![]() Through these means, the most reasonable interactions are accepted and the game can lead the player to the goal without giving them the answer. Furthermore items ought to function as one expects, ie, a knife can be used to cut things and not as something to row a boat with. The game needs to manifest clues throughout the environment, NPCs and props. Ideally, as soon as a player obtains a new item, alarm bells should be going off in their head as to where and how they can use the item in conjunction with the environments and props they’ve previously encountered (or, alternatively, just keep it in storage until a future opportunity arises). My frustration stems mainly from the imbalance of challenge and guidance. Granted, Beneath a Steel Sky isn’t as bad as some, it still threw up roadblocks from time to time. I spend the majority of my time in these games flailing around without a clue on what to do next instead of actively solving puzzles. ![]() Well, the genre isn’t all that fun most of the time and by most of the time I mean when the potential solutions to a puzzle aren’t readily apparent to the player. So why is it that when playing point and click adventures, even the good ones like Beneath a Steel Sky, I can’t resist the temptation of peeking at a walkthrough? The puzzles are the glue keeping the whole experience together, the gameplay in its entirety (apart from dialogue options and random asides) and to dodge the puzzles like this is to basically negate the game altogether. It’s a cardinal sin, an invariable trademark of a cheat, I know. However, I may as well say the whole truth while I’m at it: none of this stopped me from occasionally drip-feeding my way through on a FAQ. So, essentially, Beneath a Steel Sky ticks all the right boxes for an old school adventure fan. The interface is minimal and elegant, the puzzles largely built on clever logic (that is, you can solve them yourself), the dialogue-while completely misreading Australian culture at times-is sharp and generally laugh-out-loud funny and, finally, the artwork is done by no less than Dave Gibbons of Watchmen fame. ![]() Recently I completed Beneath a Steel Sky ( which you can conveniently download from Good Old Games for free) and fessing up it’s probably my all time favourite point and click adventure game. The Guilt Trip Over Drip-feeding Through Point and Click Adventure Games October 15th, 2010
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