Posted January 08, 2009
Beneath a Steel Sky is pretty good game for those of us who enjoy adventure games, or just like entertaining dialogue. Overall, it's nice, but there are a number of factors which keep it from being a 5. WARNING: MINUTE SPOILERS AHEAD.
VISUALS; 5/5: Great for the time period. I especially like how there's a unique animation for each and every single thing that happens to Foster, the main character, something which isn't always seen even in modern games. The backgrounds and artwork is all around good.
SOUNDS; 4.5/5: The music is pretty good (Ambiance! Ambiance!), the sound is excellent, and the voice acting is just shy of perfect, with emphasis on "Just Shy." The game is not fully voice-acted, and it can be a little jarring sometimes to see text appear over someone's head when you expected him/her to speak. Also, it sometimes seems like the main character's dialogue lacks appropriate emotion; in particular, Foster doesn't do a good job expressing shock or horror. He does a great deadpan, though.
WRITING/STORY; 4/5: The overall story is pretty good, and the normal dialogue with the characters is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. The interactions between Joey and Foster in particular will be remembered fondly, as will the courtroom scene. However, there's a certain problem in that bits of the story seem disconnected with eachother (see "GAMEPLAY.").
GAMEPLAY; 3.5/5: I realize that this last complaint of mine might just reflect how much I suck at adventure games, but I often felt that the lack of defined objectives in the game made it difficult to advance. The only instruction you're ever given is "Get to ground level," which is woefully insufficient when you consider all the different factors involved in advancing from one area to the next. I had to refer to a walkthrough often because I had no clue about what I was supposed to be doing. On top of that, the game is a bit inconsistent about how it judges your forward progress; sometimes it's not possible to advance to the next area until all the relevant objectives in the area you're in are met, while at other times you can just about get away with missing something really important. On top of that, several of the names of the objects in your inventory have changed from the original version; the "Metal Bar" for instance, is actually a Crowbar, and it is often used like a crowbar. However, since it was called "Metal Bar," it often didn't occur to me to use it to pry anything open until I looked up the answers. This game also suffers from a serious case of "Featureless Blob Syndrome." FBS is a common ailment among older adventure games, is is characterized by a recurring lack of ability to discern important objects in the environment from the background environment.
With that said, the game interface was generally pretty easy to use and I never had any difficulty doing something once I understood what it was I had to do.
VALUE FOR PRICE/OVERALL ASSESSMENT 4/5: Given that this game is free, I can't recommend it more highly. Just be aware that it's an old-school game, and therefore very unforgiving.
VISUALS; 5/5: Great for the time period. I especially like how there's a unique animation for each and every single thing that happens to Foster, the main character, something which isn't always seen even in modern games. The backgrounds and artwork is all around good.
SOUNDS; 4.5/5: The music is pretty good (Ambiance! Ambiance!), the sound is excellent, and the voice acting is just shy of perfect, with emphasis on "Just Shy." The game is not fully voice-acted, and it can be a little jarring sometimes to see text appear over someone's head when you expected him/her to speak. Also, it sometimes seems like the main character's dialogue lacks appropriate emotion; in particular, Foster doesn't do a good job expressing shock or horror. He does a great deadpan, though.
WRITING/STORY; 4/5: The overall story is pretty good, and the normal dialogue with the characters is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. The interactions between Joey and Foster in particular will be remembered fondly, as will the courtroom scene. However, there's a certain problem in that bits of the story seem disconnected with eachother (see "GAMEPLAY.").
GAMEPLAY; 3.5/5: I realize that this last complaint of mine might just reflect how much I suck at adventure games, but I often felt that the lack of defined objectives in the game made it difficult to advance. The only instruction you're ever given is "Get to ground level," which is woefully insufficient when you consider all the different factors involved in advancing from one area to the next. I had to refer to a walkthrough often because I had no clue about what I was supposed to be doing. On top of that, the game is a bit inconsistent about how it judges your forward progress; sometimes it's not possible to advance to the next area until all the relevant objectives in the area you're in are met, while at other times you can just about get away with missing something really important. On top of that, several of the names of the objects in your inventory have changed from the original version; the "Metal Bar" for instance, is actually a Crowbar, and it is often used like a crowbar. However, since it was called "Metal Bar," it often didn't occur to me to use it to pry anything open until I looked up the answers. This game also suffers from a serious case of "Featureless Blob Syndrome." FBS is a common ailment among older adventure games, is is characterized by a recurring lack of ability to discern important objects in the environment from the background environment.
With that said, the game interface was generally pretty easy to use and I never had any difficulty doing something once I understood what it was I had to do.
VALUE FOR PRICE/OVERALL ASSESSMENT 4/5: Given that this game is free, I can't recommend it more highly. Just be aware that it's an old-school game, and therefore very unforgiving.