Beneath a Steel Sky (many spoilers)
mouette_lunaire did a (highly spoilery) play-by-play reaction post to Amnesia: the Dark Descent and informed me that I needed to do the same thing. And since I'm a cheapass and I'm frightened of Penumbra, it's time for a freeware adventure game!
Beneath a Steel Sky
...is the title of this game, and is the first of three things I know about it. The second is that it's an adventure game, and the third is that it was being given away for free by a games-selling site which I forget the name of but which you might be able to find by googling the game.
I lied. I know a fourth thing about the game: if there are any puzzles or fighting (ie the two main things you expect to find at least one of in a game) then I'm probably going to be terrible at it.
Five hours later...
That was far too much effort to get it to run in a window.
One long intro
So apparently I'm a guy who has an annoying talking robot, and I live in a dump in the sky because I crashed a helicopter there when I was a kid. Or lived there, at least, because some rather future-police-state looking douchebags came and grabbed me and blew up the floating dump.
...And I was named after Foster's beer by a guy who acts like an alcohol advertisement guy trying to be Gandalf. What.
That's a pretty cool looking city. It's all red and black and stark and angular. The characters in the cutscene are really well-drawn as well, though the animation is so minimal that a lot of the drama is coming off as funny.
Are those meant to be Bronx accents?
So the helicopter they had me in crashed (I'm good at making that happen, apparently) and now I'm in the city, on the run and looking for retribution. And nodding my head violently whenever I monologue.
Sweet.
The quest to rebuild my annoying robot
So I'm on this steel platform, right? There's a door to the right and some stairs to the left, but when I click on either I just babble about how the one hasn't been used for a while and the other doesn't look safe. Fine, then. I'll just stand here for the rest of my life.
...Oh, I see, left click is only examine and I can interact with right.
It all makes so much sense now.
/walks down the stairs
/instantly shot to death by a guard
It's clear that I am missing something else here.
One metal bar off the wall later...
I can do puzzles!
Quote of the moment: a pneumatic press is "wheezing and banging like an asthmatic dinosaur in the mating season".
Hah! I put my robot's circuitboard into a vaccum cleaner. He's not very happy about it.
Me: "What are you making here?"
Engineer: "A drive shaft! Lamb needs it for the pipe factory."
Me: "Who's in charge around here? Where can I find them?"
Engineer: "Lamb!"
WHAT A TWIST.
So the Council rules the city with the help of an advising computer they built called LINC. And apparently the pre-LINC days were positively utopian.
...Did my robot just buttsex that other robot into working? I think it did.
So a guard whose name I guess was Reich just got sliced in half by a glowing... something, and my guy's comment was "Reich seemed pretty cut up about it". Further to which... I looted his goddamn sunglasses.
For the sole purpose, I like to imagine, of putting them on and going YYYYEAAAAAHHHHHHH.
Outside, bitches!
Aw man. I'm trying to get down to the ground, but apparently inter-level access has been suspended while they carry out counter-terrorist bits and pieces. Police staaaaate!
...You know what, let's make this a to-be-continued kind of deal.
Beneath a Steel Sky
...is the title of this game, and is the first of three things I know about it. The second is that it's an adventure game, and the third is that it was being given away for free by a games-selling site which I forget the name of but which you might be able to find by googling the game.
I lied. I know a fourth thing about the game: if there are any puzzles or fighting (ie the two main things you expect to find at least one of in a game) then I'm probably going to be terrible at it.
Five hours later...
That was far too much effort to get it to run in a window.
One long intro
So apparently I'm a guy who has an annoying talking robot, and I live in a dump in the sky because I crashed a helicopter there when I was a kid. Or lived there, at least, because some rather future-police-state looking douchebags came and grabbed me and blew up the floating dump.
...And I was named after Foster's beer by a guy who acts like an alcohol advertisement guy trying to be Gandalf. What.
That's a pretty cool looking city. It's all red and black and stark and angular. The characters in the cutscene are really well-drawn as well, though the animation is so minimal that a lot of the drama is coming off as funny.
Are those meant to be Bronx accents?
So the helicopter they had me in crashed (I'm good at making that happen, apparently) and now I'm in the city, on the run and looking for retribution. And nodding my head violently whenever I monologue.
Sweet.
The quest to rebuild my annoying robot
So I'm on this steel platform, right? There's a door to the right and some stairs to the left, but when I click on either I just babble about how the one hasn't been used for a while and the other doesn't look safe. Fine, then. I'll just stand here for the rest of my life.
...Oh, I see, left click is only examine and I can interact with right.
It all makes so much sense now.
/walks down the stairs
/instantly shot to death by a guard
It's clear that I am missing something else here.
One metal bar off the wall later...
I can do puzzles!
Quote of the moment: a pneumatic press is "wheezing and banging like an asthmatic dinosaur in the mating season".
Hah! I put my robot's circuitboard into a vaccum cleaner. He's not very happy about it.
Me: "What are you making here?"
Engineer: "A drive shaft! Lamb needs it for the pipe factory."
Me: "Who's in charge around here? Where can I find them?"
Engineer: "Lamb!"
WHAT A TWIST.
So the Council rules the city with the help of an advising computer they built called LINC. And apparently the pre-LINC days were positively utopian.
...Did my robot just buttsex that other robot into working? I think it did.
So a guard whose name I guess was Reich just got sliced in half by a glowing... something, and my guy's comment was "Reich seemed pretty cut up about it". Further to which... I looted his goddamn sunglasses.
For the sole purpose, I like to imagine, of putting them on and going YYYYEAAAAAHHHHHHH.
Outside, bitches!
Aw man. I'm trying to get down to the ground, but apparently inter-level access has been suspended while they carry out counter-terrorist bits and pieces. Police staaaaate!
...You know what, let's make this a to-be-continued kind of deal.