The sequel to the cult title is coming to Xbox.
In 1994, the award-winning comic artist David Gibbons, best known for being the watchman designer, helped create an upcoming video game. This game was under a sky of steel, released on PC and the legendary Commodore Amiga, a title that achieved a balance between the magical worlds of the LucasArts games of the time such as Monkey island and Sierra’s more grown-up tone, like Leisure Suit Larry. It was a game that shone primarily for its conception of post-apocalyptic world with cyberpunk aesthetic and point & click based gameplay guided by a rich storyline. Almost 30 years later, we get a sequel to this adventure in the form of Beyond a sky of steel.
Revolutions software (distributed by Microids) was in charge of the development of Beyond a sky of steel, a study with a long history of storytelling adventures in previous years, highlighting the Broken Sword game series. Beyond a sky of steel lies ten years after the first match
The world-building and plot of the title is top notch and they are brilliantly done. It is strange to return to a world more than 25 years later, especially since memories of that time are fuzzy at best for many and nonexistent for others. But I don’t think it matters so much the story can be fully understood by newcomers and works great as a supplement for those who remember the first one. The dialogue itself has a comedic tone mixed with important themes, as the serious issues of class structure, slavery, and AI manipulation are central.
Gameplay has shifted from traditional adventure to Point and click in 2D from the past to a full 3D world
Beyond a Steel Sky also offers a new feature It works very well. At the start of the game we have access to a scanner capable of hacking, allowing us to deepen inside each machine or robot in the area. Here the functioning of the machines is presented through a code, which gives us the possibility of changing things, modify your functioning. This, in addition, is something that will be vital in solving the puzzles. The uses of this device are numerous and it is undoubtedly one of the strong points of the novelties.
Having said that, Beyond a Steel Sky puzzles at times I think they are a bit complicated and we’ll end up going around a lot, trying this and that to figure things out. Camera and motion systems don’t help this, which sometimes border on annoyance.
However, visually, Beyond a Steel Sky does a great job updating the original world and turning it into a modern game.. The game shows a great color palette, with a cinematic system based on comedic scenes that aren’t even painted. The system is very clean when it comes to user interface and menu layout. The soundtrack is also close to a high level, with excellent background music. A fairly good English dub contributes to this, with a full translation into Spanish.
Beyond a Steel Sky is a title that will delight fans of these games of yesteryear where the plot came first. However, the puzzles can get too complicated and there are times when the game slows down a bit and can get boring. However, a complex and very well developed world, a large art section and some very interesting hack mechanics. leads us to highly recommend this adventure from start to finish.
Beyond a sky of steel
$ 39.99
Advantages
- Fantastic comic book-style cutscenes
- The hacking skill is very interesting
- Art section that looks great
- Great sense of humor
The inconvenients
- Character and camera movements are not as smooth as they should be
- Some puzzles have a very high level of difficulty
- Another graphic failure