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Day 1: Beneath a Steel Sky


Here begins my sure to be dreadful entry into the blogosphere. I've decided to blog about the adventure games that I'm playing. Hubby has been patient (so far), what with all of the the crazy things I've downloaded so that I can play older games. ("Honey, the machine is running too fast, any way to slow it down?")

And Roger Ebert be damned -- video games can be works of art, or so I keep telling myself to justify the many hours I put into it. Check out the insightful commentary to his remarks about how video games are inherently inferior to movies. (Gee Ebert, any reason ya had to put the ones who agreed with you at the top?)

Ebert said that he hadn't yet met anyone who could talk about a game they kept playing 20 years after it's been published. Well, that couldn't possibly be because it's still a pretty young industry, could it? I mean, I really feel like I'm participating in an exciting community that is witnessing a turning point in the industry (check out the Adventure Gamers web site.) These people are playing older games. They are seeking out old games like the Secret of Monkey Island, Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, Loom, The Neverhood, and Grim Fandango. Or even older text-based adventure games.

But I digress. Today, I'm playing Beneath A Steel Sky, by Revolution Software. Originally released in 1994, this cult classic is now available for free (woohoo!) for download from the ScummVM website. ScummVM stands for Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine, and it allows you to play those golden oldies on your superfast machines of tomorrow.

So far, the game's got some pizazz, but this is one of the first of the older adventure games that I've played where the dated graphics are really dated and actually affect game play (where o' where is my little Joey's shell amidst all of that rubbish?).

I'm hooked so far, although damn these days of walkthroughs and Internet hints. Every day I promise myself I'm not going to use a hint to get past a scene is another day I'm going to burn in Hell for hypocrisy. Oh well, whaddya gonna do?

...Update...

I've played a little more tonight, and the little bits of misogyny are kind of annoying. I mean it is a sci-fi story, and maybe it is just some future retro throwback kind of thing, but that doesn't negate the annoyingness of it.

The game has it's humourous moments, but not nearly as many guffaw knee-slappers I encountered in the first Broken Sword, which this company also developed. Maybe it will get better.

Comments

Mike said…
Wow, this is a neat blog! I like the style of the blogger, its insight, and her sense of humor.

She's got a lot of style, too!
6:54 PM
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