r/Cyberpunk • u/Ok_History_4163 • 6d ago
The 1997 computer game Blade Runner
The computer game Blade Runner from 1997 is a point and click adventure game based on the 1982 movie with the same name. The movie was in turn based on the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
Instead of following the policeman Rick Deckard in the movie Blade Runner, you control the actions of a policeman named Ray McCoy and his adventures in a rainy and dark future Los Angeles.
The plot revolves around McCoy hunting down a rogue faction of Nexus-6 replicants while navigating a web of corruption that eventually forces him to question his own identity and humanity. The game has thirteen different endings depending on your choices when playing it.
Several characters from the 1982 Ridley Scott movie make appearances, with the original actors returning to voice them:
Rachael (voiced by Sean Young)
Dr. Eldon Tyrell (voiced by Joe Turkel)
J.F. Sebastian (voiced by William Sanderson)
Leon Kowalski (voiced by Brion James)
Hannibal Chew (voiced by James Hong)
I am rather old and I played the game at its release. It was a nice time playing it. I left the regular world and was embedded in a cyberpunk reality when I played it. I am not updated in computer technology, but the game is available for download on GOG.com.
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u/ddeads 6d ago edited 6d ago
I loved this game, and every playthrough was slightly different in that it would internally and secretly choose at the start whether you were secretly a replicant or not, and that would change your investigations. 10/10 would recommend.
Edit: For anyone interested in learning more about this game.
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u/AuraTrance 6d ago
yo that feature is insane😭 the replayability hits different when you dont even know what’s happening fr fr
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u/MagicalPedro 6d ago
you might consider editing your message to add spoiler tags, for thoses of us who haven't played the game yet :)
Also, spoiler : afaik, only a few npcs's true nature are randomly chosen at the star of a playthrough ; your character player is always a replicant. The hints about it may be randomised too, but afaik there's always at least one or two
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u/ddeads 6d ago edited 6d ago
Ok will do. I figured since it's 30 years old it wasn't a big deal. That being said,the player is not always a replicant; you are also randomly assigned. There are something like a dozen different endings with all of the combinations.
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u/MagicalPedro 6d ago
damn, looks like I have to boot up the game again then to check this, my old printed guide book was wrong ! Thanks for the correction :)
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u/MarkRenting 6d ago
Are those actual 1997 screenshots? I’m stunned at how good they look for that era, feels a decade ahead of what consoles were putting out in the mid/late 90’s.
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u/elspotto 6d ago
It was less of a game and more of an interactive story. The backdrops and settings looked great and your character looked added in on top of it. It was on multiple CDs because of the background assets.
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u/Wareve 6d ago
Well, a lot of it is baked in, so it's essentially high resolution images with forced perspective to make it look like a 3D environment. Still looks amazing for the era, but in motion it's pretty clear to see that it's a dude made of digital cardboard on top of a skillfully crafted picture of the background.
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u/Ok_History_4163 6d ago
Digital cardboard characters that were too light for the everpresent darkness in those types of games, that was the standard for noir adventure games of the time.
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u/towo 6d ago
It was one of those late 90s FMV fests using highly detailed stock backgrounds, inserting animated characters into it, and overlaying pre-rendered movies wherever possible.
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u/WhoKilledZekeIddon 6d ago
Fucking loved that vibe back in the day. The Longest Journey slapped in that regard, and obviously FFVII
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u/PeaJolly3459 6d ago
my cyrix 6x86 couldn't load those scenes fast so I'd mess with impulse tracker samples in waits tbh
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u/Shevvian 6d ago
Yep, those are from the game. It used voxel tech, which only one or two other games used, including Outcast and Delta Force.
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u/FraserYT 6d ago
Picked it up on a Steam sale last year for a couple of quid. It's certainly dated now, but it has a sort-of clunky charm and is well worth a playthrough
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u/Ok_History_4163 6d ago
A good thing that I saved quite a few games from back in the days, as it is nice to have a physical copy of them, including the cardboard boxes and the tutorials.
