Blade Runner

Blade Runner is a point-and-click adventure set in the same world of the movie by the same name. The events it follows are happening at the same time as the ones from the movie, and you'll get to see many familiar faces, as well as new sides to the city. Since I think this game isn't for everyone, let me preface this review with what I believe are the 2 biggest flaws of the game: 1) The game probably isn't worth playing if you haven't watched the movie. The game doesn't do as much of a good job at delivering its context and world-building, and quite a few characters feel unimportant, unless you know the movie. There are also several screens that re-capture the atmosphere of the movie, which would be lost on you without having watched it. Some events are referenced that would make little sense as well. 2) A review said this was a "walking sim". In truth, the game feels more like a visual novel than an adventure, at times. How much you reveal through pixel-hunting for clues only seems to affect how many details about the story you learn, but your detective work doesn't open or close too many doors for you. If there are bad ends for missing details, I certainly didn't find any. The game is brilliant in many ways, however. It captures the mood of the movie, and the interactive parts are very interesting thanks to their presentation: zoom+enhancing pictures is great, testing people to see if they are replicants is intense (although it feels a little too random, with an opaque UI), and the way the gun is cleverly used as a secret option in certain dialogues, or to force open certain locks as well as allow you to express your morals by sparing or not characters is great. The music is also very nice (when it's there), and some of the characters manage to be captivating (not all of them, admittedly). The game isn't perfect, but it certainly has a strong personality, and it's truly enjoyable. Some randomness also help keeping things interesting for multiple playthroughs.

Blade Runner is one gem of a point and click adventure game. It has so much ambition in its design and mechanics that are at work in the background that affect each character's AI and the course of the story, so that random factors as well as the player's actions (or inactions) and choices will determine the course of the story and the ending you'll get. There's love and soul in the core design of this game. There are even complex mechanics that come into play only once or twice just for the player to get a different result in a NPC's attitude if they select a different approach for behaving towards them. Soundtrack is excellent and fitting for the Blade Runner verse, so close to the Vangelis' original. Visuals are also quite dynamic and life-like, you can rarely tell if at all that there's a video loop going on for the scenery. Pro tip: The shooting range is way slower in the Easy mode. Also to get points, shoot enemies only after they have rotated to reveal if they're holding a weapon. Try not to get shot, not to allow enemies to flee, and of course not to shoot any innocents. There's no specific high score because some targets are randomized or "special" in some way but the highest score in a range run could be higher than 80, or even higher than 90.

High replayability and beautiful atmosphere. A must-have for any Blade Runner fan. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Still, there are 3 big issues I had with the game: 1) it's in real-time. As far as I can tell, this has no purpose than to make NPCs temporarily absent from rooms for seemingly no reason at all and with no consequence. It serves as an unnecessary inconvenience, forcing you to exit and re-enter until the NPC arbitrarily appears again for no reason. I wasted plenty of time running into "dead ends" only for me to return to the same spot later and find out that someone just wasn't there and reappeared later. And with a map this large, searching other avenues can waste a lot of time. 2) It doesn't really explain how to use the Voight Kampff machine at all. Sure, I understood what it does, but completing these sections was a question of picking choices at random. Doesn't explain the calibration or anything, and I had to look it up. 3) Knowing how to pick the proper dialogue choices was extremely limiting with only 1 word provided to describe each choice. Sometimes my character would go off on a tangent unrelated to the choice I picked. Characters can close off entirely if you pick the wrong choice. Picking dialogue options was often just crossing your fingers and hoping your character didn't say the wrong thing, or that the NPC would still be receptive to dialogue. Minor gripes: - No subtitles - There's a .....questionable ending with an underage character. But I'd like to assume that, with its ambiguity, it's implying the least repulsive behavior possible. - There's an Act where you're running into danger at random. The action is clunky and unnecessary, and sometimes nonsensical. However, most of the shooting done at other parts of this game works great. - There's a room where the character can't run? Not sure if this is just a bug with porting the game or what, but it was just a minor annoyance to slowly walk through this room each time I encountered it.

First, a warning. This game is awfuly short, for today's standards. But, it's a great BR side story. HOWERVER, A NEW REMASTER HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED. SO I SUGGEST YOU WAIT.

Even if i did not complete it yet, this is an experience ! Of course this game is showing its age. However, did it age like fine wine ? Absolutely As far as i went through the game, it is filled with plenty of good ideas, the scenario and game universe is brilliant. Speaking about game universe ... yeah you know it's blade runner ... Masterpiece of a universe indeed ^^ (see ya on the balcony gents, those who played it knows exactly which part of the game i'm talking about) On gameplay side, it's a story telling game but this one kind of lets you choose how you're going through it, even npcs are randomly assigned as replicants or humans (replayability : check). At the end of the day, awesome -immersive- game in a somwhat 'familiar' universe ... Would give it a loving it out of nothing, we're not giving games any mark here :D