Blade Runner (video game)

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Blade Runner
Original box art
Developer(s)	Westwood Studios
Publisher(s)	Virgin Interactive Entertainment
Engine	Voxel Plus
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release date	November 21, 1997
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: T (Teen) USK: 16+ ELSPA: 15+ OFLC: M15+
Media	4 CD-ROMs or 1 DVD
System requirements	90 MHz CPU, 16 MB RAM, 2 MB video card RAM, 4X CD-ROM drive, DirectX 5.0, 150 MB available hard disk space, Windows 95 / Windows NT 4.0
Input methods	Keyboard, mouse

Blade Runner is a point and click adventure game, developed by Westwood Studios for the PC. Rather than re-tell the 1982 Blade Runner film, the developers created a different story set in the same universe, serving as a side story. The game was published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment and released in 1997.

The player assumes the role of "Blade Runner" Ray McCoy, who must hunt down a group of replicants—bioengineered beings—in 2019 Los Angeles. Although featuring a new story, a few of the film's characters are also in the game, with the original actors returning to voice them. Although the film's main character, Deckard, never appears in Blade Runner, he is referred to multiple times, and his recent activities are mentioned by non-player characters. Other parallels with the film include the in-game reproduction of several prominent locations, buildings, and scenes.

Blade Runner was advertised as "the first real time 3D adventure game," as the player's actions affected the outcome of the game, with thirteen possible endings. Though games at the time were reliant on 3D accelerators, Westwood created their own technology, called "voxel plus," which bypassed the need for a hardware 3D accelerator. Blade Runner received generally positive reviews, and was nominated for "Best Adventure Game" of 1997 at the PC Gamer awards.

Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Plot 3 Characters 4 Minor Characters 5 Development 6 Film references 7 Reception 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Gameplay

The game is played using a point-and-click system with the mouse and takes place in a third-person perspective.^[1] The game's main focus is on the detective work rather than puzzles, and the gameplay consists of searching for evidence or questioning suspects.^[2] Clue searching is a main element of the game; the player must solve a number of compulsory puzzles and find a number of clues in order to progress in the game's storyline.^[2] Clues are found by searching crime scenes and come in the form of items, photographs, personal interviews or unusual markings. The player can also use the ESPER system, a high-density computer with a very powerful three-dimensional resolution capacity: it enables the player to enhance photos and to find further crucial information.^[3]

Combat is needed at certain points during the game. There is one weapon in the game; Ray's standard issue police pistol. However different varieties of ammunition are available.^[4] Evidence is stored in McCoy's Knowledge Integration Assistant and is organised for easy reference. For instance, the Crime Scene Panel lists the crime scene along with known suspects and clues related to it.^[5] There are occasions when the player will carry out a Voight-Kampff test on suspects.^[6] When the machine determines that the subject is definitely a replicant or human, the test will end automatically.^[7] It is up to the player to act on the outcome and any action, or non-action, will affect the game's storyline.^[8]

The game runs in non-linear "real-time". This means that when McCoy goes about investigating and gathering clues, the computer controlled AI characters go about their own objectives.^[9] It is up to the player to decide how McCoy will react in different situations, such as interrogating or talking to characters, which all affect the storyline.^[9]

[edit] Plot

The game is set in Los Angeles, November 2019, shortly after the beginning of the film.^[2] The protagonist, Ray McCoy, is a rookie "Blade Runner" under command of Guzza,^[10] a police officer of superior rank. True to the film, the environment is similar, a dystopian, heavily polluted Los Angeles.^[2] McCoy is given the task of tracking down a group of replicants (bioengineered beings) who have killed real-live animals in a world where they are all but extinct.^[10] The player progresses through a number of crime scenes, where evidence must be gathered, which is a matter of being highly observant of the surroundings as well as using techniques typical of detectives.^[2]

During his investigations, McCoy discovers a black market gun runner and is framed for the murder of Izo by his superior, Lieutenant Guzza, who considers him dangerous to his business at the police station. Forced into hiding, McCoy explores the dark, decrepit underworld of 2019 Los Angeles, which allows him to make contact with the Replicant twins Luther and Lance; both former Tyrell employees, and break into the Tyrell Corporation pyramids. He does this in order to steal the basic DNA sequence for the NEXUS-6 replicant series. When the twins are given this data, they reward McCoy with a detailed report containing evidence of Guzza's crimes. McCoy uses this information to blackmail his former superior and force him to set his falsified record straight. Guzza is wounded during this face-off by the replicant Sadik's pulse rifle, and the the player must decide to either run away or perform a coup de grace on the lieutenant.

There are thirteen endings, with variations on three major themes, influenced by the player's actions throughout the game.^[11] The player can believe that the character, McCoy, is human and hunt down the replicants; or be persuaded that he's a replicant himself and side with them against the other Blade Runners; or stay neutral and flee the city.^[12]

[edit] Characters

Ray McCoy (voiced by Mark Benninghofen)^[13] is the game's protagonist and a rookie police officer.^[10] McCoy lives in an apartment building with his pet dog, Maggie, for whom he shows a great deal of affection. McCoy wears a light brown lounge suit, a dark tie and a brown trenchcoat. He uses a standard issue .45 blaster as his sidearm.

