Beneath a Steel Sky is a 1994 cyberpunk science fiction point-and-click adventure game developed by British developer Revolution Software and published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment for MS-DOS and Amiga home computers. The game was made available as freeware for PC platforms in 2003. Set in a dystopian future, the player assumes the role of Robert Foster, who was stranded in a wasteland known as "the Gap" as a child and adopted by a group of local Aboriginals, gradually adjusting to his life in the wilderness. After many years, armed security officers arrive, killing the locals and taking Robert back to Union City.
Introduction
Beneath a Steel Sky
Beneath a Steel Sky | Introduction
cyberpunk, science fiction, point-and-click, adventure game Cyberpunk science fiction point-and-click adventure game Cyberpunk science fiction point-and-click adventure game. Cyberpunk science fiction point-and-click adventure game.
what is sinestro corps war?
user
An American comic book crossover event
assistant
who is the writer?
user
Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons
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who are the characters?
user
Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, John Stewart and Guy Gardner, and the rest of the Green Lantern Corps
assistant
what are some of the other works of the second writer you mentioned?
user
"The Trials of Nasty Tales", "Watchmen", "For the Man Who Has Everything"
assistant
has he worked on anything other than comics?
user
Yes, he did the cover art of album "The Madness", he served as a consultant on the film "Watchmen", background art for the 1994 computer game "Beneath a Steel Sky"
assistant
who developed the game you just mentioned?
user
British developer Revolution Software
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did it perform well in the market?
user
Yes, Eurogamer's Simon Parkin later summarized that it "sold extremely well", with lifetime sales between 300,000 and 400,000 units by July 2009
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what is the genre of the computer game?
user
"Amiga Power"s Cam Winstanley said that it is "an example of what an adventure game should be like – funny, enthralling and convincing." Adventure Gamers' Claire Wood called it an "enjoyable", "engaging adventure classic, thoroughly enjoyable playing experience" and "a "1984" for the computer game generation." Winstanley thought that the main highpoint of the game was the story, with an ending "that's actually quite a surprise." Wood praised the "intelligent, thought provoking storyline" that "becomes more and more compelling, punctuated by unexpected plot twists and macabre discoveries."
Beneath a Steel Sky | Critical reception and commercial performance
"Beneath a Steel Sky" was critically acclaimed. In 1995, "PC Gamer" awarded it the "Best Dialogue" award, and it won the "Best Adventure" award at the "Golden Joystick Awards". It was also a commercial success, reaching the number one place on the British Gallup charts. Eurogamer's Simon Parkin later summarized that it "sold extremely well", with lifetime sales between 300,000 and 400,000 units by July 2009. Parkin noted that the majority of its sales derived from European countries. "CU Amiga"s Tony Dillon proclaimed "Beneath a Steel Sky" as "one of the greatest adventures ever." "Amiga Format"s Rob Mead said that the game is an "Utterly brilliant", "massive, intense and atmospheric adventure which will keep you on tenterhooks right until its final startling conclusion." "PC Gamer US"s Steve Poole called it "slick, funny," "absorbing" and "one of the most playable adventures of all time" "that will appeal to a wide variety of gamers".
Beneath a Steel Sky | Critical reception and commercial performance
"Retro Gamer" placed it in third on its list of Top 20 Adventure Games of All-Time ... not by LucasArts in 2010. It was included in "Edge" editor Tony Mott's "1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die", a book published in 2010. In 2011, "PC Gamer" ranked it ninth on its list of 20 free PC games you must play. In the same year, Now Gamer listed it as one of the Greatest Point-And-Click Games (Not By LucasArts). In 2014, TechRadar placed it 40th on its list of the Top 50 best free games you should play today.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Legacy
He escapes and soon uncovers the corruption which lies at the heart of society. Originally titled "Underworld", the game was a collaboration between game director Charles Cecil and comic book artist Dave Gibbons, and cost £40,000 to make. Cecil was a fan of Gibbons's work and approached with the idea of a video game. The game has a serious tone, but features humour-filled dialogue, which came as a result of Cecil's and writer Dave Cummins's goal to find a middle ground between the earnestness of Sierra's and the slapstick comedy of LucasArts' adventure games. It was built using Revolution's Virtual Theatre engine, first used in Revolution's previous and debut release, 1992's "Lure of the Temptress".
