Beneath a Steel Sky

The Tonnina here!  I'm reviewing an older PC game for distopia month!

It's Foster and Joey!

Beneath a Steel Sky is a game that came out in March, 1994.  It was Developed by Revolution Software and Published by Virgin Interactive.  It's a point-and-click adventure game, my first one actually.  One of the interesting things about this specific adventure game is you can die (and die you will if you're not clever in solving the puzzles!)  The game is set in an unknown point in the future in Australia, Earth has been significantly damaged, possibly by pollution and/or nuclear fallout.  How do we know it's Australia? (There's never any date or place announced) Because the main character is named after Fosters, the beer. (I'm dead serious! Check this video of the intro out at 3:23) Oh and I guess cause he was taught to hunt kangaroos...

It's Australian for BEER!

Robert Foster and his faithful companion Joey (Kangaroo joke?) are basically kidnapped and taken by a helicopter to Union City.  The chopper crashes and Robert lives, runs away and now is a terrorist, but this title doesn't last for long.  Rob uses his quick thinking to get out of a jam and find a "shell for Joey.  Joey changes his robot shell 4 times in this game, he is entertaining, though, in all forms... Foster runs into a lot interesting characters in his short adventure to ground level.

You can see the many levels of Union City from this rather dangerous fire escape!

The game touches on a caste system.  There's levels of LINC within the city and if you screw up, you are D-LINC'd and end up at level 0.  Level 8 is the highest level mentioned as it is the level required to get to ground level.  Kind of like a reverse penthouse.  Yes, eventually you get down to ground level so you do get to level 8!  You can see how the world changes as you progress down the city. The first level you are in is industrious and ugly.  The second level is okay, less industrial but still not 100% clean.  The ground level is picturesque and beautiful but it still has it's own secrets and shadiness.  The very virtual part of the game, called LINC space, is very... Nineties to say the least... ever see the movie "The Lawnmower Man?" Me neither, but my parents had the movie and the back of the box showed scenes from a virtual reality (I think) and it kinda looked like that.  The last part of the game is all labratory-ish. 

Top level

Middle level

Ground level

LINC space

It's really a beautiful game, the art and the small bits of animation are very well done!  This game won "Best Dialog" (PC Gamer) and "Best Adventure" (Golden Joystick Awards) in 1995.  Many gamers claim this is the BEST adventure game in existence.  With a bucket ton of positive review scores (From 95% to 86%) it's no surprise why this game is so well received!

Post-Apocalyptia never looked so pretty!

This game is pretty short, I completed it in about 5 hours.  It's fun though... very challenging and actually makes you think.  You have to look really hard for many of the clues/items you are going to use.  The best part of this game is the dialog.  This game was released in a few different countries and I'm sure there's slightly different text/dialog for each countries versions.  I suggest playing the game with both text AND speaking.  It's much better that way.  Most of the voice acting is rather British sounding.  Of my count only one of the characters you encounter is actually Australian.

Some of the humor...

I won't give away the ending but I do want to let you know that the game does get a tad dark in the end.  Don't save in the last room either, the game is glitched and you will not be able to recover it.  Don't feel bad about looking things up either, the game is very good at hiding tools and materials you will need to continue on.  And there's only one point where you must combine two items to get a new tool, so I'll give you that one hint!

Warning, there's some photographic nudity... and this scene is too funny!

So check out this awesomely fun game! Where can you find it? Well, gog.com is offering it for free, that's where I downloaded my copy... It's also available on iOS in the Apple App Store (The photos with the blue icons in the corners on this review are from that 2009 version of the game!)  It's a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.  It's funny, clever, and kept me thinking!  There are rumors for a sequel out there... I do hope they make the sequel because it's an amazing game!