Blair Witch: Volume I - Rustin Parr

Continuity errors

When you finally meet up with Robin Weaver, she's holding a civil war uniform which she says belonged to a man named Lazarus (the protagonist of Blair Witch, Volume II: The Legend of Coffin Rock). However, if you play Blair Witch II, Lazarus' uniform is destroyed through burning by Weaver's granny near the beginning of the game because it was caked with blood (not to mention 20 years old). So much for continuity.

A bigger breach of continuity occurs with Blair Witch, Volume III: The Elly Kedward Tale. During the first game Holliday somehow contacts Jonathan Prye across time. Prye helps Holliday by leaving his journal about the Blair Witch in a safe place for her to find. None of this actually happens in the third game.

Engine

Well before the game's release, there were all sorts of interesting bits of stuff floating arount the internet. One item was that the game would be utilizing the Unreal engine. This is, and always was, completely false. The game does, however, utilize the engine from Nocturne.

Lens flare effect

The back cover of the box and the CD case has a screenshot showing off the lens flare effect from the flashlight, one of the features which distinguished the Nocturne engine. However in the actual game the lens flare effect is disabled, considerably watering down the flashlight beam's appearance. It is possible to re-enable it by editing the game's .ini file, but the Terminal Reality tech support advise against it for stability reasons, stating it could crash your game, erase your save files, and even possibly wipe your BIOS (although the last one's a bit of a stretch).

Nocturne

Blair Witch, Volume I is (for all intents and purposes) Nocturne Act V. "Doc" Holliday is in the starring role with the Stranger as a supporting character and cameos by Svetlana, Col Hapscomb, and the Spookhouse staff.

References

In Burkittsville's general store, a few interesting boxes can be seen on top of a counter. These are two of Terminal Reality's games; Nocturne and Fly!.

Awards

• GameSpy
  • 2000 – Special Award for Budget Gaming

Information contributed by Alan Chan, ClydeFrog, Paul Budd and re_fold