makes it stand out is the creative sci-fi scenario and quality of comedic writing in character interactions. It was like a british LucasArts comedy Your robotic sidekick Joey is hilarious.
Although unlike LucasArts adventures, there were instances where your character can die, especially towards the end, which were probably meant to heighten the tension and danger but which really only served as save/restore annoyances.
I’m thankful that the original Developers, Revolution Software, have made this title freeware and that it’s easily playable on modern systems via the ScummVM emulator.
Even though the game is around 15 years old, I was glad to learn that Revolution software are possibly planning to (eventually) make a sequel (?) If so, it’ll certainly be interesting to see how/if they manage to achieve the feel of the original, in a modern adventure game.
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Time Played: 5-10 hours