Beneath a Steel Sky | Introduction
"Beneath a Steel Sky" was presented at the European Computer Trade Show in the London Business Design Centre in April 1993 and at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago in June 1993. According to French magazine "Génération 4", the game was supposed to be released by the end of October 1993. Various playable demos of the game were made; one was added to the first issue of "PC Gamer", and Amiga demos were added as cover disks to several Amiga magazines. "Beneath a Steel Sky" was published in March 1994 by Virgin Interactive on floppy disks and CD-ROM. It came on 15 floppy disks, as opposed to "Lure of The Temptress", which came on four.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Release
Beneath a Steel Sky is a 1994 cyberpunk science fiction point-and-click adventure game developed by British developer Revolution Software and published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment for MS-DOS and Amiga home computers. The game was made available as freeware for PC platforms in 2003. Set in a dystopian future, the player assumes the role of Robert Foster, who was stranded in a wasteland known as "the Gap" as a child and adopted by a group of local Aboriginals, gradually adjusting to his life in the wilderness. After many years, armed security officers arrive, killing the locals and taking Robert back to Union City.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Introduction
The designers' goal was to create a visual bridge between comic and video game graphics. Gibbons drew the backgrounds in pencil, starting with roughs, which were sent to Revolution to see if they were technically feasible. Once agreed upon, Gibbons would then make the final sketch. The pencil sketches were then colored, mainly by Les Pace. The backgrounds were scanned on a Macintosh as 24-bit, 1000x1000 pixel images with 16 million colors, and then transformed to 8-bit, 320x200 pixel images with 256 colors for the PC version. The backgrounds were designed so that the sprites would appear clear on the screen and wouldn't mix with the backgrounds.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Creative and technical design
According to Gibbons, about 75% of the backgrounds and characters he designed were used in the game. Dave Cummins wrote the dialogue for the game. The tone of Revolution's early games was born from a tension between Cummins and Cecil. Cummins wanted to be more flippant with dialogue, while Cecil wanted to be more serious. Their goal was to find the middle ground between Sierra's "ridiculously earnest" stories and the slapstick comedy of LucasArts games. For the voice acting, which is only included in the CD-ROM version, Revolution used actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company. Only two days were spent recording over five thousands lines of dialogue.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Creative and technical design
Because of the Amiga restrictions, a few animations had to be left out, as not all Amiga owners had a hard drive. Each conversion of the images to the Amiga resulted in a loss of detail. According to Revolution in-house artist Adam Tween, it took a couple of days to "touch up" the screens. A comic book created by Gibbons, which was translated into the introduction sequence of the game, came as part of the game package. "Beneath a Steel Sky" was translated from English into French and Portuguese. This was the first game not developed in Portugal to be released with a Portuguese translation.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Release
"Pocket Gamer" included it on its list of Top 10 adventure games that should be revived on DS in 2009. "Beneath a Steel Sky: Remastered" has been placed on numerous top lists as well, including "Edge"s Top 50 iPhone Games at 26th in 2009, as well as "Pocket Gamer"s Top 10 point-and-click adventure games on iPhone and iPad and Mashable's 10 Classic PC Games That Found New Life on the iPhone, both in 2010.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Legacy
Chris Crawford attempted to classify video games in his 1984 book "The Art of Computer Game Design". In this book, Crawford primarily focused on the player's experience and activities required for gameplay. Here, he stated that "the state of computer game design is changing quickly. We would therefore expect the taxonomy presented [in this book] to become obsolete or inadequate in a short time." As hardware capabilities have increased, new genres have become possible, with examples being increased memory, the move from 2D to 3D, new peripherals, online functionalities, and location-based mechanics.
Video game genre | History
Cockayne asserted that the statistics the developers gained were realistically plausible, stating that he would let the "horrifying results speak for themselves" during the game. Game designer Alan Steel stated that during testing, he was "alarmed" to discover when the computer played itself, the Warsaw Pact always won a conventional war overwhelmingly, forcing NATO to either surrender or begin a nuclear war. Steel adjusted the game to give NATO a chance to win. "Theatre Europe" was first released in the United Kingdom for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Atari 8-bit home computers in 1985. It was then re-released in France and the United States for those consoles in 1986.
Theatre Europe | Background and release
It received positive reviews at the time of its release and is retrospectively viewed as a cult classic and Revolution's greatest game besides "". A remastered edition was released for iOS in 2009 as "Beneath a Steel Sky Remastered", which also received a positive reception from the gaming press. A sequel was greenlit during the "" 2012 Kickstarter campaign, and was announced in March 2019. Entitled "Beyond a Steel Sky", it was released on Apple Arcade in June 2020, with a Steam release in July 2020.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Introduction
A PC game, also known as a computer game or personal computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-determined gaming hardware and software; and generally greater capacity in input, processing, video and audio output. The uncoordinated nature of the PC game market, and now its lack of physical media, make precisely assessing its size difficult. In 2018, the global PC games market was valued at about $27.7 billion. Home computer games became popular following the video game crash of 1983, leading to the era of the "bedroom coder".
PC game | Introduction
Although retrospectively "" is as Revolution's magnum opus, "Beneath a Steel Sky" still holds the status of a cult classic and has been featured on numerous "all-time top" lists: "Amiga Power" ranked "Beneath a Steel Sky" 42nd on their "Amiga Power" All-Time Top One Hundred in 1994. Adventure Gamers ranked the game 17th on their list of Top 20 Adventure Games of All-Time in 2004, and 19th on the Top 100 All-Time Adventures in 2011. In 2006, Adventure Classic Gaming put the game in 9th place on their list of the Top 10 retro graphic adventure games of all time from PC to consoles.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Legacy
"Balls of Steel" was a finalist for "Computer Games Strategy Plus"s 1998 "Classic Game of the Year" award, which ultimately went to "Centipede". The editors wrote that "Balls of Steel" "demonstrated that you can do the Bally table on the PC, and do it well."
Balls of Steel (video game) | Reception
Expanded by Don Woods in 1977 with an emphasis on the high fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien, "Adventure" established a new genre based around exploration and inventory-based puzzle solving that made the transition to personal computers in the late 1970s. While most games were created on hardware of limited graphic ability, one computer able to host more impressive games was the PLATO system developed at the University of Illinois. Intended as an educational computer, the system connected hundreds of users all over the United States via remote terminals that featured high-quality plasma displays and allowed users to interact with each other in real time.
History of video games | Mainframe computer games (1971–1979)
Game reviewers Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser complimented the game in their "The Role of Computers" column in "Dragon" #128 (1987), citing its "gripping prose, challenging predicaments, and scenes of derring-do". "Compute!" praised "Plundered Hearts" writing and said that the game was suitable for both men and women. "ANALOG Computing" approved of the game's "intrigue, adventure and, yes, romance" but regretted that "most of Infocom's regular audience (presumably male) are likely to forsake this bold new endeavor" because of its genre.
Plundered Hearts | Reception
"Computer Gaming World" nominated "Typhoon of Steel" for its "Wargame of the Year" award. In 1996, "Computer Gaming World" declared "Typhoon of Steel" the 143rd-best computer game ever released.
Typhoon of Steel (video game) | Reception
The 16-bit versions generally received moderately favourable reviews. The One praised the game's incorporation of the style of the comic book source but found gameplay to be frustrating, particularly having to play the sub games in sequence. It gave a score of 69% for the Amiga version and 66% for the Atari ST version. Amiga Computing similarly praised the look of the game while also pointing out the "top notch" sound, awarding an overall score of 62%. Reception of the 8-bit versions of the game was much more mixed. While still praising the presentation and graphics, Zzap!64 gave the C64 version an overall score of 39%, complaining of the lightweight nature of the sub games and the "tedious" multi-load.
