Initially arriving about twelve years after Blade Runner came out in cinemas this always seemed like somewhat of an odd project from Westwood studios. Perhaps, even more strangely, it’s now beenr resurrected again and ported to consoles. The story runs parallel to the movie and follows detective McCoy as he investigates as number of crimes that may be related to an as yet unknown group of replicants. McCoy must gather clues and interrogate suspects as he searches for the truth, whatever that may be.
Blade Runner always was a massively ambitious game
with a lot of care and attention has spent on it to keep everything in synch
with the world portrayed by Ridley Scott and written about by Philippe K Dick.
Voice actors from the original film such as Sean Young, James Hong and Joe
Turkel return to add presence to their characters that feature again here.
Choice cuts from the original Blade Runner soundtrack are present as well.
The cinematic quality of the movie is also
replicated with a number of sweeping shots similar to its on screen counterpart.
Locations from the film, as well as small scenes, such as the bicycles riding
through the rain, are further used to make players feel they are inside the
real Blade Runner world. As far as authenticity goes this game really cannot be
faulted.
The game itself is a little removed from what we
consider to be a traditional point and click adventure. There are very few
actual puzzles to solve and even a few shooting sequences thrown in. Players
make their way through the story by collecting clues, using the ESPER photo
analysis machine (just like in the film) and talking to suspects. The game has
six different endings and your clues can draw you in a number of very different
directions. Certain events happen in real though, which can leave
players guessing as they were busy investigating a different location when something
goes down.
Unfortunately, the titles ambition never wasn’t
executed quite as well as it could have been. On quite a few occasions you can
be staring at a pile of clues and not really knowing where you should be
heading. It is also far too easy to stumble onto a certain path without really
knowing, or agreeing, with what your character may end up doing. It can all be
just a bit too confusing at times. It’s also fairly short and just when you
feel you are stacking up a decent set of clues you suddenly and abruptly arrive
at the end of the game anyway.
We would have liked to have seen a little bit more
patience from the developers to let players fully develop their opinion about
what is going on. Far too often events happen too quickly and you end up thrust
into a situation that seems to force the narrative along rather than letting
the player do it. Certain sections of the game are also very hard and
frustrating.
Criticism aside, the investigation you undertake
really is interesting. All the characters are well acted and intriguing to
interrogate and McCoy is convincing as the confused detective. The control
system also works very well and looking through your clues and piecing together
bits of information is satisfying. The combat is reasonable as well and more
than adequate for the amount of shooting you end up doing.
The big sticking point is a
flawed but ambitious game has now been ported to a less than ideal platform and
it hasn’t been done in a massively successful way. For starters there are very
few instructions about how anything works – this game really needed a digital
manual. You also have an interface which really is not a decent replacement for
a mouse and also there are no real quality of life features either. Playing
this on the Switch screen really needs some kind of highlight button to show up
objects within the scenes.
Fans of the film and book should still definitely
check this out though. Sections of the novel that didn't make it into the movie
are worked into the story here and the fan service is really worth
appreciating. The game may not be perfect but it never stops being interesting
and those six endings are going to take a real amount of brain power to track
down. Any adventure game fan up for a challenge and something a little different
shouldn't be disappointed. But, you really should be playing it on PC if
you can.
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