![]() Foster is a resourceful chap, too, able to store all sorts of goodies to pull out later and solve puzzles with. Habitual hero Foster takes off in pursuit, quickly arriving back at the city gates with only his wits to steer him. However, tragedy strikes when his friend’s son, Milo, is taken prisoner by a massive walking tank called a STALKER and possibly whisked away to Union City with a bunch of other children. ![]() Having saved Union City (the metropolis formerly known as Sydney) from corruption alongside his now deified robot buddy JOEY, Foster has retired to the Gap (the barren wilderness formerly known as the Outback) to live among the simpler folk. Not that any of it really matters too much.īeyond A Steel Sky is a clever sequel, returning with the same protagonist and setting in order to appease the stalwart fans, but presenting a brand new story that fills in the background pretty neatly and then gets on with telling its own tale. I don’t remember it being set in a dystopian, far-future Australia, or that the protagonist Robert Foster is literally named after the famous blue-canned lager which, apparently, survived the apocalypse. I have images of the screenshots ingrained in my brain, even snippets of the dialogue, but upon booting up the sequel I realised that I actually remember next to nothing of importance. See, I remember playing Beneath A Steel Sky for years as a (presumably) spotty adolescent. Putting my own ouroborous-like self-repetition to one side though, the reason I once more draw attention to the human memory and its ability to be a big old tricksy bastard is Beneath a Steel Sky, the 1994 PC point and click adventure game to which Beyond A Steel Sky is the much-anticipated sequel. For example, I can’t remember which past review I opened with that same “memory is a funny thing” line, but I’ve definitely done it. But you're definitely not going to be uncertain about how you feel about this game.The memory is a funny thing. You might hate it and quit after just a few minutes. While it's not as funny as it thinks it is, Steel Sky does try to break out of the gloomy cyberpunk genre from time to time. And the visual style works perfectly with the storyline. ![]() The game lets you solve some of its puzzles in multiple ways. That said, there are some redeeming qualities. Focusing on an object to interact with it can be challenging at times and movement is often as jerky as the game's animation. ![]() The controls themselves are imperfect as well. Characters will often try to walk through you, walking in place until you move or not facing you during a conversation. And that's jarring when you hear them so frequently. The readings veer from flat to overly emoted, depending on the character, never settling into a realistic tone. That'd be fine if the voice acting were stellar, but in this case, it's not. And speeding past the conversations is spotty. The game's long on exposition and story - and tells it at a slow pace. But if you're coming in with no knowledge of the world and anything less than a devotion to the genre, you might find it lacking. Old school adventure game fans, who don't mind having extensive conversations with characters and challenging puzzles might also find some charm here. ![]() Fans of Beyond a Steel Sky's cult hit predecessor - Beneath a Steel Sky - will be thrilled to return to the game's world (and might overlook its flaws because of that). You're unlikely to find a more divisive game than this adventure anytime soon. ![]()
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