Superman: The Man of Steel (1989 video game) | Critical reaction
"Computer Gamer" received the game highly positively, calling it complex, difficult and immersive, giving particularly high points to atmosphere. In a later retrospect of role-playing games, "Advanced Computer Entertainment" noted that common criticism of the game was similar to "exploring a car park", however the reviewer praised the game's ability to portray a "complex" world.
Swords and Sorcery (video game) | Reception
In "Dragon's Lair", you control the actions of a daring knight named Dirk, to save a princess from an evil dragon, hence the name of the game. Since the dawn of this exact game, more and more companies have influenced the technology used and decided to make their interactive movie games for arcades and consoles. A more recent Interactive movie title is called 'Bandersnatch'. This movie sets you on a plot of a young 80's programmer named Stefan Butler. The movie lets the viewer choose different plot trajectories for the main character questioning reality throughout the way. The birth of the 'interactive movie' genre was studded with unimpressive flops, though the genre later came into its own; at the time, video-capture technology was still in its infancy, with short (and often grainy and low-quality) video segments being the norm for games of any length.
Video game culture | Interactive movies
In the remastered iOS version, the point-and-click interface is replaced with a touch user interface, a hint system is added, and hotspots are highlighted.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Gameplay
150 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game four out of five stars. "Compute!" praised the Macintosh version's sound effects. "Computer and Video Games" praised the accuracy of the Amstrad version, and said that it had "great graphics, good sounds, and perfect playability." "Crash" praised the smooth and fast scrolling, and the longevity, with "Avenger" being listed as the only alternative. In their Master System review, "ACE" said that people of all ages could quickly master the controls and tasks. The Spectrum version was the biggest-selling game of 1986, and was voted number 38 in the "Your Sinclair" Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time.
Gauntlet (1985 video game) | Reception
In Tom Hirschfeld's 1981 book "How to Master the Video Games", he divides the included games into broad categories in the table of contents: "Space Invaders"-type, "Asteroids"-type, maze, reflex, and miscellaneous. The first two of these correspond to the still-used genres of fixed shooter and multidirectional shooter. Maze is also a modern genre. The platform game genre is another that started out with a different name. After the release of "Donkey Kong", there was a spate of games with ladders and jumping. Steve Bloom, in his 1982 book "Video Invaders", labeled these "climbing games." The same term was used by the US and UK press in 1983, including magazines "Electronic Games" and "TV Gamer".
Video game genre | History
"Compute!" praised the Amiga version's "brilliant graphics, sound, and atmosphere" but criticized the keyboard/mouse control system and gameplay as too difficult. The reviewer also disliked the disk-based copy protection which caused him to fear damage to the disk drives, crashes when loading the game, and slow level loading. Game reviewers Hartley and Pattie Lesser complimented the game in their "The Role of Computers" column in "Dragon" #122 (1987), calling it "the finest arcade/adventure game ever designed for the Macintosh computer — as a matter of fact, for any computer!" and stating, "The graphics and animation are quite literally stunning!". In a subsequent column, the reviewers gave the game 4 out of 5 stars.
Dark Castle | Reception
A computer game is a type of electronic game. Computer game may also refer to:
Computer game (disambiguation) | Introduction
This genre of games is one of the staples of the computer gaming world and many of the earliest computer games created were part of this genre. Emerging in the late 1970s, this genre is still very popular today and continues to push the envelope in terms of graphics and performance. These games "tend to fall into "organized racing" and "imaginary racing" categories". Organized racing simulators attempt to "reproduce the experience of driving a racing car or motorcycle in an existing racing class: Indycar, NASCAR, Formula 1, and so on." On the other hand, imaginary racing games involve "imaginary situations, driving madly through cities or the countryside or even fantasy environments".
List of video game genres | Vehicle simulation
The game was reviewed in 1993 in "Dragon" #190 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 3 out of 5 stars. "Computer Gaming World" called it "a cute combination of strategy and action gaming" that would not likely appeal to fans of flight simulators or wargames. A 1993 survey in the magazine of wargames gave the game three-plus stars out of five.
The Ancient Art of War in the Skies | Reception
Each category had tips for writing enjoyable games in that genre. Each game had a description of the program and an explanation of its implementation, sometimes with ideas for modifications; this was followed by the raw code, which the reader had to enter into the computer. Some long games, such as Bannochburn Legacy, had more than 500 lines of code. To illustrate the style of these compendiums, here is the Table of Contents from Hartnell's "Giant Book of Computer Games": Hartnell also wrote several how-to books about various genres of computer games, including "Giant Book of Spectrum Games" published in 1983, and also edited others, including Pete Shaw's "Creating Adventure Games On Your ZX Spectrum", also published in 1983.
Tim Hartnell | Introduction
The magazine concluded that ""CyberRace" is a fun, visually stunning race simulator with a rather weakly constructed and executed narrative framework". In April 1994 the magazine said that "While the racing can be mildly interesting ... an uninteresting plot and characters fail to keep interest, despite some pretty neat artwork". In 1996, "Computer Gaming World" declared "CyberRace" the 39th-worst computer game ever released.
