Blade Runner

The Good
First of all, I should mention that I'm a fan of the movie Bladerunner, so my expectations were high for this game. Visually, Bladerunner (the game) is stunning. The sound effects and music are awe-inspiring. The game does a fantastic job of putting you in the world of the Bladerunners. The interface is well thought out. I especially enjoyed mucking around with Esper, the photo analyzer.

The Bad
As a Bladerunner, it is your job to hunt down some renegade replicants. However, the story completely fails as a detective story. Time and time again we are not allowed to act in ways that a detective (or even just a rational human being) would. Example Number 1: Our hero questions a witness, but has doubts about his truthfulness. He warns the witness that if he is caught lying, he'll pay him another visit. Later in the game, we find absolute proof the witness was lying. However, questioning the witness is no longer an option in the game. Example Number 2: Our hero is unable to follow a replicant he is chasing through a door. No attempt is made to break down the door, pick the lock, or find another entrance. Our hero simply stands there scratching his head, telling us the door is locked. Example Number 3: Our hero is bound and gagged in a hotel room by replicants. After finally breaking free of his constraints, he bursts through the door (this door poses no problem) to find himself in the hotel lobby. The hotel manager is at his desk, right beside the room our detective was held hostage in. Can we talk to the manager? Inform him we were just held hostage a few feet from him? Arrest the manager? No, none of the above. Conversation with the manager is not an option. Telling him that a cop was held hostage in the next room is apparently not important.

These are just a few examples of the way the story fails to progress logically. Instead of having the player make thoughtful choices, Bladerunner forces the player to move the mouse over every square inch of the screen in an attempt to find the magic "hotspot" where the golden key is concealed. Remember those old Sierra "Quest" games? Same sort of thing here.

The Bottom Line
Don't waste your time. The game is beautiful to behold and absolutely awe-inspiring at first, but the story does not progress logically. In the end, Bladerunner disappoints.

The Good
Once upon a time, when Westwood was a serious developer and didn't just go around pimping it's C&C franchise all over the place, them crazy folks decided to do a game out of the seminal sci-fi movie of the 80's: Blade Runner... disaster insues! I thought, after all the idea sounds good on paper, but it's a tricky deal to do a successful game out of a movie, let alone do one about one based on one of the biggest visual masterpieces in motion picture history which also happens to be a textbook example of "what happens when you don't give a damn about screenwriting" that while adding to the movie's charisma by injecting it with even more mysticism and ambiguity, had the downside of making it's plot as cryptic as hell.

Anyway, the resulting quality of Blade Runner's videogame adaptation came thus as a surprise to me, and proved that Westwood still had some life in it. First of all it doesn't make the mistake of trying to adapt the movie per se, but instead takes the basic material and runs with it, creating a brand new story with new characters that runs parallel to the movie's plot. Yes, you are a Blade Runner that looks exactly like Harrison Ford, but you are not him and in fact you are investigating a completely different case that starts from a Replicant assault at a pet store and evolves from that point on.

Following the many wild interpretations of the movie's story, Westwood gave players the excellent choice to allow you to swing into any direction as far as the plot is concerned, and depending on how you play the game you can end up running from the law as a replicant exile yourself, or doing your work as a human Blade Runner and closing the case like a good boy, with dozens of variations inbetween all related to a series of random events, as well as the attitude and disposition you take when questioning the many npcs in the gameworld and finally with the different solutions you find to the problems at hand (do you waste time questioning a bum about where did an escapee replicant go, or do you just lunge at the nearby alley hoping you don't lose him?, etc.).

The gameplay might make the game look like a classic adventure game, but it makes the right choice of leaving puzzles aside to some extent, and instead focus on the detectivesque investigative procedures and the like were just observing a certain event, or using the ESPER and the Voigt-Kampff test checks the right flags to move the game in a certain direction. Not only does this match the mood and tone of the game, but also has the effect of making you feel as if it's you the one who's driving the action instead of being a collection of plot sequences related only by "use hammer on nail"-like exercises.

The production values for the game are dead on. A must really, as Blade Runner the movie was all about creating a visual and aureal "vibe" that could only be done with quality visuals and the unique Vangelis soundtrack. The game uses a collection of pre-rendered backgrounds and even looping fmv's to illustrate the gameworld (which brings to your monitor all those haunting neon reflections, murky streets and foggy landscapes) with voxel characters placed on top. The soundtrack and sfx are excellent, basing the entire work around Vangelis and complementing the gameworld perfectly.

The Bad
The absence of puzzles plays against the game from a difficulty standpoint, and ends up making it a tad too short and a tad too easy. Aside from that I can only point out at certain cheesy elements that seem slightly out of place like the Crystal Steele (god! Who came up with that name??) character who is your stereotypical "badass babe with a gun" character and which always sets the game out of it's tracks mood-wise whenever she appears on a scene. At least the inclusion of stuff right out of the novel makes up for those moments...

