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Beneath a Steel Sky review (1994)
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Revolution Software is probably best-known among point-and-click fans for the Broken Sword series, and the infamous goat puzzle. (Part of a trilogy of infuriating animal brainbenders along with The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Babel fish and Gabriel Knight 3' cat-hair mustache.) But before that Revolution gave us Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky, the latter a collaboration with comics artist Dave Gibbons.
After a planned Watchmen game fell through, Gibbons instead provided the dystopian cityscape, character designs, and part of the story for Beneath a Steel Sky. The art remains the most convincing thing about it, making me wonder why we ever bothered with 3D graphics.
The game itself was full of the kind of puzzles adventure gamers loved and the rest of us slogged through for the sake of the story. Real heads like PC Gamer's reviewer Garry Whitta thrived on distracting guards with unusual uses for inventory items, and to them Beyond a Steel Sky remains a beloved classic. So much so that a sequel was eventually crowdfunded and released in 2020. Beyond a Steel Sky went 3D though, losing the one thing I'd liked about the original. Our reviewer Ian Evenden wasn't put off by that, giving it an 81% almost as enthusiastic as Whitta's take on the original from PC Gamer's debut issue.
From the archives: The review below appears as originally written, with only minor changes in formatting and screenshots. By Garry Whitta
Beneath a Steel Sky review – PC Gamer #1 (UK, December 1993)
It's here at last. After two years in development and more column inches of enthusiastic preview copy than is healthy, Revolution Software and Dave Gibbons' Beneath A Steel Sky, finally, arrives. And it couldn't be further removed from the Hull-based company's 1992 debut.
After the magic and mythology of Lure Of The Temptress comes an oppressive, futuristic techno-thriller that borrows heavily from the pioneering sci-fi works of Philip K Dick and William Gibson. Take one part of Blade Runner, add a generous helping of Gibbons' own Give Me Liberty graphic novel, season to taste with a little Total Recall, and you've got Beneath A Steel Sky in a nutshell.
This review was originally published in PC Gamer #1 (UK, December 1993).