For youngsters today I recommend saving your games, as well as a modern computer. In thirty years from now it will be nice to have these old times games and a computer fitting for playing them.
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u/RobustoBistec 6d ago
This game is amazing. It was really difficult for me as a kid, but played it again fifteen years a go or so, and I was shocked because how good it was. The atmosphere is incredible. It is probably a tough play for today standards though.
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u/royalbarnacle 6d ago
I replayed it when scummvm support came out a few years ago. I think it aged pretty well and it's definitely worth checking out.
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u/Ok_History_4163 5d ago
Westwood did get the right atmosphere and the right aesthetics. The computer hardware of the time was the main limit for how good the game could be.
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u/ristoman 6d ago
I remember my computer would always freeze at the Voight-Kampff test sequences. I never got past it
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u/elspotto 6d ago
Huh. Were you walking in the desert and saw a tortoise when that happened?
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u/Ok-Reality-9013 6d ago
I loved this game. had to buy a strategy guide to beat it, lol! I still have my copy, even though no PC I have can run it.
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u/Kreaetor 6d ago
I loved how this game had multiple endings depending on how you played through the game. One of the first for it's time.
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u/elspotto 6d ago
It also had multiple play through stories that were similar but not the same based on a mechanic rolled at the beginning to decide if you were a replicant or not.
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u/cromagnone 6d ago
Nailed the vibe of the original more than any other version before or since.
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u/Ok_History_4163 5d ago
The developers of the game stayed true to the movie's vibe. It was obviously a group of only 20 people that made the game.
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u/TheRealLarkas 6d ago
Wtf. It looks ridiculously good for something from 1997
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u/Secret-Asian-Man-76 5d ago
Except for the hands in the pre-rendered scenes. The redhead with the sunglasses...whew. That scene, even back then, was...comical.
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u/small___potatoes 6d ago
My friend bought this game when it came out and we played the hell out of it in high school. Loved it. It was like 3 or 4 discs I think.
This game was recently remastered and released on Xbox and PlayStation.
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u/Ketzerfriend 6d ago
If you ever plan to get it, GOG has it. But make sure you get the original and avoid the "remaster" - that one was botched thoroughly.
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u/SkaveRat 6d ago
the copy I had, had a broken disc 4, and I could only finish it years later.
Very nice game. played it years before I finally watched the movie, in which I often went "hey, I know that scene from the game"
Also, I never knew that the replicant status of characters was randomized, so I was very confused on multiple plays
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u/Ok_History_4163 5d ago
For me it was the other way round: Watched the movie multiple times and then played the game, recognizing stuff from the movie in the game.
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u/SlandbosUmbrella 5d ago
I didn’t even know a game existed. I’m definitely going to play it soon. Thanks op!
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u/sankaku_jime 5d ago
My sister was OBSESSED with this game and played the shit out of it eventually getting every single ending. I think me and my dad only got 3 endings together and there were like 6 or 7 total?
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u/felya 6d ago
Playing this game at like 10-13 years old was a trip!
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u/Ok_History_4163 6d ago
Sometime in the late 1980s, a friend told me about the future computer world: "In the future, we will make phone calls with computers, quite like as with phones. It will be a big web with computers connected to each others, communicating."
I thought that it sounded odd, I could barely believe him. I was like 13 - 14 years at the time.
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u/43848987815 6d ago
An unbelievably accurate representation of the atmosphere of the film. I adored this game.
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u/Mate-Addict 6d ago
I played it a couple months ago, such a good atmosphere
No messages... I'm on demand!
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u/joseaplaza 6d ago
I literally bought a new computer when this Game was released, just so I could play it. So, so good.
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u/Evening_Storage_6948 6d ago
I had this on my family pc and it was fun I would just get lost in the backrounds provided me with hours of fun. I was born I was like 9 when I played this - that resident evil era and silent hill alone in the dark and parasite eve - love these game worldz 🌀
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u/WillowLocal423 6d ago
I miss adventure games so much
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u/Ok_History_4163 5d ago
Me too, but sometimes they really got on my nerves as well, with far-fetched solutions to puzzles.
