Blade Runner

The Good
Blade Runner the game is, at first glance, a wonder to behold. Particularly, if you're a fan of the 1982 movie starring Harrison Ford. Here is a game that plunks you into the steamy, gloomy world of Los Angeles 2019.

Visually speaking the game nails the look of the movie perfectly. The graphic artists were able to emulate the dark urban landscape created by Syd Mead and Ridley Scott in the original movie with aplomb.

The story isn't half-bad either, and somehow it is able to tip-toe around the continuity of the original movie without mussing it up. That's quite a feat!

To a lesser degree the replayability the game offers is a nice feature but unfortunately this is partly based on your own actions, as some of the alternative sequences and endings are dependent on random variables set at the start of a new game.

The Bad
I must agree with another reviewer on this site that remarks that the game lacks a "logical progression" to obstacles and challenges. When chasing a suspect down an alleyway that ends at a closed door, the game just expects you to just leave it at that. It isn't until you return to your character's apartment that the suspect finds you... HUH?!?

I would go one step further and say that all the other problems of logic this game has stem from one source. Perhaps the game designers wanted to keep their game interface simple, or perhaps they didn't want to bother with a level of interaction more complex. The interface is extremely dumbed-down. Talking to characters is a simple matter of point-and-click. You don't really choose the topic, your character "decides" for you. The options screen gives you the ability to alter your character's "mood" that can affect the outcome of your conversations, but the outcomes aren't very apparent and again don't really give you control over what your character really should be saying.

Same goes for collecting evidence. It's a simple point and click affair, as well as hit and miss. Sometimes you'll pick up a key piece of evidence that will unlock additional dialogue with a character. Other times you'll pick up evidence that SHOULD be relevant, but the characters are oblivious. An excellent example of this would be the various photos that one scans into the ESPER machine. One of the photos clearly shows a suspect that your character needs to meet, but try as you might you cannot get an acknowledgment of this from anyone.

Things like this will have you running around the game's Los Angeles landscape for hours in frustration because you honestly don't know what to do. There's no excuse for this either since at this point in history, adventure games had matured considerably.

As I've stated the game's visuals for its various locations and scene transitions are dead on when it comes to the movies. However, I wish Westwood would have future-proofed the graphics a little more. Characters are generated using something akin to Voxel technology, but while this might have been state-of-the-art in 1997, today they are an eyesore.

Audio is excellent with Vangelis' soundtrack reproduced faithfully here by Frank Klepacki. However voice work is spotty, even by the supposed A+ Hollywood Talent. Sean Young makes a brief "cameo" here as her character Rachael, and her reading sounds stiff and wooden as if she's merely reading the words off the script rather than acting. This was a huge disappointment.

The Bottom Line
As a veteran of adventure games I can say that Blade Runner is decent, if a bit short. Once you know your way through the plot you could probably beat it in less than three or four hours. First time around might take you five to ten hours.

If you're a fan of the source material, it's likely you can look past the games inherent problems. It has lots of great Blade Runner moments that will have fans smiling knowing full well the developers are giving them a wink and a nod.

For those who aren't familiar with the movie, you might have a tougher time appreciating this, and for good reason, since there are other games out there that are longer, more complex, and better designed.

Overall, Blade Runner is not a bad game by far. I can't help but wonder what kind of game it could have been if done properly, with a more complex interface, and a more fleshed out story line. Perhaps Blade Runner was just too ahead of its time for its own good, and could have benefited from today's technology.

I guess we'll never know...

The Good
Of all the games I've played in my life, Blade Runner is one of the best. It has been a few years since I played it, but I remember watching the movie (again) afterwards. During the movie, as good as it was, I felt there was something missing. The "missing" pieces were things I had done in the game!

If you are familiar with the story, you know that McCoy's main mission is to determine who is a human and who is a replicated-human, or "Replicant". With each new game, the engine determines which of the characters are humans and which are replicants - even you. Some of those can change as you make decisions during gameplay - others will remain constant. This makes for a game that is changeable with every new start. I have been told that there are 13 different versions of the story in all and 4 or 5 possible endings. I, myself, played it three times and found different things each time. I loved the fact that it was replayable.

Gameplay is full of futuristic, detective-type investigation. You'll be searching crime scenes, analyzing data, taking photographs and analyzing them, uploading and downloading data from a mainframe computer as well as questioning suspects and witnesses. There are some shooting scenes that depend upon timing and aim. The difficulty of those scenes depends upon whether you set your game to Easy, Medium or Hard when you started.

While talking to people, McCoy's attitude will affect what questions can be asked as well as how they will answer. I mostly played the game using McCoy's nicer "attitude" but changing that can help or hinder you - possibly even get you killed!

Overall, the interface had almost no learning curve. I liked the handy Travel Map for jumping between known or visited locations.

The Bad
Objects can be a little hard to find in the scenes, but you learn fairly quickly to search very carefully to find everything.

I don't particularly like "timed" segments in games, but those in Blade Runner were necessary and I understood the reasoning behind them.

The Bottom Line
I consider Blade Runner to be one of "the greats". Others have said that the game was too short. I disagree. I thought the length was perfect, especially since you can play it multiple times. Playing it a second time was even more fun than the first, believe me! Don't pass up this title. It is a worthy addition to any game library.

The Good
You’re detective Ray McCoy in this adventure game which combines elements from Dick’s novel: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Scott’s Blade Runner. You’re a rep dect, a Blade Runner, in charge of tracking down replicants that have returned to Earth from the off-world colonies and retiring them.

The game starts with an investigation of animal slayings at Runciter’s, a shady animal dealer. You’ll have to collect evidence, interview suspects, scan and enhance pictures for clues. As the game progress, you’ll meet a wide cast of characters, explore the kipple infested remains of post-WWIII L.A., use your Voight-Kampf test to determine who’s human and use your sidearm to take care of those who aren’t.

One of this game’s major strengths is the replayability. You can set your mood to determine how you interact with people and the choices you make during the game really effect the game’s outcome. Do you shoot first or ask questions? Draw your gun to threaten suspects? Let replicants walk or retire them?

The story is amazing and I must disagree with the person who said that it’s the same story as the movie. This game has at least six ending and the movie only has two. Any similarity to the story is the result of the fact that it deals with similar themes. This game handles events, even ones concurrent with the movie, in a completely different manner.

Although this is an adventure game, I enjoyed the lack of any real puzzles and the emphasis on detection and character interaction. When combat was necessary, it was well done and challenging without being impossible. Sound and voice acting is extraordinary.

The Bad
Blade Runner has terrific graphics except for the ingame character graphics. The voxel technology is too pixilated as characters move toward the foreground and become larger. As I understand it, this was a compromise in order to have realistic character motion, but… ug.

There were elements of Blade Runner that I wish were more interactive. I think I am being hard on the game because it is so interactive, so realistic that I want more. I want to ask people where the police chief is when he isn’t around. I want to call people and not wait to be called. I don’t just want to talk to the main characters I want to talk to everyone.

The Bottom Line
One of the best examples of an adventure game. It doesn't live up to its "real time" claim, but it is exemplary in the way it uses character interaction and exploration rather than puzzle solving or maze running.