Neuromancer

Moby ID: 687
Commodore 64 Specs

Description official descriptions

Based on the cyberpunk novel by William Gibson. In a grimy future, you play Case, a cyberspace cowboy who finds himself broke in Chiba City. Find yourself a laptop and the right software for it so you can hack into databases around the city to regain your access to cyberspace. Buy and upgrade brain implant chips to augment your computer skills, and sell your body parts to afford new technologies. When you get to cyberspace, you'll take on the nasty AIs that guard the most important databases. Within all this information is the bizarre secret of this world of inbred corporations.

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Credits (Commodore 64 version)

13 People (12 developers, 1 thanks)

Programmed by
Designed by
Produced by
Artwork by
Package Illustration
Soundtrack by
  • DEVO
Sound FX by
Testing by
Fast DOS by
Special thanks for all his help and inspiration for making Neuromancer a reality

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 80% (based on 20 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 49 ratings with 2 reviews)

Trying to stuff two universes into a can - almost, but not quite...

The Good
Neuromancer is a well-conceived blend of cyberpunk and Sierra-style gaming. The alternation between the "real" world and the matrix is stark and unsettling, with genuinely different styles of gameplay. All of the main elements from the book are there, though Neuromancer is careful not to be too straitjacketed by its source. The graphics are well done, with a suitably grey, dark-toned colour palette.

The Bad
Games based on great books invariably suffer from the comparison, and Neuromancer is no exception. Perhaps the main element missing in the game is the incredibly crowded, bustling cityworld that surrounds William Gibson's characters in print - everything seems very small and sparse. Cyberspace is extremely tough to navigate, especially at first, and it's hard to generate any real empathy or feel for what's going on.

Despite a fair amount of freedom, the game does still seem like a walking tour through the plot, and fans of Sierra titles will probably think that Neuromancer isn't quite up to scratch on puzzles, graphics and atmosphere. As with virtually every other PC game from this period, Neuromancer is outclassed by its sister version on the Amiga.

The Bottom Line
Fans of the book, or cyberpunk in general, should probably take a look at Neuromancer. It tries to do a great deal, and doesn't quite reach any of its goals, but is still a worthy attempt at a different kind of adventure game.

DOS · by Colin Rowsell (43) · 2002

Excellent Illusion of Living World

The Good
One of the things that stood out in my mind, playing it recently for the first time, is how alive the world felt. You could log on to BBSes in the game and make posts. You could download files from them, and upload files on to other BBSes. The actual possibilities the game was able to compute were of course not too deep given the computing resources of a late-80s PC, but when playing it felt quite real.

The other great thing about the game was the music. I don't know how great the PC version sounded, but the Devo music that a C64 SID put out was wonderful. I still hum it every now and then.

The Bad
Going along with the alluded realism, the world seemed to me too open. While I'm not an excellent adventure gamer myself, it often seemed to vague as to what the player was supposed to do next in some situations.

Another big problem was the adaption. William Gibson originally wrote a very dark novel, while Interplay programmed it with a tongue-in-cheek style. Every now and then you get awareness of it being a computer game. There's also the program floating around on one of the BBSes called Battle Chess 3000...

The Bottom Line
A combination of William Gibson's dark world and the tongue-in-cheek attitude of early adventure games.

DOS · by Adam Baratz (1431) · 2000

Trivia

Music

The game's theme song is Some Things Never Change by long-lasting group Devo, from their 1988 album Total Devo. It was featured in instrumental versions on all platforms the game was released on, however on the C-64 a portion of the real song was actually sampled and used in the intro.

Novel

Several descriptions in the game have been taken from the novel's text. Two examples appear in the screenshots: The bartender's (Ratz) description "His teeth are a webwork of East European steel..." and the Cheap Hotel's description "...smells of cigarettes and cheap perfume..." which, in the novel, describes the smell of the hotel's elevator.

References

  • If you look closely at the man with the chips and wires coming out of his head on the opening screen, you'll notice a striking resemblance to William Gibson, author of the book that this game is based upon.
  • There are a few different references in this game to other Interplay games. One thing in the game is said to take longer to finish than Wasteland. Another reference can be found in the Battle Chess 3K program you can download off one of the game's pseudo-BBSes.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • October 1989 (Issue #64) – Adventure Game of the Year
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #108 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #15 Best Way To Die In Computer Gaming (selling own body parts)
  • Power Play
    • Issue 01/1989 - Nicest Self-Promotion (for the in-game advertisement for "Bard's Tale 714")

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Apogee IV and HeX-Open

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Justin Hall.

Commodore 64 added by Quapil. Amiga added by Timo Takalo. Apple IIgs, Apple II added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Mirrorshades2k, Jony Shahar, Jeanne, Morten Kaa, Patrick Bregger, ZeTomes.

Game added January 8, 2000. Last modified January 16, 2024.