CyberRace | Reception
To enhance the immersive experience with their unrealistic graphics and electronic sound, early PC games included extras such as the peril-sensitive sunglasses that shipped with "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" or the science fiction novella included with "Elite". These extras gradually became less common, but many games were still sold in the traditional oversized boxes that used to hold the extra "feelies". Today, such extras are usually found only in Special Edition versions of games, such as Battlechests from Blizzard. The North American console market experienced a resurgence in the United States with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
PC game | Industry crash and aftermath
The remastered 2009 iOS version was also very well received. It holds an aggregate score of 85% on GameRankings based on 7 reviews, and 82 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 5 reviews. It was nominated for Best Port/Enhanced Re-release at the Adventure Gamers' 2009 Aggie Awards in 2010. The game sold around 20,000 units in its first month of release, while Cecil anticipated sales of around 70,000 copies during its first year on sale, and roughly 100,000 in its lifetime. The remastered release is available with Spanish, French, Swedish, Portuguese, German, Italian, and English subtitles. "Slide To Play" Keith Andrew said that ""Beneath a Steel Sky" somehow feels bigger and bolder than its rivals, raising the bar and highlighting what others have so far failed to achieve.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Remastered version
"Computer Gaming World" in 1988 criticized "2400 A.D."s graphics and several other flaws with the game's structure and plot. It concluded "the game lacks intensity and is a disappointment. There are practically no puzzles, and hardly any challenge". In 1993 the magazine called "2400 A.D." "a science fiction cartoon pretending to be a real game" that "may be good for a summer afternoon or rainy day when you want something that isn't mentally taxing or especially involving".
2400 A.D. | Reception
After it was released the game received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. A majority described the game as a fun, strategy game with great graphics. A "PC Zone" review awarded a Classic Award to "Steel Soldiers" and concluded that games strong points were the sharp artificial intelligence, good use of ambient sounds and well-designed maps. A smaller number of reviews were less flattering describing the experience as standard, as one that would bore a veteran RTS gamer. Z: "Steel Soldiers" is similar to other pc strategy games with a military science fiction theme including "Ground Control" (2000), "StarCraft" (1998) and "Warzone 2100" (1999).
Z: Steel Soldiers | Reception
The game was reviewed in 1989 in "Dragon" #141 by Patricia Hartley and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers normally assign a rating to a game ranging from 1 up to 5 stars, but they disliked this game so much that they ranked it with an "X" instead.
Aaargh! | Reception
Developers wanted an accessible strategy game combined with the immediacy of an arcade title. Consequently, the game was designed so a player could get into the action as quickly as possible. "Z: Steel Soldiers" sports a humorous comic book style with a realistic 3D environment. These graphics are best displayed on a moderately fast or recently purchased computer although game options allow playing the game on older Pentium II systems. This title is not compatible with Windows Vista. The game features the ability to scroll, rotate, zoom and tilt the isometric viewing position to gain a better perspective. There is a high level of graphical detail such as reflections, shadows, weather effects and other environmental factors that can slow the frame rate on low end PCs.
Z: Steel Soldiers | Gameplay
Although not created by Pie in the Sky Software, the early release date of this title and its extensive modification from the base engine indicate that this game was produced through license from Pie and not through the "GCS". This is most shown by its genre: rather than being a first-person shooter, it is a first-person racing sports game - a remake of the older "BallBlaster" game for the Apple II. It was developed by Dungeon Entertainment/Webfoot Technologie and published by Homebrew Software/Ticsoft and released in 1992. It is also known as "3D Cyber Puck", "3D Cyber Blaster" and "3D Ball Blaster".
Pie in the Sky (game engine) | Cyberpuck
A reviewer for "Next Generation" gave the PC version two out of five stars, calling it "little more than a rehash of SCI's original title "The Lawnmower Man" with slightly changed action sequences and the 256-color graphics supposed to be included the first time." On release, "Famicom Tsūshin" scored the PlayStation version of the game an 18 out of 40. Reviewing it as an import, "Next Generation" gave it two out of five stars, razing it for its extremely limited interactivity.
Cyberwar (video game) | Reception
Below the Root is an adventure game released in 1984 by Windham Classics, a division of Spinnaker Software. It is titled after "Below the Root", the first of the "Green Sky Trilogy" of novels, written by Zilpha Keatley Snyder and published between 1975 and 1977. It is an early example of what later became known as the Metroidvania genre. The player can assume the role of one of five characters with different abilities, a member of one of two races—the Kindar or the Erdling—and attempt to settle the existing differences between the two groups.
Below the Root (video game) | Introduction
When a super computer is linked to a video game network, the computer programmer who designed the game must enter the virtual reality world of his fantasies and defeat the computer before it causes worldwide chaos.
Game Over (2003 film) | Plot
Beyond a Steel Sky is a 2020 cyberpunk science fiction adventure game developed by Revolution Software. It is a sequel to "Beneath a Steel Sky," a point-and-click adventure game created in 1994. Set ten years after the events of the first game, the protagonist Robert Foster returns to Union City. Revolution Studios CEO Charles Cecil has said that the game examines how an AI would interpret a prime directive to make people happy. "Beyond a Steel Sky" was developed using Unreal Engine 4. It was released on 26 June 2020 on the Apple Arcade subscription service, and on July 16, 2020 on Steam.
Beyond a Steel Sky | Introduction
The remastered edition features new animated movies by Gibbons, a context-sensitive help system and improved audio quality. The game was released on the App Store on October 7, 2009. The animated movies in the iOS remastered version make use of the original stills and use a sliding paper-like style to animate them.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Freeware release and Remastered edition
Some minor technical issues mar the experience slightly but it’s a great return for Foster and Joey." "PC Invasion" wrote that "Beyond a Steel Sky has some technical issues but its excellent writing and interesting storytelling make it well worth experiencing." "Godisageek" similarly wrote that "the humour and mystery are enough to carry Beyond A Steel Sky through, and if you did play the original and you do remember it, there’s just enough nostalgia here to make it worth a return to Union City. If you didn’t, well, it’s still a likeable, competent adventure game that will keep you smiling and guessing throughout."
Beyond a Steel Sky | Reception
Not pleased with the results, however, Revolution decided on a lengthy re-recording, and realized that voice actors should be used, rather than stage actors. As a result of this, the speech doesn't always match the on-screen text, with English terms being Americanized. Cummins was also responsible for the score of the game, writing a specific tune for each of the main locations. "Beneath a Steel Sky" became the second game to use Revolution's Virtual Theatre engine, after "Lure of the Temptress". According to Cecil, the original version of the engine seemed less applicable in "Beneath a Steel Sky", as the ability to issue commands conflicted with the gameplay they intended to create.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Creative and technical design
"Zzap!64" praised the game for being an uncomplicated example of the genre. "Happy Computer" said the music alone was worth the price of admission.
