‘Beyond A Steel Sky’ is an adventure story game written by Charles Cecil, and developed by Revolution Software. Set in a cyberpunk world, this game is a sequel and set 10 years after the original, ‘Beneath A Steel Sky’

Robert Foster is returning to Union City and boy, does trouble seem to find him. On the case of finding a missing boy named Milo, who has been abducted from his village by a robotic Stalker, Robert needs to scour the city brought from the slums to success by his friend Joey, for clues.

The story does start off slow, teaching you the basics but once you actually step foot into Union City, you will be blown away by not only the believability of this distant future but the possibilities this story may meander through this environment. Unfortunately, the story does play out in a very linear fashion, with a lot of the narrative pointed in certain directions.

The gameplay is generally a simple point-and-click, discovery adventure with puzzles built into the surroundings. Much like famous games such as ‘Money Island’ or ‘Sam and Max’ most puzzles require you to find items and use them in unique and interesting ways to unlock the next set of actions or dialogue. Interesting and substantial dialogue is a pivotal part of these sorts of games as they provide clues of your next actions or what items you may require.

The hacking system mechanic, albeit notoriously common in most Cyberpunk settings, is actually utilized quite well with you shifting tiles to program machines to your will. I like the fact you don’t remove functions but reprogram them as a totally different system in the device. The puzzles have various degrees of difficulty. Some are reasonable with an amount of brain power needed to the point you get a sense of achievement from them however some are ridiculously hard making you feel cheated of time when you do figure them out.

Graphically, the comic strip intro was a nice little effect leading into the game with speech bubbles exposition dumping clues about our hero. This leads into some actually beautifully done animations and very detailed environments that give off such futuristic cyberpunk realness. The soft cel shade animations don’t cover the very hit-and-miss voice acting though.

While Foster’s voice acting gives off a noir, investigative Dick Tracy feel, some of the supporting characters can be overly expressive to the point of awkward uncomfortableness. Especially the younger characters such as Milo, the kidnapped son, or anyone really that is supposed to portray youthful excitement. As an Australian, I was really worried that my accent sounded irritating in real life too, as a lot of characters were sporting them. I am still wondering to this day.

Overall, Beyond A Steel Sky is an excellent tale that delivers on the aesthetics of a fully established cyberpunk world in full. While a not very long journey (took me about 8 hrs to complete) and is quite linear despite feeling more open, it does keep you entertained with puzzles and dialogue suited to push a narrative of a distant future.

People of this genre will love it, fans of cyberpunk will love it, heck it even has some action thrown in too. For a point-and-click adventure puzzler, this story is one enjoyable ride.

Written by: Stacey