I've been meaning to play this damned game close to the time it came out, but there was always a reason that prohibited me from doing so. As a kid in 1999, I didn't have a PC close to running it, and I knew nothing about PC gaming back then anyway. And then for a great many years, the game was practically lost to time; non-compatible with Windows after 2000 and thus excruciatingly difficult to run. And then lo and behold, Blade Runner was made available to purchase and play in 2019, thanks to a fan project that strived for years to reverse-engineer the game's complex engine. I made a digital purchase sharpish and then... never played it. Why? I don't rightly know. Maybe it was the weight of expectations. I had waited for the opportunity to experience something I had desired to play for so long, and now that I had the chance, I was too daunted to do so. And so it went into my backlog. And then a remaster was announced. And not just for PC, but all the major consoles no less! I'm much more comfortable playing games on console than PC, and so I waited a few extra months for what I thought would be the definitive version. I bought the Enhanced Edition literally hours after it dropped on the PlayStation Store, with the full intention of playing it in the foreseeable future. That was until reports started coming in about how poor the remaster itself was. Nightdive had apparently done a subpar job of bringing Blade Runner to modern audiences, with butchered updated visuals, rampant bugs and limited overall options provided to the player.
So why did I play it now? Well, Nightdive eventually got around to fixing their remaster. They released a major patch for the PC version and then recently did the same for the console ports. They worked on the remaster to the extent that it is now the best way to play Westwood's Blade Runner, as far as I know anyway. And so I did it! I finally fucking did it. I played through Blade Runner the video game. I reached the end credits. Hell, I even got the platinum. And like a weight off my shoulders, I can now check it off the backlog list.
So was it worth the wait? For the most part... oh yes! As someone who relishes games heavy on atmosphere, Blade Runner has it in spades and then some. It is an incredibly immersive experience that does an impeccable job of replicating the mood of the movie, even better than the sequel did. Way better in fact. Protagonist Ray McCoy's investigation takes place alongside the events of the first film, and Westwood didn't miss a beat in convincing me that this is the same dirty, dystopian Los Angeles that Ridley Scott presented to the world in 1982. The blurry voxel character models aside, it's a game that holds up visually, even on a big 4K television screen. Every location, pre-rendered, deliberately framed and packed with details authentic to the source material, is a pleasure to merely gawp at, let alone interact with. It truly is a wet dream for any aficionado of the first movie, and I imagine playing this in 1997 was mind-blowing.
Gameplay wise, Blade Runner fares less well. As a point-and-click adventure game with emphasis placed on story, dialogue and presentation, systems and mechanics of immense complexity were never going to be its forte. I barely engaged in the gunplay during my playthrough, which is fine because it's as strategically braindead as you can get. Taking down an enemy consists of little more than awkwardly pointing a cursory at someone and hoping you get lucky. There's also very little in the way of actual puzzle solving. The game has an element of randomisation in terms of which characters are replicants and when/where characters will appear, with one of 12 endings to stumble upon by the end. But whatever denouement you get is largely dictated by the amount of clues you pick up along the way rather than using items from your inventory with the environment like a conventional game of the genre. I'm not entirely sure this plays fully to the strengths of inhabit the role of a detective. There's a lot of picking things up, but not much figuring things out.
Still, while the randomization sometimes gets in the way of having a sturdier narrative, the story largely delivers on the neo-noir front. McCoy makes for an engaging main character, one who's actually more likeable and understanding than his movie counterpart (depending on what decisions you make I suppose), and seeing him exchange barbs with the colourful cast or muse on the time he once had a real egg that tasted like "liquid sunshine" does a lot to endear the player to him. The tension scales up nicely in the last couple of chapters, and despite an unfortunately rushed last act, I was engaged from beginning to end.
So yeah, worth the wait. It's unfortunate that Westwood never got the opportunity to make a sequel, and doubly unfortunate that they folded under the ownership of EA. There's a lot of adventure games out there, but not one quite like this. If you have even the slightest bit of fandom for the Blade Runner IP, then I strongly recommend you try this game out if you haven't yet. What the hell are you waiting for?!
(More of an 8.75 than a 9)
So why did I play it now? Well, Nightdive eventually got around to fixing their remaster. They released a major patch for the PC version and then recently did the same for the console ports. They worked on the remaster to the extent that it is now the best way to play Westwood's Blade Runner, as far as I know anyway. And so I did it! I finally fucking did it. I played through Blade Runner the video game. I reached the end credits. Hell, I even got the platinum. And like a weight off my shoulders, I can now check it off the backlog list.
So was it worth the wait? For the most part... oh yes! As someone who relishes games heavy on atmosphere, Blade Runner has it in spades and then some. It is an incredibly immersive experience that does an impeccable job of replicating the mood of the movie, even better than the sequel did. Way better in fact. Protagonist Ray McCoy's investigation takes place alongside the events of the first film, and Westwood didn't miss a beat in convincing me that this is the same dirty, dystopian Los Angeles that Ridley Scott presented to the world in 1982. The blurry voxel character models aside, it's a game that holds up visually, even on a big 4K television screen. Every location, pre-rendered, deliberately framed and packed with details authentic to the source material, is a pleasure to merely gawp at, let alone interact with. It truly is a wet dream for any aficionado of the first movie, and I imagine playing this in 1997 was mind-blowing.
Gameplay wise, Blade Runner fares less well. As a point-and-click adventure game with emphasis placed on story, dialogue and presentation, systems and mechanics of immense complexity were never going to be its forte. I barely engaged in the gunplay during my playthrough, which is fine because it's as strategically braindead as you can get. Taking down an enemy consists of little more than awkwardly pointing a cursory at someone and hoping you get lucky. There's also very little in the way of actual puzzle solving. The game has an element of randomisation in terms of which characters are replicants and when/where characters will appear, with one of 12 endings to stumble upon by the end. But whatever denouement you get is largely dictated by the amount of clues you pick up along the way rather than using items from your inventory with the environment like a conventional game of the genre. I'm not entirely sure this plays fully to the strengths of inhabit the role of a detective. There's a lot of picking things up, but not much figuring things out.
Still, while the randomization sometimes gets in the way of having a sturdier narrative, the story largely delivers on the neo-noir front. McCoy makes for an engaging main character, one who's actually more likeable and understanding than his movie counterpart (depending on what decisions you make I suppose), and seeing him exchange barbs with the colourful cast or muse on the time he once had a real egg that tasted like "liquid sunshine" does a lot to endear the player to him. The tension scales up nicely in the last couple of chapters, and despite an unfortunately rushed last act, I was engaged from beginning to end.
So yeah, worth the wait. It's unfortunate that Westwood never got the opportunity to make a sequel, and doubly unfortunate that they folded under the ownership of EA. There's a lot of adventure games out there, but not one quite like this. If you have even the slightest bit of fandom for the Blade Runner IP, then I strongly recommend you try this game out if you haven't yet. What the hell are you waiting for?!
(More of an 8.75 than a 9)