Crazy Comets | Reception
"Computer Gaming World" approved of "Iron Lord"s graphics but criticized its performance and load times, especially as it could not run from a hard drive. The magazine nonetheless concluded that the game was "an above-average combination of adventure, strategy and action gaming". The game was reviewed in 1990 in "Dragon" #159 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4 out of 5 stars.
Iron Lord | Reception
A computer game was released in 1991 to coincide with the film's theatrical release. The game was an action/adventure hybrid where you could play as both Boomer Hayes and Laura Sage (strangely, Ed was left out) to solve puzzles and defeat bad guys in order to stop the looting of the city.
The Taking of Beverly Hills | Computer game
It brings a slight cinematic atmosphere to the game in that the hero can suffer defeat, but has uncanny luck and persistence in the crucial elements of the story.
The Riddle of Steel | System
A difficult game to learn, "Space Panic" remained obscure as an arcade game, but the 1981 unauthorized clone "Apple Panic" was a hit for home computers. Another precursor to the genre from 1980 was Nichibutsu's "Crazy Climber", which has the player scaling vertically-scrolling skyscrapers.
Platform game | Single-screen movement
"PC Zone" felt that while "interacting with a dynamically changing realistic world" would intriguing in theory, the game becomes very tedious, dull, and plodding in practice, and said it was like "Robinson's Requiem" only "complete crap"; the magazine ultimately compared the graphics negatively to "Starship Titanic" and said the title would only have value to those who enjoyed studying ecology. Micromania compared the effect of combating a myriad of threats in a labyrinthine environment to tamagotchi gameplay; the magazine commented that the technical design was awkward and artistic design came off as poor, in particular finding the screen transitions to be frustrating.
Biosys | Contemporary
Many popular board games and card games have computer versions. AI opponents can help improve one's skill at traditional games. Chess, Checkers, Othello (also known as Reversi), and Backgammon have world class computer programs. Mahjong and related games are immensely popular in China and Japan. Go is popular in East Asia, though it is notoriously difficult to program a computer to play Go well.
List of video game genres | Board game or card game
A classic console is a box that scrolls down from the top of the screen. This style was made popular with "Quake" (1996). There are other forms of console:
Console (computer games) | History
The game is a 2D adventure about a boy named Jerry who becomes trapped in the world of comic books. To return to the real world he must play through four different comic book narratives and help their protagonists overcome their obstacles. The game opens with a six-minute video played by live actors. It is divided into four different chapters, and interwoven with movie sequences and minigames in other genres like slot machines. The game has two different difficulties - easy and hard - which was an uncommon feature of Czech games. The harder version required certain items to be picked up at particular times of the story, and required more actions to complete puzzles.
Hovniválové aneb Záhada komixu | Plot and gameplay
Steel is a science fiction shoot 'em up originally designed by Gari Biasillo for the Commodore 64, and later ported to 16-bit machines.
Steel (video game) | Introduction
Perfectly suited to its new home, this remastering of a classic game serves up point-and-click play nearly unmatched on the App Store." Andrew noted that the point-and-click interface "merg[es] seamlessly with touchscreen controls" and that the hint system is "a feature that might antagonize some of Steel Sky's hardened fan-base, but one perfectly pitched at the iPhone generation."
Beneath a Steel Sky | Remastered version
Reviewing the MS-DOS and Atari ST ports, a critic from "The Games Machine" called "Maniac Mansion" "an enjoyable romp" that was structurally superior to later LucasArts adventure games. The writer noticed poor pathfinding and disliked the limited audio. Reviewers for "The Deseret News" lauded the audiovisuals and considered the product "wonderful fun". "Computer Gaming World"s Charles Ardai praised the game for attaining "the necessary and precarious balance between laughs and suspense that so many comic horror films and novels lack". Although he faulted the control system's limited options, he hailed it as "one of the most comfortable ever devised". Writing for "VideoGames & Computer Entertainment", Bill Kunkel and Joyce Worley stated that the game's plot and premise were typical of the horror genre; but they praised the interface and execution.
Maniac Mansion | Ports
Behind the Iron Gate (known in Poland as Za Żelazną Bramą) is a first-person shooter computer game for Amiga computers, released in 1995 by Polish developer Ego. The game is coded by Witold Gantzke. Music is composed by Adam Skorupa, who also created soundtrack for The Witcher.
Behind the Iron Gate | Introduction
Retrospective reviews were also positive. Peter Parrish, writing for "Eurogamer", called it "Gorgeous, absorbing and, despite the subject matter, surprisingly non-violent". Nick Thrope, writing in "Retro Gamer", gave it praise for its entertainment value. Jim Watson of "ZX Computing" listed it as one of the best games for the ZX Spectrum in 1984. The game was voted number ten in "Your Sinclair"s "Official Top 100 Games of All Time". "Retro Gamer", meanwhile, ranked it as the eleventh best game for the Spectrum. In 1987, Wade listed it as one of the best games for the then two-year old Amstrad CPC.
Tornado Low Level | Reception and legacy
Although the Archimedes market was relatively small, it had a fast 32-bit RISC processor with a slim accelerated pipeline that encouraged fast graphics operations. Certain of 4D's games anticipate the 3D, first-person viewpoint style of graphics that was becoming popular on the much larger PC market at the same time. For example, "E-type" is a car racing game; "Chocks Away" is an air combat game with a two-player dogfight mode; and "Galactic Dan" is a primitive 1992 FPS with a pre-Wolfenstein 3D graphics style, combining a "3D Maze" look with ray-traced sprites.
The Fourth Dimension (company) | Market focus
In June 1977, Marc Blank, Bruce K. Daniels, Tim Anderson, and Dave Lebling began writing the mainframe version of "Zork" (also known as "Dungeon"), at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science. The game was programmed in a computer language called MDL, a variant of LISP.
