The hacking tool can be used to switch systems between machines. A new addition in Beyond A Steel Sky is the hacker tool that Foster acquires early on in the game. There are some genuine brain teasers in Beyond A Steel Sky, and like most adventure games, the solutions can come off as every bit as baffling as the puzzle themselves. Due to the cell-shaded graphics and third-person control scheme, some players may think there’s a telltale-style narrative adventure ahead of them, but Beyond A Steel Sky is every bit a classic adventure game.įoster can explore his environments to interact with the citizens and pick up objects to add to his inventory and apply to puzzles.
Nevertheless, there are some nods and easter eggs for fans of Below A Steel Sky, and the final hour of the game serves as an epilogue of sorts to that story.īeyond A Steel Sky ditches the point-and-click style of gameplay from its predecessor, Foster is now controlled from a third-person perspective, but the foundations are still there. The larger cast isn’t particularly memorable either, with the exception of Foster’s robot companion Joey, who has some genuinely witty dialogue. Robert Foster as a protagonist can either be viewed as a delightfully old-fashioned all-around good guy or painfully one-note. However, there’s no meaningful interaction between the two, and Milo instead becomes a MacGuffin rather than an actual character. Foster’s objective throughout the game is to rescue a kidnapped child, Milo. Beyond A Steel Sky is fairly self-aware and is a relatively light-hearted affair, but there’s very little to drive the story forward and keep players engaged.įor the most part, Beyond A Steel Sky tells a fairly self-contained story and quickly gets new players up to speed with the events of the previous game. It’s just a shame there isn’t a stronger narrative to bring it all together. There are some fascinating and unique ideas in Beyond A Steel Sky that beg to be explored further.
Citizens of Union City work to build Qdos to raise their social ranking and descend to the lowest level. Union City’s infrastructure places the upper class at the bottom of the city, and the lower class is allocated to the top. The game opens with some stellar artwork from Gibbons in a short motion comic, but some of it can be lost in translation with the plastic-looking character models.īeyond A Steel Sky manages to take some well-worn sci-fi tropes, such as a dystopian class system, and turn them on their head. The environments are beautifully realized with cel-shaded graphics to replicate a graphic novel and honour the work of acclaimed comic book artist Dave Gibbons, known for his work on Watchmen. Union City’s new aesthetic perfectly parallels the steely and industrial look that was presented initially in Beneath A Steel Sky. The city is so impressive that it’s almost disappointing that you can’t take the time to explore rather than follow the fairly linear adventure Beyond A Steel Sky presents. It’s honestly refreshing to see an environment so colorful and eye-popping as opposed to the cold and bleak environment seen in most cyberpunk and sci-fi titles. Union City is perhaps the most idealistic view of the future in gaming to date. A lot has changed since players last visited Union City, which is now considered a utopian paradise, but everything is not as it seems.īeyond A Steel Sky’s biggest strength is unquestionably its originality in its world-building, a task that’s becoming increasingly daunting in the sci-fi genre. The story of Beyond A Steel Sky once again focuses on Robert Foster as he returns to Union City after ten years in search of a kidnapped child from his village. Beyond A Steel Sky Review: A Long-Awaited Sequel That Mostly Hits The Right Beatsīeyond A Steel Sky is a sequel 26 years in the making to the point-and-click adventure Beneath A Steel Sky, which lives up to its predecessor’s legacy, for the most part.
0 kommentar(er)
