Beneath a Steel Sky

Some say it never actually died, but somewhere around the turn of the millennium the drought of mainstream enthusiasm for adventure titles had taken it's toll. The decade-long, golden age of 'point and click' had ended, ironically marked with the release of LucasArts' Grim Fandango--which sold poorly despite widespread acclaim. The swelling cries of 'I told you so,' by those that smugly held on can be heard as the genre is set to make a return in (what I can only hope will be) a certifiable zombiepocolypse of adventure franchises. 

It appears British developer Revolution Studios (who became famous for their Broken Sword series) are among those with the high-hats, and rightly so. With a vested interest in adventure games and the community that surrounds them, they released Beneath a Steel Sky as 'freeware' in 2003, joining their first game, Lure of the Temptress, in the public domain. I missed these titles the first time around as I was only about 10 years old in '92, and hankering for a piece of adventure pie again, it would become my starting point as I revisited some cult classics. 

We play as Robert Foster, an orphan raised from youth in the Australian Outback (now know as The Gap,) sometime in the distant, dystopian future. While the locals taught him to survive in the wilderness, Robert's knack for the mechanical also grew, culminating with the creation of the game's deadpan robot sidekick, Joey. 

Years later, led by one Commander Reich, security forces appears from one of the few remaining urban centers of population down under, Union City. Fitting the description of the Overmann character Reich is looking, Robert turns himself over in hopes of a peaceful resolution. But with his prize in hand, Reich orders the deaths of the adoptive tribe, and Joey is reduced to nothing more then personality chips on a circuit board. On the trip back to the city, a mysterious malfunction sends the helicopter crashing into the city, and Robert, surviving flaming wreckage, sets out to seek revenge on Reich and ultimately find why he was brought there. 

The version I played was re-release of the original known as a 'talkie,' in a call back to the days when sound was first becoming a major part of cinema. Aside from the music, which remains the gentle 'bleeps' and 'bloops' of midi music that define games of that decade, the game now had full audio dialogs and sound effects. The menagerie of characters sound like a geographically confused radio drama at first, as the game throws out as many accents as possible, but keeping in mind even the most dire situations in adventure games are always punctuated with an ample supply of dry wit and sarcasm, that mobster impression won't seem too out of place after a while. 

I have no end of affection for adventure games; from the painted backgrounds and the way they've been digitized, to the amount of detail exhibited in characters and animation despite being a little pixel-deficient. The cut scenes still shine despite their obvious age, and I was taken a bit by surprise when I saw that Dave Gibbons (renowned artist of the original Watchmen comic) was responsible; going so far as to create a short comic book filled with a touch of back-story that accompanied the original boxed release. I am not sure what connections newly-founded Revolution Software had in the early '90s, but they were obviously the right ones. It's a shame then, that Gibbons' comic-book narrative is so seldom used throughout the game's brevity. 

The atmospheric in-game visuals, however appealing, might be a bit hard to swallow for a generation that's grown up in the era of high-definition graphics. There is something to be said about seeing it over-sized on a recently made, large format monitor that plays on the equally over-sized reverence that those who grew up on Amigas and early PCs have, but sometimes the colorful wall of pixels can be a hindrance: hiding smaller items or point of progress. I found myself tending to lean in for a better look, when in reality it would have paid me to lean back a little instead. 

Being a 'point and click' game then, you can't expect any high stakes action; the controls themselves couldn't be simpler: Left click to walk and examine, and right click to pick up or use an object. Unfortunately, Steel Sky is one of those adventure games where, unlike it's counterparts from LucasArts, it is possible to die on occasion. You can't really prepare for these sequences, so the only option is to save often. It's enough to cause mild frustration when it happens, setting you back a good quarter-hour to repeat all the dialogue and puzzles again, but aside from a handful of these events and a couple that require you to avoid being seen, the speed of the game is relaxed and there are no real tests of your reflexes. 

When you inevitably get stumped by the sometimes less-than-logical solutions to puzzles that hallmark this type of game, the monotonous clicking back and forth has a tendency to drive the finer points of the story to the back of your mind. This could have been a more aggregating experience though, as at the time, many adventure games relied on an interface containing several different verbal commands that demanded to be clicked every time you wanted to combine items or interact with the current location. Revolution had seen this from day one apparently, and the simplified system Steel Sky uses makes the game much more palatable for those with a penchant for revisiting the classics. 

If you've been bitten by the adventure bug when trying the remake of The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition on XBLA, or one of the classic LucasArts games that are now available through Steam, don't forget Beneath a Steel Sky. If you can overlook the game's relatively short length, Joey's buggy path finding at times, and rather abrupt end, it's a great way to whittle away a couple of hours. Here's looking forward to the re-releases planned for mobile platforms, and the often rumored sequel! 

Grab a copy of Steel Sky, amongst others, for free over at the ScummVM homepage.
[http://www.scummvm.org/downloads/]