Interactive fiction | Commercial era
"Beneath a Steel Sky" is a 2D adventure game played from a third-person perspective. The player uses a point-and-click interface to interact with the environment and to guide protagonist Robert Foster through the game's world. To solve puzzles and progress in the game, the player collects items that may be combined with one another, used on the environment, or given to non-player characters (NPCs). The protagonist converses with NPCs via dialogue trees to learn about the game's puzzles and plot. Clues and other information are obtained by clicking on items in the inventory and on objects in the environment. Unlike in most adventure games at the time, the protagonist's death is possible, after which the player starts from the last save point.
Beneath a Steel Sky | Gameplay
Other positively received aspects of gameplay include the game's "scrapbook" and aircraft customization features. The game's visuals were generally well-received, as was its audio. Critics took particular note of the game's voice talent, which was described as among the best found in computer games up to that time. The "Crimson Skies" universe was also well-received by critics, who found it highly original and described it as an "alternate history that is rare in being both compelling and believable." Critics also commended the way these elements—voice acting, soundtrack, graphics style, and story—combined to contribute to the game's 1930s pulp fiction atmosphere.
Crimson Skies (video game) | Reception
A is a game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art. As the name might suggest, they resemble mixed-media novels or tableau vivant stage plays. Many visual novels track statistics that the player must build in order to advance the plot, and permit a variety of endings, allowing more dynamic reactions to the player's actions than a typical linear adventure plot. Many visual novels are dating sims, including bishōjo games. Visual novels are especially prevalent in Japan, where they make up nearly 70% of PC games released. They are rarely produced for video game consoles, but the more popular games are sometimes ported to systems such as the Dreamcast or the PlayStation 2.
List of video game genres | Visual novels
In 1988, "Dragon" gave the game 2 out of 5 stars. "Computer Gaming World" stated that "many of the good qualities of the boardgame have been nicely translated", but criticized the computer opponent that was both weak and unable to fight in scenarios with land. It concluded with the hope that the game would presage the conversion of other large, classic boardgames to the computer. In 1990, the magazine gave the game two-plus stars out of five, and in 1993 gave it one-plus stars, calling it "A board game classic and a computer game disaster ... poor graphics and play value".
Wooden Ships and Iron Men (1987 video game) | Reception
Nerves of Steel is a first-person shooter video game developed by Rainmaker Software and BnB Software that was published by Merit Studios in 1995 for MS-DOS computers. A port for the Atari Jaguar was slated for a Q2 1995 release, which never came to fruition.
Nerves of Steel | Introduction
As computers became more sophisticated, games in this genre moved beyond e-mail to more complex simulations. For most users in Europe, the first well known politics game was , released in 1983 by DK'Tronics and running on Sinclair's ZX Spectrum. One of the earliest titles in this genre was "Balance of Power", designed by Chris Crawford and published in 1985. This game features conflict at the height of the Cold War, using political and policy decisions to shape outcomes rather than warfare. In "Balance of Power", any armed conflict between the player and the opponent superpower results in a nuclear war, which is considered a loss condition.
Government simulation game | Computer gaming
From the mid-1990s, the Japanese video game industry began declining. This was partly due to the death of the NEC PC-9801 computer format, as the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation became increasingly powerful in the console market while the computer market became increasingly dominated by the IBM Personal Computer and Microsoft Windows 95. This led to many Japanese PC manufacturers either continuing to develop for Windows 95 or moving over to the more lucrative console market. While most developers turned their attention to the console market, some developers dedicated to content unsuitable for consoles (such as eroge and complex military strategy games) continued their focus on the PC market.
History of Eastern role-playing video games | Decline and independent titles (late 1990s–2000s)
"Rise and Fall" was received by critics with both positive and negative scores, with an average rating—according to GameRankings—of 65% (78th PC game of 2006). "PC Gamer UK" called it "Pure 24-carat gaming gold!" Games Radar said "This RTS has its ups and downs...", while Games Radar UK said "The RTS Rubicon has been crossed." GameSpot remarked that "this game doesn't quite know what it wants to be."; IGN stated that "...there's very little reason to recommend this title to fans of the strategy or action genres." The graphics were examined by the reviewers. Games Radar admired them, having said ""Rise & Fall" is about pretty units killing each other in a beautifully drawn environment..." GameSpy reported that they "are way behind the curve"; GameSpot agreed, saying: "Buildings and units seem boxy and chunky, suffering from a low number of polygons, while the textures themselves look grainy." The sound in the game fared well in the reviews.
Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War | Reviews
The game is in a first-person perspective where the player uses rifles, pistols, and a rocket launcher to defeat monsters and soldiers in a tunnel complex. This game has a very similar control setup to Doom. The game has a solo campaign as well as multi-player playing options.
Nerves of Steel | Gameplay
In a 1994 survey of wargames "Computer Gaming World" gave the title one-plus stars out of five.
Skyfox (1984 video game) | Reception
He concluded, "If not for the numerous little flaws that keep it from realizing its own best intentions, this would have been my nominee for Wargame of the Year." In "Computer Games Strategy Plus", Robert Mayer was less impressed: he considered it visually impressive but unrealistic, with numerous historical oversights. He nevertheless called it "a worthy successor to a very successful game". "Steel Panthers" and "Steel Panthers II" were named, collectively, the 62nd best computer game ever by "PC Gamer UK" in 1997.
Steel Panthers II: Modern Battles | Reception
"Amazon" was the best-selling Telarium title with as many as 100,000 copies sold, the majority likely for the Commodore 64. "Computer Gaming World" praised its rarely used animated graphics and Crichton's cooperation with its designers, stating that "the cohesive manner in which the game's storyline unfolds reflects Crichton's skill as a writer". James Delson of "Family Computing" reviewed the Apple II version and wrote that the game "has limited graphics, but what's there is choice." Delson also noted the game's difficulty and wrote, "Patience is more than a virtue in this game, it's a necessity." German reviewers recognized the suspenseful, atmospheric and elaborated prose.
