Beneath A Steel Sky Games Mac Ports Look

Unfortunately Beyond A Steel Sky just doesnt control well with Apples overpriced touchpad or a Bluetooth mouse.

From the early days of Maniac Mansion and Myst to the more modern titles such as The Walking Dead and Life Is Strange, adventure games have always been around in one way or another.

While games such as Grim Fandango and The Secret of Monkey Island have definitely aged in a less than appreciable way gameplay-wise, Ive always found the older entries in the genre to be worth playing solely due to the story and their often dry sense of humor.

With more recent games in the genre Ive felt that the need for a more cinematic and thought-provoking experience has ruined what made the classics.well.classic.

Beyond A Steel Sky looks to take what was best from the golden era of the genre and brings it to 2020 with a fresh coat of paint and some pretty smart gameplay conventions.

While in most cases a 26-year gap between games would prove to be a problem, Beyond A Steel Sky sums the plot to its predecessor efficiently in the first few hours and I never felt like I was missing out by not playing the original.

There are a few nods to Beneath A Steel Sky thought the game, but the main protagonist Robert tends to announce who was from the prior game and why theyre important.

Beneath A Steel Sky Games Mac Ports Look

While the PC and Mac ports look good, theyre not going to wow anybody with its visuals, but its when you play it on an iPhone or iPad where the games art direction and optimization truly shine.

There were a few times where I noticed myself saying wow when entering a new environment due to the simple fact that I was playing a game of this quality on my Instagram machine.

Beyond A Steel Skys retro-future comic book art style really bring the games world to life and hide the need for an overly detailed world.

Beyond A Steel Skys world-building during its relatively short adventure makes up for the need for any sort of blockbuster narrative and its quirky sense of humor kept things fresh throughout its often times hardcore gameplay conventions.

Thats not to say the story in Beyond A Steel Sky ever felt lacking.

Its just a bit of a slow burn for the first hour or so and at times I was a bit disinterested until I made it past the city gates and the retro-future aesthetic was really allowed to shine and pull me into its bleak but goofy world.

There were times where I let the music play through my headphones and soaked up the world around my character and let my imagination run wild.

If you dont play Beyond A Steel Sky but youre a fan of game music you definitely owe it to yourself to check out the tracks Gaplander, What have you done, and Finalie.

Thats not to say that its brutally difficult or frustrating like some classic adventure games, its just going to require a bit more logic and thinking to solve its puzzles and situations.

Early on in the game, youre given the ability to hack terminals and various components.

Unlike most games, the hacking isnt a simple connect the dots or maze puzzle, but instead, a logic-based if this then that concept.

I often found myself walking up to panels trying to see if I could mess with their functions and see if I can change anything around me.

Theres a sense of accomplishment when solving one of Beyond A Steel Skys often brutally obvious but difficult to figure out puzzles, but its the process of figuring out what I needed to do that made me want to stop playing more than not.

Once you figure out what you need to do though, the games puzzles take onto a life of their own and I really felt engaged in Beyond A Steel Skys world.

All that being said there are definite differences between the platform you choose to play Beyond A Steel Sky on.

For this review, most of my playthrough was on an iPhone 11 Pro and the touch controls were by far some of the most intuitive and easy to use for a third-person game.

Thats not to say there were a few spots where the touch controls failed and I had to shuffle around a bit to lock onto an environmental prompt.

The iPad Pro with a magic keyboard was a different story entirely.

Beneath A Steel Sky Games For Mac