Crystal Steele (voiced by Lisa Edelstein)^[13] is one of the most effective police officers in the LAPD Blade Runner unit. She is an excellent markswoman and participates in undercover work. She refers to replicants as "skin-jobs" and is very much in favour of their extermination. Her attitude towards McCoy at the opening of the game is playful, with a considerable amount of condescension towards the rookie.

Gaff (voiced by Javier Grajed; credited as Victor Gardell)^[13] is a character originally presented in the film. He is a competent and older veteran cop who appears at various intervals to give advice to McCoy, who he seems to see as young and thus unpredictable.

Lieutenant Edison Guzza (voiced by Jeff Garlin)^[13] is the boorish, overweight superior to McCoy and in overall command of the Blade Runner unit following Bryant's sick leave. Guzza is rather unkempt and asocial, remaining in Bryant's office for most of Blade Runner's duration.

Clovis (voiced by Mark Rolston)^[13] is the leader of the renegade replicants on Earth. Clovis is a man of mystery - on one hand, he appears as a peaceful, highly educated man, eloquent and elegant, on the other he is sometimes a ruthless brute, capable of inhuman acts of aggression.

[edit] Minor Characters

Sadik, Zuben, Dektora, Luther & Lance (Siamese twins) and Gordo Frizz are the game's remaining replicants. Their characters develop in cut-scenes and the player's interactions with them. Their main goal is to evade "retirement", and to acquire the DNA sequences used to create them, which would allow them to live longer. Zuben works in Howie Lee's (the Japanese sushi restaurant seen at the film's beginning) as a chef; Dektora is a model/exotic dancer; and the twins are recently dismissed employees of the Tfyrell corporation turned wheeler dealers; mostly in the business of passing artificial animals off as the genuine article; and Gordo Frizz is a comedian.

Eldon Tyrell is a character originally presented in the film, the founder, CEO and owner of the Tyrell Corporation. He is a remarkable genius, being responsible for developing the basic DNA sequence for the NEXUS-6 series of replicants.

Lucy is a teenager who is unsure whether she is a replicant or a human, and is very concerned as to which she truly is. If she comes to interact with Ray, she grows very fond of him, seeing him as a dependable figure.

Rachael is Tyrell's secretary, and as with Rachael in the film, is a replicant who mimics humans extremely well; she is modeled after Tyrell's niece. She is well spoken, brusque, and appears only briefly within the game.

J.F. Sebastian is also similar to his film counterpart, a reclusive, genius, loner residing in the enormous, bleak and dilapidated Bradbury Building. He is accompanied only by his eerie robotic puppets and owns several futuristic devices, such as a synthetic egg creator. He is one of the chief scientists who assisted in the creation of the Nexus 6 replicant models.

Chew is a scientist who assisted the Tyrell corporation in the creation of replicants, unlike J.F Sebastian, his speciality is eyes. A man of Asian descent, but at the same time a wary, eccentric and cautious person. He conducts his work in a small laboratory opposite the twins' apartment. James Hong reprised his role.

Izo is a gun dealer of Asian descent specializing in the dealing of rare, high specification automatic guns. He supplies these weapons to the replicants and sympathizes with their cause. He also owns a Samurai sword, and when cornered he becomes highly aggressive.

Bob is a grizzled veteran of World War III. He mentions that he served for around three and a half years. He owns a gunshop across the street from Animoid Row, and is suffering from physical disabilities.

[edit] Development

The game design was ambitious for the technology at the time. In contrast to other games at that time the 2.5D game engine (meaning backgrounds were pre-rendered and only models are calculated in 3D) did not require or use hardware 3D graphics accelerators.^[14] Game designers, David Leary and James Walls,^[15] achieved this through a self-developed technology based on voxels (pixels with width, height and depth). They went with the idea and expanded it, calling it "Voxels Plus".^[12]

"When we told Intel that we were doing a 640x480, 65,000 color game that emulates true color, with a 16-bit Z-buffer and six channel CD-quality audio, they said you can't - the PCI bus can't support it... ...we hadn't even mentioned the 750,000 polygons for the characters yet."

