Personally I love point and click games, I always have. Although I’ve been lucky to get the Monkey islands and not the Simon the Sorcerers. I suspect not everyone has been as fortunate as me and as we should know, it only takes one horrible game to sully the rest. This may go some way to explaining why the genre has spent the last ten or so years drifting in and out of coma, spouting coherent speech only once a year or so before receding back to its silent torpor.

I have a theory, it’s a little weird but hear me out. The genre of Point and Click has not been on the brink of death all these years, no, nor is it past it prime. What it has actually been doing is been playing dead. You see, for almost a decade every game producer and designer had been pushing the limits of what hardware can accomplish.

With the introduction of the 3rd generation consoles game makers have been trying there utmost to use every drop of power available from these machines. In times like these Point and Click games can seem out of date and inadequate so as a genre they lay down and kept very still.

Now that the dust has settled on the war torn desolate land of gaming, point and click games can look around and see that there brothers have made it in the new world, that Despite the violent RPSs, the calculating RTSs or the soul draining MMPORPGs there is is still a place for Point & Clicks in this wasteland.

There survival was not without help. With the introduction of episodic gaming geared at a more casual appeal TellTale Games started releasing the new Sam and Max games. At the success for them more followed leading up to the recent release of Monkey Island made with conjunction of Lucasarts, and at the same time the original Monkey island was remastered reminding us of the golden age of point and click.

So i come to my point, because gaming isn’t a barren wasteland where only the worthy survive, no it’s a business like any other and we must face some harsh truths. Without the interest and support of gamers this genre will die because these large companies will not invest into these games when there is no reward it. But I’m happy to say someone else has dipped there toes into the pool of Point and Click and the remaking a classic.

Beneath a Steel Sky is now getting the Monkey Island treatment with a new facelift including fully animated cut scenes created by renowned comic book artist Dave Gibbons. This was an excellent game when it came out and can’t think of a game more deserving of renovation. for those of you who missed out on this last time heres some info.

Very few Point and Click games can stand up to the Monkey Islands and Grim Fandangos that Lucasarts made so well. This was one of them. Set in a dystopian future in a technological wonder of Union-City. You take charge Robert Foster, who was found in the Gap (that being the Australian outback not a clothing store). Along with Joey his robot friend he travels Union City generally trying to figure the mystery around. I don’t want to give the plot away since this one carrys it off very well, and despite its gloomy and serious nature its is still filled with warm characters and great humour. If your a fan of point and clicks the only way to keep them alive is to support them. Unfortunately this is only being released for the iPhone and iPod touch but it is a step in the right direction and I expect if this does well we’ll get to see more like this in the future.

Well here’s a look at the original intro.