Revolution's Beneath a Steel Sky was one of those games that managed to pass under my radar when it was released. What's unusual about this omission is that it was a very popular late game for the Commodore Amiga platform, which I was born and raised on. A few days ago I decided the time had finally come to boot up the old ScummVM and give BASS a try. BTW, BASS is one of the few commercial GAGs that have been released as freeware--apparently, the copyright holders actually care about preserving the game's legacy. I could spend a great deal of time talking about why such decisions are good for the industry and game culture, but I've done that elsewhere. Let's talk about what makes BASS a great game.
One thing I noticed right away was that this was one of those great games that integrates comic-book style art and substance. I argued in an article for Text Technology that traditional animation works well with computer games. For one thing, it frees the developer from having to try to make photorealistic graphics--which tends to make games look like crap a few years after the technology advances. People raved about Myst's wonderful graphics back in 1994--but BASS has aged better. The graphics, music, and writing are very consistent and help produce a powerful theme that can best be compared to the likes of Chrono Trigger (1995) for the SNES. Chrono Trigger was a great combination of light-hearted fun laid over a dynamic plot and sinister embedded narrative. These are games that reward deep play. I also often thought of Terry Gilliam's wonderful film Brasil, and even Blade Runner to some extent. BASS borrows liberally from the Lucas Arts' mix of humor and wit, but goes a step deeper. There is a dark, pessimistic vision undergirding BASS's one-liners and mirth. Again, the best I would emphasize the similarity to Gilliam's work--if you loved the Crimson Assurance pre-movie, you're going to enjoy BASS.
Beneath a Steel Sky |
The interface is logical and simple. The left mouse button is for examining objects; the right is for picking them up or manipulating something. The inventory (always limited to a few items) is activated by scrolling the mouse pointer to the top of the screen. There, objects can be selected by right-clicking and then left-clicking on the object or location you want to use the object on. You can always tell what objects are active by scrolling the mouse pointer over them. It's a light interface that tends to "disappear" from consciousness and helps--oh, if only more developers would follow this example--limit the possibilities you imagine when trying to solve puzzles. Brenda Laurel puts it so well in her Computers as Theater: " Limitations—constraints that focus creative efforts—paradoxically increase our imaginative power by reducing the number of possibilities open to us" (101). GAG developers who don't share Laurel's insight might ruin an otherwise splendid experience with needless frustration. BASS is an example of what happens when things go right.
The puzzles here are clever, yet not the kind of abstract Zen exercise you find in Cyan's games. I never found myself in "trial and error mode," trying every possible combination of objects to arrive at some unforeseen result that might advance the narrative. This is not to say the game is easy. I did find myself longing for a hintbook on several occasions, but thankfully managed to find my own way. There are no puzzles in BASS that cannot be solved with logic and patience. The worst "interface" gap I could find involved a pair of tongs in a lab room. They're easy enough to miss on a quick mouse-sweep of the room--but "pixel hunting" is not really an issue here.
Perhaps the strength of BASS lies in its writing. I played a "talkie version" with lots of British accents and pretty good acting. The quality is good, though perhaps not as high as that found in the Loom talkie by Lucas Arts. The voice acting for the main character is pretty bland. At any rate, I never winced, and the acting was good enough to carry a well-contrived plot through its paces. As most serious literary critics know, the strength of a production is often not in the originality of its story, but the execution of its plot. BASS is well-paced, coherent, and populated with interesting characters and an intriguing back-story (the "embedded narrative.") It's a fun world to learn about and explore.
In short, BASS is a fun, well-wrought game that makes for an excellent evening of gameplay. It's available for free (can't beat that), and runs without a hitch in ScummVM. I highly recommend this game, and plan to spend some time in the immediate playing through Revolution's Broken Sword series.
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