A review of Beneath a Steel Sky by Zyx on 14.06.2010
This is one of the great adventure games from the golden age of adventure games. It wasn't as epic as the LucasArts and Sierra games, but it was popular enough to become a cult classic. As such, it probably better compares to the Guilty-series of adventure games than the A-list.
Developed by the company that is best known for the Broken Sword series of adventure games, Beneath a Steel Sky is a dystopian sci-fi adventure.
You start as Rober Foster, a survivor of a plane crash and then raised by a trive of aboriginals until a group of soldiers from a nearby city come and kill the tribe and kidnap you. You narrowly escape and fnd yourself in Union City, trying to find out just who is after you and start to discover that there is much more to your history than you knew. The whole backstroy is told in a form of a comic, which was also really cool for its time.
As its contemporaries, it is full of cultural references and humour. It is however much darker in tone. The game is rather long and the puzzles are sometimes difficult, I remember getting stuck multiple times when playing this game. One thing that I really felt that made this game to continue forever is vast amount of locations, you're constantly in a new environment, a new part of the city, trying to uncover the vast conspiracy that's trying to kill you… or keeping you alive?
The game features Revolution's trademark "Virtual Theatre" system so that NPCs act and move a bit more freely than in other adventure games in that time. Other than that, the game plays exactly like its contemporaries.
Like for Secret of Monkey Island, there is a "Remastered" version of this game available for the iPhone, but that game is not free. Through the hard work of ScummVM developers many of these old adventure games have surprisingly found a new home and a revenue at Apple's App Store.
If you get the game from Good Old Games, you'll also get PDF copies of the manual and a comic book inspired by the game drawn by the same guy who drew the intro and a little known comic book called Watchmen, Dave Gibbons.

Developer's description: After the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy setting of Revolution's first game, Lure of the Temptress, Revolution decided to go down a completely different avenue with its second adventure game, Beneath a Steel Sky, that of Science Fiction. A bleak vision of the future was imagined, where mind control and medical science combined forces to repress the populace. Leading comic artist, Dave Gibbons, joined the design team to... (read more)
CWF Crew rating:
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(4 of 6)
by Twin Bottles

Well, I can tell you that the game is great fun, but incredibly hard (and there are no difficulty settings). Let´s see what our Game Hunters have to say about it: "One simple word: WOW!! Regarding graphics, sounds and music this is maybe the best freeware action game I played so far. Certainly it doesn't have to hide behind hundreds of commercial games." (Pater Alf) "Hard - yes. Frustrating - yes. Fun - yes. Captain Binary clearly owes a... (read more)
CWF Crew rating:
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(2 of 6)
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| Highway Pursuit | 4.75 |
| Brain Hotel | 4.33 |
| Racer | 4.25 |
| 5 Days a Stranger | 4.25 |
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| The Queen of Fighters | 20234 |
| The Infinity String | 17490 |
| Battle for Wesnoth | 8828 |
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| TAGAP - The Apocalypti... | 8092 |
| Legion Saga II | 4762 |
| Quest for Glory 4 1/2 | 4727 |
| Hentai High-school | 3010 |
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