Reader Reviews

Blade Runner (PC)

by Peej

It's amazing how universally vilified the 80's has become. Despite this, the decade spawned some great culturally important and iconic films [and me -Tom], including Blade Runner, which took a rather rambling and odd Phillip K. Dick novel about the ownership of fake animals, and turned it into a film the influence of which is still felt in practically every game today featuring a dark future. Without Blade Runner, would there have been the dark polluted cities in Deus Ex? Would there have been the huge sprawling metropolis featured in Omicron: The Nomad Soul? Possibly not.

Aside from one slightly iffy attempt at a game back in the 8-bit home micro days (based oddly around Blade Runner's soundtrack rather than the film), the film itself failed to garner an officially licensed game until nearly 20 years later, when Westwood took up the challenge of bringing that purgatory vision of humankind blurring with technology to the PC screen.

Westwood, previously respected purveyors of all things Command and Conquery, managed to achieve the impossible and produced a fantastic looking challenging and playable game. So how did they do justice to such a well-respected film?

The first thing they did absolutely correctly was to get the original film cast and crew involved. Cast members provided hours of dialogue (except notably not Mr Ford, who was probably off banging a walking xylophone with two fried eggs attached) and the original production designer, Syd Mead was approached to help design and capture the essence of the film perfectly, from the vehicles props and clothing down to the locations intrinsic to Blade Runner.

Obviously the decision was made early on to develop a unique storyline interwoven with part of the original film and even some snippets from the book, therefore fans of both would be on familiar ground even though the intricate and multi-threaded plot was largely original.

The lead character, Ray McCoy is a Bladerunner assigned to what seems at first to be a pretty simple and clear-cut case of vandalism and fake animal "murder" at a well-respected pet store. Later, as the central case develops, Ray's story starts to intertwine with the recent escape of Replicants (more human than human androids) into the city (as covered by the film and the books) and he meets, interrogates and interacts with several key characters that will be instantly recognisable from their film roles.

As holey as the plot of the film seems to anyone who loves over-analysing things [or counting -Ed], the game at times does nothing to sort out the various loose ends left over from the film but instead adds even more twists and confusion to the mix. Bear in mind that the game also features multiple endings depending on your actions, one of the first and few games to do this successfully without the usual cop-out of just tacking in a few extra cut-scenes at the end (I'm talking about you, Enter The Matrix!)

So what we essentially have here is an interactive adventure game with a few arcade overtones, and a unique beast in that it's a film licensed game of a well-respected film that actually works fantastically well.

Some of the beautiful little touches in the game still stand up proudly today. All clues and information in the game are handled by your KIA (a portable evidence organiser) but you also get access to the fantastic ESPER machine for analysing photographic information. You remember the scene in the film where Deckard is twiddling with photographs and zooming in/out, cleaning up etc - you get to do this in the game and quite frankly I've never seen a better implementation of a film gadget in any game before or since! It doesn't end there, you also get to "test" would-be replicants with the Voigt-Kampff machine although this has a varying degree of success and at times can lead you down blind alleys leading you well and truly off the trail.

Cut-scenes are computer-generated, foregoing nasty live action scenes, which were de-rigueur at the time. But believe me they're so well done you'd almost wish the original film had been completely CG too. Syd Mead's guiding hand comes into its own during the various sequences which are astoundingly clear, packed with minute details you'll recognise and some you won't. You visit and re-visit new locations and locations seen in the film but this time you are right in there interacting.

Another item worthy of mention is voice acting, which you'd expect to be a bit cheesy but is actually top notch. Even the actors new to the franchise do it justice. Crystal Steele (McCoy's female Bladerunner buddy) is a particular standout favourite especially towards the end of the game where you will have to make some tough decisions partly based on what she says and does.

I could go on for ages about the intricate little plot twists, details in the game, even the slightly ropey Voxel game engine is forgivable as you are helplessly drawn in - but the best justification I can give you for hunting this down (it must be dirt cheap by now) and attempting to run it on your flashy PC gaming rig is that it puts a lot of modern adventure games to shame. It was obviously crafted with love by the Westwood team who had a nigh-on impossible task doing justice to the film and book, but they pulled it off with aplomb.