Blade Runner

I'm sure there's nothing more I could add to these fine folks' reviews, but I must say to get it! There's plenty of cheese to go around, but the game never fails to pull you in. Even the sated graphics just add to the Cyberpunkiness of the whole thing. Get it!

Is it set in the Bladerunner universe? Yes. Does it have characters from the movie? Yes. Do you play as a Bladerunner, doing detective work and trying to oust replicants? Yes. And no. It is a point-and-click game, with elements of action (shooting, mainly) and puzzle solving to gather clues. Every new game you start will have some elements randomized. Some people will now be replicants, and vice versa. You can get clues in a few different ways, and have some options on how to deal with certain situations. However, after playing the game a few times, I started to notice that it's not really by my choice that the story progressed how it did. It happened that I was still thinking about what choice I was going to make, but something happened in the game that put me on the other path anyway. Also, the randomization also means that you somethimes cannot make a certain choice. When I won this game years ago in a contest from a videogame magazine, I had not seen the original Bladerunner movie and had no idea what I was getting into. My pc at the time wasn't one of the latest models, but I was able to run the game without any problems. However, I assumed that because my pc was a bit older, the game looked like it did. The backgrounds looked good, but the characters were just plain ugly: very pixelated, and lacking definition. The animation of some movements also kinda break the immersion: when McCoy is climbing a ladder for example, he's not actually gripping and stepping on the rungs, just going through "climbing the ladder" motions. It looks weird. In the end, I'm not sure what to think of this game. It has a great atmosphere and setting for the adventurous, good voice acting, and there's replayability. But it falls flat on the lack of player choice, and ugly looking character models.

Thanks to the ScummVM team and their support for PowerPC Macs! 2004 eMac, CRT, it's a great combo...

Thank you GOG! How do you do it? I bet there is an interesting backstory to securing the rights to this one, as complex and mysterious as the movie itself. This game really does put you in the film, with intense atmosphere, music and rain! The voxel graphics give the characters a feeling of life and depth, no angular polygons here. The pre-rendered environments can look like a beautiful work of art. Although, the voxel characters can lack definition and resolution by modern standards, it does not detract from the overall look. I think it’s given the game a unique charm of its own. A good pitch of difficulty, no stroll in the park. You can’t just click through the story, you will need to do some detective work, think carefully about your approach and the bigger picture, as time progresses and events happen with or sometimes without you. You can also take a wrong turn and come to harm, but it’s rewarding to progress. The time-based, random events can give you a feeling that you might have missed something, however I think the idea is to go through the game several times to see it all. Some dexterity and skill is required, with shooting sections that add a nice extra, giving a sense of danger. Always reminded me of the of the way Snatcher mixed these genres together in a cyberpunk adventure. Another highlight of the game is the Esper tool. Inspecting and exploring photographs in pseudo-3D reminiscent of the movie, is a lot of fun and can lead to clues. Although not following the movie’s main character Deckard, this is a side story to that, and I think a brilliant example of a game based on a film (not many examples of those!), capturing many of the films environments. A lot of the game has you walk in similar footsteps to Deckard, I think to pay fan service, which is more than ok, but it does take its own and interesting path later on in the story. The Blade Runner universe really is the perfect place for an adventure.

Its the perfect love letter to the film plus its one of the most impressive adventure games ever made! Strip away the Blade Runner title and what you have is a brillant Cyberpunk Noir that is amazingly dynamic to the point that after all the time I've personally spent playing it over the last 20 years I still haven't seen every combination of events that can take place in the game. The design of how things progress through the game based on how you setup your characters traits. i.e...do you pick one of the preset personality types or do you go old school and pick your own dialog options...or maybe you set the game to Directors cut mode and play out the scenario that Westwood Studios lovingly put together. Either way the paths are endless and the game packs a lot of cool details from both the book Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep? and the moive Blade Runner in a nice balance of both familar and new. Some voice's heard in the game are also those of cast members from the film which will put a smile on any fans face. I could talk at length about this game beyond what I've already said but I won't and heres why... first off this game has been out of press for decades and has never seen a digital release until now ( thanks GOG ) going into this blind makes every moment more meaningful as events unfold and once you've ran through it once you can go back, take another stab at it and you may play through a whole new story. So anyone taking a look at this for the first time just remember every action has an outcome both good or bad and each path taken will make you wonder what it really means to be human....or should I say more human than human...