Amazon (video game) | Reception
The (CERO) is a Japanese entertainment rating organization based in Tokyo that rates video game content in console games with levels of ratings that informs the customer(s) of the nature of the product and what age group it is suitable for. It was established in June 2002 as a branch of Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association, and became an officially recognized nonprofit organization in December 2003.
Computer Entertainment Rating Organization | Introduction
Critically it has received high praise for its concept and execution, albeit with some caveats (the recommended age being 8+). The computing game has won the Parents' Choice Gold Award, and won in the category Best Toys of the Year 2018 under the aegis American Specialty Toy Retailing Association. It is also STEMI approved.
Turing Tumble | Reception
This is a list of computer and video games that are set in the Old West or that are defined by a western style (and even mix between different genres, such as science fiction western).
List of Western video games | Introduction
IGN rated the Xbox 360 version of the game an 8.5 out of 10, praising the graphics, sound, gameplay and lasting appeal but saying that the presentation lacked a little spark. "Official PlayStation Magazine" rated the PS3 version of the game 7 out of 10. The game consists of three difficulty settings, which change the way planes are flown: Simplified, an arcade play style, Realistic, a mix between an arcade play style and a simulation play style, and lastly Simulator, in which the planes handle as closely to real life as possible. A.I. difficulty is not affected by the selected play style.
Birds of Steel | Reception
The role-playing video game genre began in the mid-1970s, as an offshoot of early university mainframe text-based RPGs on PDP-10 and Unix-based computers, such as "Dungeon", pedit5 and dnd. In 1980, a very popular dungeon crawler, "Rogue", was released. Featuring ASCII graphics where the setting, monsters and items were represented by letters and a deep system of gameplay, it inspired a whole genre of similar clones on mainframe and home computers called "roguelikes".
Role-playing video game | Mainframe computers
"Compute!" favorably reviewed "Zak McKracken", but wished that Lucasfilm would next produce a game that did not depend on jokes and puzzles to tell its story. The large number of mazes in the game was also a source of criticism, but David Fox felt it was the best way to maximize the game's size and still have it fit on a single Commodore 64 floppy disk. Other critics complained about the need to enter copy protection codes not once, but multiple times whenever the player flew out of the US. The game was reviewed in 1989 in "Dragon" #142 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column.
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders | Reception
Later examples of roguelikes include "Angband" (1990), "Ancient Domains of Mystery" (1993) and "Linley's Dungeon Crawl" (1997). The keyboard was frequently the only input supported by these games, and their graphics were simple and often monochromatic. Some titles, like "Rogue", represented objects through text characters, such as '@' for the main character and 'Z' for zombies. No single game featured all of the characteristics expected in a modern CRPG, such as exploration of subterranean dungeons, use of weapons and items, "leveling up" and quest completion, but it is possible to see the evolution of these features during this era and that which followed.
History of Western role-playing video games | Mainframe computers (mid-1970s–early 1980s)
"Computer Gamer" found each of the four games boring. "ZX Computing" stated that the four games "are all reasonable and provide good though not very sophisticated entertainment. They are quite difficult to master". "Sinclair Programs" wrote that the games were difficult, held no long term appeal, and failed to capture "the anarchic humour of the book." "Home Computing Weekly" wrote that the arcade adventure "is somewhat better, though that's not really saying much." Critics compared the arcade adventure portion to "Jet Set Willy", and "Manic Miner". Clare Edgely of "Sinclair User" wrote that the game "palls after a very short time.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1985 video game) | Reception
In Europe, computer gaming continued to boom for many years after. Computers such as the ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro were successful in the European market, where the NES was not as successful despite its monopoly in Japan and North America. The only 8-bit console to have any success in Europe would be the Sega Master System. Meanwhile, in Japan, both consoles and computers became major industries, with the console market dominated by Nintendo and the computer market dominated by NEC's PC-88 (1981) and PC-98 (1982). A key difference between Western and Japanese computers at the time was the display resolution, with Japanese systems using a higher resolution of 640x400 to accommodate Japanese text which in turn affected video game design and allowed more detailed graphics.
PC game | Industry crash and aftermath
"Computer Gaming World" reviewed "Earthrise" as "a clean, simple game with logically-constructed puzzles and a humorous touch". They rated the graphics as unspectacular and criticized the game's text parser as more trial-and-error in certain scenarios.
Earthrise (1990 video game) | Reception
The game features special guest appearances of Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling, Jello Biafra, Jason Scott, Bre Pettis and MC Frontalot. The game was released in March 2009 in San Francisco.
Soviet Unterzoegersdorf | Computer game series (2005–)
The market for visual novels outside Japan, however, was nearly non-existent prior to the success of the Nintendo DS, for which several Japanese visual novels were released in the West, such as the "Ace Attorney" series.
List of video game genres | Visual novels
A personal computer video game (also known as a computer game or simply PC game) is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine. The vast majority of computer games today are video games, and since the earliest days of the medium, visual displays such as the cathode ray tube have been used to relay game information.
Electronic game | Computer video games
Many critics praised the game's indoor environments, but some criticized its large exterior environment, and its boring and repetitive gameplay.
Jurassic Park (computer video game) | Introduction
The method of dispatching them is to score a direct hit between their splayed legs." The reviewer described it as an act to "humiliate and belittle women in the most violent, degrading way, by subjecting them to sexual violence," and implied this "cheap 'n' nasty" game's "presence in arcades" to be "dangerous" for British society. "Sinclair User" arcade section remembered it as a "sexist shoot'em up". According to a retrospective review in "Retro Gamer", when compared to much of Jaleco's other arcade titles, "Sky Fox" "can be seen as a bit of diamond in the rough, as it's a nicely presented little-known vertical shooter that plays like a mixture of "Galaxian" and "Space Harrier"." The reviewer felt the game's need of "banking and consideration to attacking enemies is a neat mechanic, which, coupled with "Sky Fox"s nice visuals and humorous enemy designs (bikini-clad dragon riders in space manage to be more off-the-wall than "Space Harrier"'s enemies), makes it an enjoyable little shooter," and recommended Cave's "Espgaluda II" as a "converted alternative".