Anyway, on the technical side of things, I do agree that the voice acting could have been more polished and while I don't exactly hate the character graphics and their voxels as some people do, I do question the graphical need to use them in some situations, I mean, yes the game is loaded with cool fmv expository sequences, but there are some moments that could have benefited from this treatment and are played out simply in your static gamescreen. I mean, wouldn't some firefights be a tad more dramatic with some well directed fmvs? or how about the shocking moment were a replicant is caught in flames and falls through a window to her death down below?? Isn't THAT something worthy of making it into an fmv instead of simply watching it develop from a mile away in your standard 3rd person perspective view??

...And were the hell is Pris??? Why is it that some of the coolest characters of the movie appear only doing cameos or not at all????

The Bottom Line
Excellent adaptation of one of the most fantastic visual feasts of the silver screen that not only is a great game on it's own, filled with replayability, interesting concepts and good gameplay; but it also catches the vibe and feel of the movie (and quite a particular movie which just so happens to be ALL about vibe and feel) and delivers it to your monitor in perfect condition.

Besides, isn't this like almost the last non-C&C game to come out of Westwood? That's got to count for something

The Good
Based on the movie of the same name, you are “Rep-Detect” Ray McCoy who is hired by the Los Angeles Police Department to retire a series of replicants. The game is spread across five acts that has Ray searching a crime scene and gathering any evidence that tells him that murder was committed by reps. The first crime scene is Runciter's Animals where two men, believed to be reps, slaughtered birds and trashed the place.

Before I played this game, I saw the movie several times (the director's cut, not the 1982 original) in order to understand fully what it was about, but little did I know that the game is slightly different but still retains the plot. There are some similarities between the two mediums. The main one being that five of the actors who were cast in the movie lend their voice in the game. Also, during the game, Ray uses the ESPER machine to zoom in and pan around a 3D image to look for clues. Some of the locations that were in the movie (eg: Chinatown, Animoid Row) also feature in the game.

New characters are introduced. Some of them may help you, some of them will get annoyed at who you are. There are five modes that you can play the game at. Each mode will determine what a true Blade Runner you are. You can start a conversation with the characters, and pick any topic that you want to start with first as long as you play the game at “User's Choice” level. You can change modes in the game. This means that you can start off as a polite person but later in the game change into a more erratic or more aggressive person. The bottom line is whatever mode you are at will determine what McCoy says and does.

Blade Runner has several endings, some of them have minor adjustments. Which ending that you will view depends on what you do in the game such as shooting replicants or saving them (because you have a soft spot for them.) with all the critical decisions that you must make in the third act. Before you start a game, Blade Runner decides which characters are human or replicants. The game is replayable, mostly to see how many endings you can view and see which characters the game picks out as humans or replicants.

The game has no puzzles, which is good for people like me who are annoyed at solving them. There are some timed sequences, requiring you to either pursue a character quickly before you lose him or run away from an area where you are going to get killed. Blade Runner also has a number of cut-scenes, which usually shows a character talking to another character. More often than not, their conversations add more depth to the game, and you are anxious to see how these cut-scenes affect it. When you are at a location that requires you to turn corners, the game zooms in onto what is around it, and this is a technique not seen in any adventure game.

The voice acting is superb. As I mentioned earlier, some of the actors from the movie lend their voice for the game, and each play their respective characters. They include Sean Young, William Sanderson, Brion James, and James Hong. With the exception of Young and James, most of the actors have the same type of voice as their one in the movie. I could not recognize the rest of the voices as being the original.

The type of music in the game varies. When you are in McCoy's apartment, for instance, a jazz melody is played. But when you enter a scene that is likely to have more action in it than others, than heavy metal and techno music is heard. Some of the music is well composed. As for the sound, they are good. I like the chime that plays when McCoy picks up something.

The Bad
Nearly all the characters are a bit blocky when they walk toward the player.

You have the opportunity to engage in target practice which occurs in the police station. I found that the targets never come out on a state-of-the-art system, meaning that you would never achieve a better score.

The Bottom Line
Gamers who have not watched the movie need not worry. Blade Runner is a complete rehash of the story. It introduces new characters, locations, and objectives, and there are several modes to play the game at. These modes determine what personality Rep-Detect McCoy has, what he does, and what he says. In addition, there are several endings, and the ending that you will view will depend on the actions that you take. The game decides at the very beginning which suspects are human and which suspects are replicants. Because of this, the game can be played over and over again.

There are some similarities. One location is taken straight out of the movie, and some characters return, voiced by the same actors from the movie. The cut-scenes, voice acting, and sound effects are excellent. The game is suitable for people 15 or over because there is a fair dose of nudity and violence, but those who were entertained watching the movie will be entertained playing the game.