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Beneath a Steel Sky (or BASS for short), was developed by Revolution Software and released in 1994 on the Virgin Interactive label. It originally came on 15 (count 'em!) disks or an expanded CD, was optionally hard drive installable, and required a minimum of 1MB of RAM to run. The game would otherwise play happily on any Amiga with the minimum of CPU requirements, although an 020+ CPU is highly recommended.
Virtual Theatrics
Originally signed to Mirrorsoft in 1990, Revolution 'jumped ship' after Mirrorsofts owner, Robert Maxwell, took a one way boat trip - and ended up on the Virgin label. The success of it's first graphic adventure, Lure of the Temptress; which used the unique 'Virtual Theatre' system; resulted in Revolutions decision to press on with the development of VT by designing a game six times larger than LOTT, and which would make use of a new Virtual Theatre v2 environment.
The team, lead by Dave Cummins (who designed, scripted and even scored the music for the game), took two years to produce the game, and worked extensively with Dave Gibbons (best known in the US for collaborating with Alan Moore on the 12-issue limited series Watchmen); who hand drew the backgrounds and even part of the manual. A CD version of BOSS was also designed and released at the same time as the disk version, and featured professional voice acting by the likes of Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies) and Adam Henderson (who went on to play Fuppie in the Judge Dredd movie the following year).
Puncture a Tube, Mate!
The back-story of BASS is long and complex. In basic terms, the story is set in a futuristic cyberpunk land formerly known as Australia. Sydney is now knows as Union City, and is a vast sprawling mass controlled by it's central computer, LINC (short for 'Logical Inter-Neural Connection'); which doesn't seem to be an overly friendly towards it's inhabitants. Several people have escaped Union City to the relative anonymity of The Gap (a wilderness formerly known as 'The Bush'), but are usualy tracked down and terminated by operatives of LINC. One day, a tribal elder finds an escapee of Union, a baby, next the remains of a famous 'amber nectar' beer container, and from then on he is known as Robert 'Foster'.
Years later, Foster - now in his adulthood - is picked up by LINC security and flown by helicopter back to Union. Fortunately, Robert is able to crash the helicopter as it makes it's final approach - and this is where the introduction animation of the game takes over the story from the original Dave Gibbons graphic featurette...
We see the helicopter glide over the smog of the city, rapidly taking our hero to face an uncertain future. But it crashes, Robert escapes the wreckage, and hides in the nearest building; which happens to be a heavy machinery processing plant. We see Rob scramble up a flight to steep metal steps onto a raised platform with a broken fire exit. He's trapped! He sees LINC security rush in and question a mechanic who happens to work there. The mechanic has seen nothing. The security guard scratches his head, but elects to wait right there in case Foster should reappear. Now the game takes over as we are left with our first puzzle - how the heck do we escape this platform, this factory, and indeed - this city??
City Slickers
Having figured out how to get past the guard, we are free to explore a little. Robert only has one item of any use - the circuit board of a friendly robot known as Joey - and it isn't long before we cobble a few bits of twisted metal together and make ourselves a new mechanical pal. Joey is a robot of means. He can communicate, operate things, fetch and carry items and generally provide a huge dose of light comic relief. In this case we need Joeys help to find a way out of the factory, and after much (much!) persuading he eventually agrees and comes up with a 'fix it' solution. We then jump to the next room and tangle with the commander of LINC security, a certain S. Reich, and finally ditch the factory in favour of Union City itself.
The City is split into three distinct levels - the upper heavy industrial sector (mainly for lower class citizens), the middle commercial zone (for general citizens), and the lower 'high class' sector (for the super rich). We'll get to see all of these places as game goes on - but for now we have to content ourselves with the very top level, and the first priority is supplies. After a search we discover a store room which contains some of the items we need - but oh no, we are spotted! Is there another way? Perhaps we can make use of that welder??
Virtual Insanity
Eventually we are able to take the elevator down to the middle level of Union City - the Commercial sector - where we come across an incredibly relaxed travel agent, a pushy insurance salesman named W.Anchor, a shady residential complex and a crazy plastic surgeon with a frumpy holographic receptionist. In the meantime, we also develop a friendship with a girl named Anita, who has the information and skills we need to get inside LINCs virtual reality mainframe; which is located somewhere nearby.