Sky Fox (1987 video game) | Reception
"Computer Games" later wrote that "[d]uring the now-infamous mid-nineties CRPG lull, the toughest dungeons were the bottomless pits of failed designs, and the fiercest beasts the deadly-dull CRPG releases". Increases in development budgets and team sizes meant that sequels took three or more years to be released, instead of the almost-yearly releases seen in SSI's Gold Box series. The growth of development teams increased the likelihood that software bugs would appear, as code produced by programmers working in different teams was merged into a whole. A lack of technical standards among hardware manufacturers forced developers to support each manufacturer's implementation, or risk losing players.
History of Western role-playing video games | Decline (mid-1990s)
In 1996, "Computer Gaming World" declared "Disciples of Steel" the 48th-worst computer game ever released.
Disciples of Steel | Reception
Bob Proctor reviewed the game for "Computer Gaming World", and stated that "Plausible reasons are given for very large gains and losses but these are after the fact: winning is largely a matter of luck. Two factors make this game unique: it is the only one of the four available for computers other than the Apple and it is the only one which needs only 32K of RAM (instead of 48K)."
Computer Stocks &amp; Bonds | Reception
The late 1980s to early 1990s is considered the golden age of Japanese computer gaming, which would flourish until its decline around the mid-1990s, as consoles eventually dominated the Japanese market. A notable Japanese computer RPG from around this time was "WiBArm", the earliest known RPG to feature 3D polygonal graphics. It was a 1986 role-playing shooter released by Arsys Software for the PC-88 in Japan and ported to MS-DOS for Western release by Brøderbund. In "WiBArm", the player controls a transformable mecha robot, switching between a 2D side-scrolling view during outdoor exploration to a fully 3D polygonal third-person perspective inside buildings, while bosses are fought in an arena-style 2D shoot 'em up battle.
History of Eastern role-playing video games | Golden Age (late 1980s–early 1990s)
Writing for "Computer & Video Games", Matthew Woodley praised the game's variety and interface. While he disliked its long loading times, he believed that they were "a small price to pay for such a brilliant game". However, "Labyrinth" was criticized by the three reviewers of "Zzap!64". Although he praised its visuals, co-reviewer Paul Sumner called the game too slow-paced for an action title and too simplistic for an adventure. Co-reviewer Julian Rignall considered it to be boring and "a real disappointment", given Lucasfilm's strong track record.
Labyrinth: The Computer Game | Reception
Steam power, propeller-based aircraft, biplanes, dirigibles and heavily armored steam trains with giant cannons play large roles in the game's protagonists and opponents. The original leaked Japanese arcade beta version (now rare and the source code of which is believed lost), the popular Mega Drive version and the GBA remake were all critically well received. As of 2012, a modern, "gritty" sequel, "Burning Steel", is planned by original HOT・B lead game designer Yoshinori Satake for a 7th generation and possibly an 8th generation console.
Steel Empire | Introduction
"Computer Games Magazine" named "City of Heroes" the ninth-best computer game of 2004. The editors wrote, "In a genre dominated by games that try to be all things to all people and end up doing nothing particularly well, it's particularly refreshing."
City of Heroes | Awards
As a result, many of the mainframe games created by college students in the 1970s influenced subsequent developments in the video game industry in ways that, "Spacewar!" aside, the games of the 1960s did not. In the arcade and on home consoles, fast-paced action and real-time gameplay were the norm in genres like racing and target shooting. On the mainframe, however, such games were generally not possible due both to the lack of adequate displays (many computer terminals continued to rely on teletypes rather than monitors well into the 1970s and even most CRT terminals could only render character-based graphics) and insufficient processing power and memory to update game elements in real time.
History of video games | Mainframe computer games (1971–1979)
Gameshow is a magazine that was published in Turkey during the 1990s. The magazine focused mainly on computer games, where it was the leading magazine in that but it also contained pages about science fiction and fantasy literature and rock music. Although most of its authors were either teenagers or were in their early 20s, it maintained significant readership numbers compared to Turkish Magazine Industry figures for certain years. When its rather short and turbulent life began, the magazine's sole rival was "Pc Oyun" (Pc Game), and this rival itself was barely two years old. Since graphics and sound effects offered by early PC's were rather crude, magazines published before 1993 were mostly about games made for other platforms.
Gameshow (magazine) | Introduction
Johnny Wilson reviewed the game for "Computer Gaming World", and stated that "USS has a few relatively minor problems [...] but it makes up for them in the graphic presentation."
Under Southern Skies (video game) | Reception
Spy" (C16/+4, BBC, Electron) and Mindscape's "Indoor Sports" (C16/+4, BBC, Electron). From the late 1980s, they released games for the 16-bit computers Amiga and Atari ST as well as PC but failed to capture a large share of this new market and with the demise of the 8-bit games scene, their sales fell. The company went bankrupt in 1990 when its sister printing business incurred massive debts, before it could publish its game based on the Games Workshop boardgame "Blood Bowl". The name continues to this day in a completely unrelated business.
Tynesoft | History
"Labyrinth: The Computer Game" is a graphic adventure game in which the player maneuvers a character through a maze while solving puzzles and evading dangers. It is an adaptation of the 1986 film "Labyrinth", many of whose events and characters are reproduced in the game. However, it does not follow the plot of the film. At the beginning, the player enters their name, sex and favorite color: the last two fields determine the appearance of the player character. Afterward, a short text-based adventure sequence unfolds, wherein the player enters a movie theater to watch the film "Labyrinth". The game then changes to a graphic adventure format.
Labyrinth: The Computer Game | Overview