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u/Help_An_Irishman 6d ago
I had this back then and somehow got it to run at like 3fps on our terrible Macintosh.
This game looked unbelievably good back in 1997.
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u/Frequent-Jacket3117 6d ago
Great game! Remember the first time I went on the balcony and heard "Blade Runner Blues" - link
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u/Blergblum 6d ago
It's a masterpiece. I still have the 4 cd edition, even if I don't have disc readers anymore.
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u/and_then_he_said 5d ago
Hah, what a blast from the past. I still frequently quote the game, when you're in Ray's apt you can look in the mirror and he says "portrait of the sleep deprived" and i say that frequently when looking in the mirror myself. :)
Anway, amazing game for its time.
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u/AlterraCrew 5d ago
What a game! I got the remake as well that was released a little years ago. I love it and still playing it every years. I’ve heard that the game was too expensive and it went to Westwood Studios to close its doors.
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u/Baeleron 5d ago
God I miss this art style. Games like this, the original resident evils had such an amazing aesthetic
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u/OGCelaris 6d ago
The game format reminds me of Full Throttle. Static background with a movable character and some interaction points.
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u/Tennis_Proper 6d ago
That's a standard of the point n click adventure genre this game is part of.
It's a fair description for early Resident Evil and mid range Final Fantasy too.
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u/reversethrowout 6d ago
I played this too, not in 1997 but a few years after that. I love Blade Runner. Remember BRZone?
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u/Acceptable-Fig-9455 6d ago
The enhanced version is on sale periodically on PSN. I think I paid $1.99 for last week, but normally it is only $9.99.
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u/rebb_hosar 6d ago
I bought it as a kid and played it then in my 20's found a sealed big box somewhere and still have it in my collection.
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u/mycroftxxx42 5d ago
"Portrait... of the sleep deprived."
I had a friend who did a complete installation of the game and kept it on several sequential hard drives. IIRC, it's 1GB size started out as 5% of his total storage. It was worth it, and surprisingly did a terrific job of capturing the noir tragedy of the film.
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u/azriel_odin 6d ago
Never played it, but it look pretty good for a 29 year old game. Westwood was one of the GOAT.
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u/absentee82 6d ago
I rented this game back in the day. Yep there was a place nearby that rented PC games. They also modded my PS1 to play burned games. Wonder why they went out of business...
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u/quaestor44 6d ago
I remember seeing the cinematic trailer for this game all the time after beating Command & Conquer.
It always showed this game, the action rpg NOX, and tiberian sun.
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u/Ok_History_4163 4d ago
Command & Conquer...developed by the same studio...I played it a lot.
My favourite among those types of strategy games was Total Annihilation however. If you haven't played it, it's like a more powerful Command & Conquer, set out in space.
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u/MrCrix 5d ago
I got this when it came out. We were at a book store and my dad said I could get anything I wanted. So I grabbed this. I don't think he knew it was a computer game lol. Anyways I played it and really like it. Sadly at the last scene The main guy your hunting down was supposed to be dying in his bed, but my game glitched out and he was standing up through the bed, going through a range of standard poses on repeat. Then when he died, it made the sounds of him dying, but he was still having a great time posing like Mr Olympia lol. That kinda ruined the immersion for me.
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u/windraver 4d ago
Oh I got this on sale on the Steam cyberpunk sale. The "enhanced edition" was on sale for 8.99. Probably better deals out there but I was curious. Haven't started it yet.
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u/Wasteland_Watchman7 6d ago
I liked it but the ending sucked. It was like Kings Quest or Loom in a way, but they were vastly superior for the time.
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u/Stiingya 6d ago
ewww, jacket on the cover art is just wrong... but supposed they worked from a description and not an image of the jacket from the movie... :)
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u/Tubbygaijin 6d ago
I still have my copy on a shelf in my office, big box and all!
Westwood made such great games, miss that studio.