The thing about computer games is that developers normally employ storylines that no one in cinema would ever even contemplate. Often this makes the world of computer games eccentric and bizarre and offers a disconnection from reality that film or television simply cannot. What this also means is that on their own the storylines would never really work and the unsuccessful transition of numerous videogames to the big screen over the years reflects this. Take Tomb Raider, Doom or Mortal Kombat as examples of just exactly how badly the transition usually goes and these are the better examples. But computer games have an additional element to them that makes the storyline far more gripping and immersive – that of interactivity. The user playing the game usually has a degree of control over how the story unfolds whether illusory (such as in the Tomb Raider series) or in actuality (newer sandbox style games such as Oblivion and Fallout 3). Video games also last substantially longer than other entertainment mediums meaning the storyline has to be more intricate and objectives must be achieved that would otherwise be completely irrelevant and boring. Beneath a Steel Sky is a good example of old school gaming, it’s also a good example of a now mostly defunct genre – the point and click adventure game. I’ve always found it a shame that this genre went the way of the dinosaur because it was my favourite genre damn it. I am hoping for some kind of Jurassic Park style revivalist movement in the future but I won’t hold my breath.
Anyway onto Beneath a Steel Sky. Developed by Revolution software – the same company that developed the excellent Broken Sword series (more in the future), the game takes place at an unknown point in future dystopian Australia. A future dystopian Australia where everyone has reverted to using English accents for some reason. The player assumes the role of a character called Robert Foster, a seemingly ordinary man who was abandoned in the harsh outback of Australia some years previously and being too young to fend for himself was adopted by a group of indigenous Australians. The player gets a bit of the backstory surrounding the rival corporations especially that of Union City and Hobart and is then abducted beginning the story. The helicopter he is abducted in crashes somewhere in Union city and the player is thrust into the middle of the action as a fugitive who must evade capture whilst simultaneously trying to figure out why he was abducted in the first place. The player’s only guide on this journey is Joey, a sentient robot with a penchant for sarcasm that provides most of the games great humour.
What makes this game so playable, in fact all the adventure games made by Revolution software is that the puzzles whilst not always easy to figure out have an obvious purpose. Examples of this are apparent right from the beginning, the security guard must be evaded – create the illusion that you jumped out the window, you need access to a different floor but the elevator is broken – reroute the power to it. Often despite the next move being obvious in this game, it isn’t obvious how you should achieve it and occasionally you may need to cheat and consult the walkthrough, not that I ever had to do this of course.
So the final problem – this game is 17 years old – it was released before Windows 95! And you know what that means – yep it only runs in DOS and also for the Amiga so if you can find an antique machine that runs one of these operating systems you’re home free. Or at a pinch you could employ one of the various work arounds which is probably what you’ll have to do because DOS machines are so old they’re going up in price. Fortunately there are some great solutions to the problems of antique software now – the best one being DOSbox – a DOS emulator that can run on new Windows systems and trick almost any game into thinking it is running in a native DOS environment. I’ve included a link to DOSBOX below. The other solution which works for quite a few games including all those that used the Virtual Theatre Engine is the SCUMMVM engine – a virtual machine that has been released to run on damn near everything including Windows, Mac OS, Linux and most consoles as well.
And finally the best thing about all these things – they’re all freeware including Beneath a Steel Sky which is now abandonware. Links to the downloads included below – enjoy!
DOSBOX: http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1
SCUMMVM: http://scummvm.org/downloads/?p=downloads (Beneath a Steel Sky also available on this page)
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