Beneath A Steel Sky

by Virgin Interactive

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000EUTNU4
• Item Weight: 12.3 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,612 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

A Science Fiction Adventure Game Like No Other!Product InformationIn Beneath a Steel Sky you take the role of Robert Foster abducted by brutalSecurity forces and brought to Union City.  Foster's fate is in your hands as he talks to people and explores the area around him in an attempt todiscover why he was brought to the City.  At the start of the game Fosterhas escaped from the wreck of the helicopter in which he was kidnapped. Now it is up to you to ensure that he eludes Security in order to discover hispast and his destiny.In a place called Union City all of man's social problems are coming to a boilunder the claustrophobic lid of a cold steel sky.  From the pit of theindustrial sector to the spheres where the powerful play - it's Man againstMachine Man against Man Man against Time.  In an urban hell only you canliberate. Maybe.  Product HighlightsBeneath A Steel Sky StorylineMy name is Robert Foster.  Up until twenty four hours ago I lived in aplace called the Gap. I've lived with a peaceful tribe of nomads for as long asI can remember.  Today as our tribal leader predicted security forcesfrom Union City came to our location. They were only interested in finding oneman me. Why I don't know.  After being forced at gun point into theheletransport my peaceful village was destroyed. It was then that I vowedrevenge. I must find who was responsible for bringing me here and having so manyinnocent people killed.  On our voyage in our heletransport crash landedsomewhere in the city.   Before I fled the transport I was able torecover the character board from  my robotic companion Joey. I was alsoable to grab these security manuals and files about this city and itsresidents.  Hopefully with Joey's help they can give me the information Ineed to get through this nightmare.  If you should find this manual I hopeyou will continue my fight to rid thi

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Game, February 24, 2005

By 

Joakim Fredheim (Norway) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This game is a real classic

i remeber watch my brother playing this game.

Good times indeed.

i played this game for myself just a 2 months ago, still a great game worth the time and the money :)

Joakim Fredheim

Norway

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too goofy, May 13, 2008

By 

Gregory Kennedy (Fayetteville, AR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

The ScummVM project lets you play classic point-and-click adventure games on modern operating systems using the original data files for each game. In most cases you need to provide the data files (from a purchased copy) yourself, but the designers of Beneath a Steel Sky have kindly released their game to ScummVM for free. That means: you can try out this seminal cyberpunk title FREE OF CHARGE and on a variety of operating systems. I decided to give this one a shot and see what it was all about, since I wasn't out anything to look into it.

The problem I have with this game is that it has a hard time finding its style and sticking to it. Is it a comic-book game? Not really, since there are only a very few cutscenes, and the rest is just like any other point-and-click adventure. Is it a gritty cyberpunk dystopia set in a realistic and frightening future? Well, not quite... despite the decaying city and forays into cyberspace, every character makes cheap puns and quotes television shows, and so the player can't take the setting seriously. What about a humorous adventure, like the Space Quest series? No, that doesn't fit either, since there are parts obviously meant to be taken seriously.

The result is a mishmash of genres, styles, pop-culture references, and storyline that tries to do too much and doesn't deliver well on any. Most everything is over-acted, laden with cheesy dialogue, narrowly escaped by wacky hijinks, or otherwise impossible to take seriously. If you can get with the tone, you'll absolutely love the game. I couldn't and it bugged me to no end. And the music is pretty awful (except the jukebox tunes...)

There are some good points, though. The graphics are excellent - nicely drawn and well-animated. Though I didn't care much for the script, I appreciated the speech version of the game - it really brought the characters to life. The cyberspace puzzles were pretty interesting (easy though). I only had very minor troubles with the interface. And, goofy quips aside, the story was actually a very interesting tale of computers, overbearing caste systems, and government overlords.

I recommend this one only to adventure game regulars looking for another game to try. As a cyberpunk fan, I was disappointed with the lighthearted look at an Orwell nightmare. At least it's free now, and ScummVM makes it easy to try it out yourself without too much effort.