When Other Games Chased Polygons, Blade Runner Chased Atmosphere

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨PerfectDark@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/12752829-6291-463f-be44-32a410a994ae.png

Just a little article from me today. I’ve been enjoying a few cyberpunkish things recently:

Psycho-Pass
Dark Rain
Cyberpunk 2077

…which reminded me that there was a semi-recent effort at bringing the classic Blade Runner PC game from 1997 to a new era of gaming. It didn’t land very well (everyone hated the smoothed graphics nonsense they did for it), but on a subsequent update they did fix that.

Anyway, that recollection led to me installing it on my OLED Switch, which then made me appreciate the atmosphere and environments, the beautiful backgrounds and so on. The backgrounds in this game are truly top-notch.

SO, if you’d like a little rambling about how Westwood went against the grain when 3D gaming was really taking off, and instead focused on a point-and-click adventure, then follow the link as per usual:

gardinerbryant.com/when-other-games-chased-polygo…

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Comments

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ivanafterall@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
This game blew me away. First game I recall over 1 GB, so it took me awhile to finally be able to play it. I spent so much time on that rainy balcony listening to Vangelis’ Blade Runner Blues. So few games have approached its level of ambiance for me.

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- Hadriscus@jlai.lu ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  oh yes, the rain, the neons, and the loneliness of these rooftops. I need to replay it now. It left a very strong impression on 8yo me.
  
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- binarytobis@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I wish Vangelis’ other music had been like their Blade Runner music.
  
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robomuffin79@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Didn’t have a PC then so missed it. Anyone if it can be downloaded from anywhere? Plus Dune 2 - loved playing that on my Amiga

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- jackal@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  It’s on Steam …steampowered.com/…/Blade_Runner_Enhanced_Edition…
  
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  - Flagstaff@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    This kind of review is what turns me off to the risk of buying and trying:
    
    Blade Runner is one of those adventure games that I somehow missed when it originally came out, and I’ve been hearing for years how good it is, but in reality… it’s not. It’s got all the stuff people hated about adventure games back in the day - events that can result in insta-death, “puzzles” that don’t make sense in the narrative, countless ways to soft-lock your game…
    
    It’s so infuriating to just be getting into the vibe of the game, only to loop back round every location, speak to every person, examine every clue, finally turn to a walkthrough, realize you did everything right but for whatever random bugged reason the characters who are supposed to spawn just sometimes don’t spawn and there is nothing you can do. Searching online you can find message board posts going back almost 30 years complaining that they got stuck in some place or another and the only solution is to restart the game from the beginning and hope the random number generator doesn’t mess up your playthrough again. Epic waste of time.
    
    I can totally see how you might get lucky and have a playthrough where there is no soft-lock, and have an awesome time. The graphics are excellent and the cyberpunk aesthetic is spot-on. But making an adventure game with random bugged elements is such a self-own, and the age of this one is no excuse - by 1997 LucasArts had already been putting out modern adventures for 5+ years! I can’t really recommend this unless you are a massive Blade Runner fan, it’s just too frustrating by today’s standards.
    
    … versus just watching someone who has already perfectly figured out the game play through it on YouTube.
    
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  - robomuffin79@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    🙏🏼
    
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  - massive_bereavement@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Wasn't there some drama related to the enhanced version, similarly to what happened with Gabriel Knight?
    
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- darreninthenet@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  GOG has it - https://www.gog.com/en/game/blade_runner
  
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  - robomuffin79@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    🙏🏼
    
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Lydon_Feen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I own the og PC big box version. Bought it at a small store near my house, and it’s a truly great game.

Isn’t there a new Blade Runner game being developed that was teased some time ago?

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thingsiplay@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The first cyberpunk (with magic and fantasy mixed) game I played was Shadowrun on the SNES. The Blade Runner game is definitely something a game I missed back then and wish had experienced it in that time period. Maybe I prefer the ScummVM version based on Windows CD with 1.8gb size, just so I can play it in RetroArch with my favorite configuration and shaders to mimic an old screen.

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binarytobis@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Loved this game when I was younger.

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Hammerjack@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I know psycho-pass and cyberpunk 2077, but what’s Dark Rain?

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- PerfectDark@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  While not technically cyberpunk, or even at all, it is a fantastic film done by Ridley Scott in 1989. The neons and night time of Japan will remind you of Blade Runner!
  
  www.themoviedb.org/movie/4105-black-rain
  
  Definitely worth watching the trailer:
  
  www.youtube.com/watch?v=70Gv1C8dPGs
  
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