Blade Runner

15 years after the premiere of "Blade Runner", Westwood Studios produced an adventure game with the same amount. However, it has little in common with the cult film directed by Ridley Scott and Philip K. Dick's novel inspired by filmmakers. The game, the book and the film are connected above all by a gloomy vision of the near future.

The action Blade Runner takes place in Los Angeles in 2019. The android hunter, the detective Roy McCoy is assigned the task of finding a group of replicants suspected of killing animals. Unexpectedly, the investigation reveals uncomfortable facts. Corruption is spreading among hunters, and the superior of the main character, Lieutenant Guzza, is also involved in it. Protecting his interests, he accuses his subordinate of causing the death of a civilian. Forced to escape, detective McCoy discovers the dark side of the city.

The game was advertised as the first three-dimensional real time adventure and although it sounds noisy, the creators of Blade Runner managed to fulfill this promise to some extent. Original Voxel Plus engine allows to render three-dimensional models of characters, which distinguishes Westwood Studios production from the competition with pre-rendered graphics.

The game differs from the typical point & click adventure, full of more or less complicated puzzles. The basis of the game is the collection of evidence and the hearing of witnesses. The main character visits other places of crime, where he tries to collect traces, in which various types of forensic instruments turn out to be helpful. Equally important is the ability to draw information from NPCs, of which there are more than seventy. Fighting is a side, but in a few places an indispensable element of the game. The McCoy Detective, whose actions are directed by the player, has at his disposal only an ordinary police gun and several types of ammunition.

The game is characterized by a non-linear storyline. Depending on the choices made by the main character, the creators predicted 13 possible endings. Some of them depend on the actions controlled by the NPC's artificial intelligence, which appear in the game over seventy. The advantage of Blade Runner is the climatic soundtrack, composed by Frank Klepacki, who specializes in creating music for computer games. Original English dubbing is a class by itself. Detective Ray McCoy speaks with the voice of actor Mark Benninghofen, whose western players have often heard in popular radio and television commercials. Fans of the series "Dr. House" easily recognize the voice of Lisa Edelstein (Dr. Cuddy's series), who in the game played the role of Crystal Steele.

Adventure maintained in the atmosphere of the film "Android Hunter" received very favorable reviews among critics. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences recognized Blade Runner as the best adventure game of 1998.

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Last updated on August 14, 2015