The VR terminal enables us to interact with several key features of LINC, including financial resources, security clearance, and access to secret documents which will help us fill in some of the blanks. It will be necessary to interact with LINC several times during the game, and this VR world has it's own share of puzzles and nuances too.
A Different Class
This interaction ultimately enables us to travel to the sunny lower zone of the city - the 'High Class' sector - with it's outdoor pool area, living quarters, cathedral, law court and nightclub. There is also a storage shed which we'll need to gain access to, and also the mysterious Mrs.Danielle Piermont. We first see Danielle walking her dog around the pool, and further investigations uncover a mine of new information. The dog is in for quite a splash too!
One of the nice features of the game is that some of the puzzles aren't necessary to be solved in order to further the game. On this section we may choose to enter the Law Court in order to defend a person we managed to get into trouble earlier on, but it isn't necessary to do this, and we can skip the Law Court if we successfully find a way down into the tunnels below the city.
Going Down Under...
The Tunnels section forms the fourth and final section of the game, and this is where we finally find the heart of LINC and locate it's weak spot. With Joeys help we may defeat the machine and come face to face with it's creator - Matrix style (even though BASS predates 'The Matrix' by several years).
Unlike a number of similar graphic adventures of this kind, Robert Foster actually has the ability to die. That's right, one wrong move and you're a goner! This means players have to make keen use of the classic 'F5' save function and 'F6' to reload. Although deaths should be uncommon if you watch you're step, there's nothing more deflating than to see our flamboyant character lying in a pool of his own blood.
Funky Gibbons
The standout feature of BASS is in the graphics department. All the graphics in the game glow and shine as only a professional artist can deliver, and all the backgrounds have been painstakingly drawn by hand. The visuals may be 64 colour extra half-bright - but any casual onlooker would be forgiven for thinking they are actually 256 colour VGA. For this reason, and A1200 / AGA version was never planned. All the characters animate beautifully, and even our tin toy Joey receives plenty of attention to detail.
The second stand-out feature is in the way the player interacts with the environment and communicates with it's denizens. All the items we are carrying appear is icons at the top of the game screen and can be selected simply by dragging the pointer up to them and clicking on an item to highlight it. Right-clicking on the scenery with the appropriate item selected instigates the 'operate' function; and this is enough to solve all the puzzles in the game. Another handy feature carried over from Lure of the Temptress is the way the mouse pointer will always change to an 'Exit' sign when hovered over any exits - which makes navigation a breeze, and means screens are never left undiscovered or hidden.
Good Vibrations
Communication between characters uses the same 'Operate' function as all the interactions in the game, and this often reveals several distinct lines of questioning. The player can choose to follow a line of questioning to it's bitter end or change tack and try a different angle. The conversations in BASS are often amusing - especially the mutterings of Joey - and the humour element easily stands the game up against the mighty Monkey Island series.
Sound is used to it's fullest in BASS; provoking an atmospheric sense of realism which pulls the player in. On the disk version we find a solid array of sound effects and a few cyberpunk styled music tracks; such as the one used in the introduction sequence. The CD version is richer in sound with full voice acting - and the actors use several American phrases instead of the English ones used in the text-driven disk version.
Exterminate!
Overall, Beneath a Steel Sky is a masterpiece - a term not to be used lightly! It excels in every department; from graphics and sound to playability. The puzzles, while often logical, are also difficult enough to keep the player guessing. In other words, don't expect a push over like African Queen, or the hardship of solving ridiculous puzzles like the spitting contest in Monkey Island 2. BASS is an all-rounder with a high batting average, and veterans of similar graphical point-n'-click adventures will almost certainly love this. Highly recommended.
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With graphics like these, who needs enemas? Lovingly hard drawn by graphic novel artist Dave Gibbons, the visuals of BASS would be hard to beat - even on AGA machines.
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The sound effects are strong and really absorb the player in the game, although they are limited in number in disk version because of disk space. The CD version includes a fully voiced storyline. A few more music scores may have been nice.
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Controling our main character is a breeze - much easier than those adventures which rely on various words to perform actions. The one-click auto-perform method used in BASS is a sure winner. The puzzles in BASS are also well thought out and often logical, while still giving the player a constant challenge. However, there are still a few areas in which the player can get stuck.
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| Beneath a Steel Sky has it all, and in spades - a challenging absorbing game with lots to see and do, and wonderful graphics and sound to boot. A Masterpiece! |
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