—Louis Castle, executive vice president of Westwood Studios

Basically, instead of just having one two-dimensional voxel, dozens of rotating voxels were used in the shape and depth of the actual polygon model data, making it true real-time 3D without requiring 3D hardware. In layman's terms, it was piecing together flat "picture panels", rotating and positioning them in 3D-space thereby giving the illusion of a 3D object.^[12]

However, the technology had shortcomings. A powerful processor was required since the engine relied on the processor doing all the work of creating the 3D models. Since processor power at that time was limited, the 3D models looked quite rough in-game due to the low amount of voxels used to display them; had the number of voxels been raised to increase the detail the game would have become too slow to play. With the level of detail Westwood settled on, the game ran at a minimum of 15 FPS on slow systems.^[12]

The film's original soundtrack could not be secured for the game so Westwood brought in Frank Klepacki to recreate the feel of the film. He re-recorded the Blade Runner soundtrack as well as creating original tracks in the style of the film.^[12] Original cast members from the film returning for Cameo appearance voice overs include Sean Young as Rachael, Brion James as Leon, James Hong as Chew, Joe Turkel as Eldon Tyrell, and William Sanderson as J.F. Sebastian.^[16]

[edit] Film references

The developers did not simply re-tell the film scene by scene, but created a completely different story set in the Blade Runner universe.^[12] The game's script writers, David Yorkin and David Leary, produced a story that takes place at the same time as the film using familiar characters.^[15] Also included in the game are landmarks from the film, such as the dominating Tyrell Corporation pyramid structures, the Bradbury Theater, and the L.A.P.D.'s cylindrical skyscraper.^[12]

When the game begins, Deckard has already been sent off on his own assignment, and the player will hear references of his activities, though they never meet, so as to remain consistent with the film's plot.^[16] When visiting the Tyrell building, Rachael mentions that she has already spoken to another Blade Runner and Tyrell himself tells McCoy that "as I explained to Mr. Deckard earlier, I've given the Nexus 6 a past." One of Izo's pictures, taken at Animoid Row, shows Deckard in the background. While searching the Yukon hotel McCoy discovers Holden's badge and Guzza questions how Deckard missed it and goes onto to say "Deckard, he feels too much, ya' know? He's too far along that curve."^[16]

[edit] Reception

Critical reception of the game has been generally positive. In the Science Fiction Weekly review, Peter Suciu awarded the game A+, highlighting that the "computer-generated setting of Blade Runner is simply one of the best," and "an outstandingly enjoyable adventure simulation."^[9] Game Revolution's Marke Cooke stated that the game "is one of the best adventure games out there," and gave it an A- score.^[17] Chris Pickering, in his Adventure Gamers' review, praised the game for its "glorious aesthetics, intriguing storyline, and well implemented controls." giving the game 4.5 stars (out of five).^[8]

RPGFan gave the game an overall rating of 93%, praising the game for "the best pre-rendered backgrounds..." with "rain, spotlights, Spinners or blimps advertising off-world vacations. The crisp images never fail to dazzle." The review went on to criticise the graphics, saying they can become a "tad blurry and pixilated..." close up, yet it was pointed out that "this doesn't detract too much from these otherwise stunning visuals."^[1] In his review for PC Zone Paul Pressley gave the game a score of 8.8 (out of ten) and stated that "the story is strong and intelligent enough to compensate for the problems I have with the technical side of the game..." and "while I'd argue that the challenge could have been a lot higher, it's by no means an easy game and the urge to keep playing is there. The multiple ending factor also helps."^[11] The game achieved a 3.5/5 rating at Quandary, where Rosemary Young pointed out that "though some aspects of Blade Runner aren't all that sophisticated, it is worth considering for fans of 'hard-edged' crime/science fiction."^[2]

In the Gamespot review, Ron Dulin gave the game a 6.0 score (out of ten) and stated that the game was "an interesting mood piece, built upon some very detailed graphic work and an interesting premise — but somewhere along the production line, someone forgot to include a game."^[6] Duncan Harris emphasised, in his Computer and Video Games article 'Blade Runner: A classic revisited,' that "critics may have been divided over the means by which you got there: a logical trail of clues, many of which were less the result of detective work than blind luck and idle exploration...", "But you couldn't deny that here, for once, was a movie tie-in which put the movie first, dismissing thoughts of its own genre and letting the subject dictate the design. With its insular thinking, it's something the games industry all too rarely sees."^[14] The game was nominated for "Best Adventure Game" of 1997 in the PC Gamer awards in 1998, but lost out to The Curse of Monkey Island.^[18]

[edit] References

• Blade Runner Game manual, Westwood Studios / Virgin Games, 1997.

[edit] External links

• Blade Runner Zone – Hosted by BRmovie.com
• BladeZone – Blade Runner the Game
• BRmovie.com – Blade Runner FAQ
• GameRankings reviews
• Blade Runner at MobyGames

v • d • e The Blade Runner series Novels Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? · The Edge of Human · Replicant Night · Eye and Talon Games/comics The Blade Runner videogame · A Marvel Comics Super Special: Blade Runner Characters Rick Deckard · Eldon Tyrell · Gaff · Rachael · Roy Batty · Leon Kowalski · Pris · Zhora · J.F. Sebastian Locations Tyrell Corporation · Bradbury Building · Tannhauser Gate Cast Harrison Ford · Rutger Hauer · Sean Young · Edward James Olmos · Daryl Hannah Crew Ridley Scott · Hampton Fancher · Michael Deeley · David Peoples Other topics Philip K. Dick · Vangelis · Soundtrack · Themes · Versions · Replicants · Voight-Kampff machine · Spinner Related articles Soldier  · Postmodernism · Cyberpunk · Cult film