Talk:Blade Runner (video game)

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Contents

[edit] Page fix

Merged and fixed this from new page Blade Runner (computer game), and changed new page to redirect:

Blade Runner is an adventure game created by Westwood Studios in 1997. It portrays Los Angeles in a dystopic future the year 2019.

The story commence with Blade Runner Roy McCoy at the scene of his first assignment; the murder of an animal. The reason for putting a Blade Runner as McCoy on the case is that the way the murder was carried out a replicant is suspected to be the perpetrator. As the story unfolds McCoy finds clues in other cases all pointing toward the same target.

-Wikibob | Talk 09:05, 2004 Jun 12 (UTC)

[edit] Loosely or strongly based on film?

hmm, first it says loosely based on the game, then later it says strongly. Which is it?

Having read the book, seen the movie and played the game I can say it is closer to the book than the movie but at the same time is strongly tied to the movie. It's really the best of both worlds perfectly incorporating both the storylines (book and movie) and immersing the player in the distinct enviroment of gritty Blader Runner LA

I would say that it is set in and factualy and chronoligicaly faithful to the world of the movie. However, many elements of the book, which were absent in the movie are incoroprated within the game, enriching its context and setting.

[edit] C64 Game?

I'm wondering if anyone else remembers the video game Blade Runner for the C64 which basically involved running down a street shooting at androids while avoiding people running towards you. It also featured 80-column text on the 40-column C64. If anyone has screenshots or other information, it might be nice to add as a sidenote. --Myke Cuthbert 16:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Unusually for its time?"

The article claims that "unusually for its time, Blade Runner featured full voice acting for all dialogue". Er ... full voice acting for all dialogue had been a staple of the early CD-ROM games of the 90's. By the time Blade Runner came out (on four CDs, no less, leaving plenty of space for sampled dialogue, even with the high amount of FMV sequences), full voice dialogue was nigh a STAPLE of CD-ROM games, not unusual. 195.184.109.162 10:58, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

You are correct, Multimedia Adventure Games / Multimedia CD-ROMs were everywhere. Practically 3 out of every 4 games from 1996 and earlier used filmed video and audio voice acting, often poorly too (hehe). So it was not "unusual for its time", you are also right that multimedia CD-ROM games were on the downfall when Blade Runner came out. I remember this period vividly and they were not that popular anymore around 1997 when this was released. At most 1 of every 5 games or so bothered to make use of the "old school" video/audio adventure technology. --217.73.106.170 14:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Red Alert References

I did upload a screenshot that I took on my own copy of the game, home machine. Unfortunately I'm a complete noob when it comes to all aspects of Wikipedia so don't know whether it's OK to be uploaded...The link is Image:Bladerunner redalert.JPG (Screen grab taken directly from game.)Bry159 00:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Game Engine

Touted as the biggest innovation of the game was its engine, which was able to display 3D objects without using 3D hardware. Yet nothing had been written on it. I've written a paragraph and linked to a Westwood developer interview from PC-Gamer (1997). Feel free to rewrite my paragraph on the engine as I have proofread it just about as many times as one man can do without going insane, if there are mistakes, feel free to fix them. :) --217.73.106.170 14:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all the edits, D-Katana! You did a fine job, it was exactly what I requested. I was going blind from having written all that, then proofread it over and over again, changed some wordings here and there and then proofread again. So getting some outside influence was much appreciated! It has been edited again for language and quality, as well as slight (but very correct) POV in saying that Westwood released their engine too late. Fact: It was aimed at a market void of 3D accelerators, and was hyped up as a revolutionary technology that would bring 3D to everyone who couldn't afford 3D accelerators. But when the engine came out, 3D accelerators were starting to become common and interest in the engine was shallow. --217.73.106.170 17:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Much of the Game Engine section is incorrect. Specifically, it makes many claims that 3d graphics aren't possible without 3d accelerator hardware, which is incorrect. 3d graphics can be rendered with a software renderer (Quake was one of the first fully 3d games and initially it only supported software rendering). Totsugeki 23:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Umm yeah. It makes it sound like 3D didn't exist before hardware accelerators, and generally sounds like the rantings of someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. 3D was quite ubiquitous before 3D hardware. Doom, Descent, Duke 3D, Quake and Mechwarrior 2 are just a few examples. And software rendering still persisted for years after 3D hardware became available. Quake 2, Unreal and Half Life for example all supported 3D cards but still maintaned software renderers. In fact Unreal was quite notable for its very advanced sofware rendering for its time, fully supporting 16-bit color, transparency and colored lighting, it rivaled hardware rendering in visual quality. Hell, as recently as UT2004 software rendering is still available with the Unreal engine, via the Pixomatic middleware...

Anyway, the reality is, polygon rendering is actually less resource intensive than voxel rendering. That's why polygons have been and still are widely used and voxels are not. Voxels do have the potential for higher quality rendering, and can do some things easily that polygons can't, but it comes at a cost. 71.87.39.165 (talk) 22:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] VG Canon?

Is the Blade Runner VG canon or what? 87.113.17.121 21:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article quality; cites; answer to Canon question above

Due to to the large amount of information available in the article, its general conciseness, infobox, character info etc. Where is this "lack of key element"? Do others agree that it should be upgraded to about B-Class in terms of quality due to a mostly NPOV prose style/lots of information? As to it's inclusion in Wikipedia 1.0 - surely one of the last notable adventure games ought to have a place there? Perhaps the profile should be upgraded there too - after all the adventure genre (as of May 2007) is fairly historic, and as yet the adventure game genre has not regained any sort of mantle on the gaming scene in general.

However there is more to be done - a close up of say...Clovis or Zubik would be good (one can obtain a picture of Clovis's face early in the game, or just screenshot the FMV sequences concisely.) Ray McCoy is unnecessary; prominently displayed on the cover of the game which we have. Crystal Steele too, is easy to obtain from an early FMV "you can stop looking at my ass now slim - all you need to do is ask..." :). I could actually import these images themselves, under fair use and with the blessing of at least another user; or without if need be.

As to whether the game is Canon - it used some of the previous voice actors, and all of the environments are reproduced extremely accurately. The actual plot as the article indicates is set about the same time as the movie; it thus works around the plot of the official movie in several subtle ways; sign of a lovingly recreated environ by fans (I.E. programmers and artists) who have a good aesthetic and artistic sense of the movie. So yes, although the game doesn't have a blessing of sorts from PKD's estate, it could be considered Canonical in the sense that it adds to the official universe and violates no truths - and let us face it, Deckard was obviously not the sole Blade Runner as seen by the film. -- D-Katana 15:33, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

In addition, the game should be either Mid or High on the importance scale based on its historical gravity as being one of the finer last adventure games as it were. This is purely subjectivity; however despite less than mediocre sales figures the game's article is progressing; could we perhaps give it an importance rating of at least Mid here? -- D-Katana 15:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
It has been four days with neither a disagree nor an agreement about this. Article has been upgraded in both respects to Mid and B, respectively - the historical value alone of such an unusual game, the close of the adventure genre as we know it now almost ten years on is of some gravity indeed. We need refs ASAP, I do not know how to reference an article so assistance here is appreciated; perhaps the very re-rating will attract some attention from without? Having completed the game about three or four times I can attest to its qualitys and the fact that it simply lasts in the face of nigh on ten years of technological progress on the games front. -- D-Katana 11:16, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sales

The article states "The game performed poorly commercially...". Yet Blade Runner is not only in the Best Selling Video Games article but is listed as one of the Best Selling PC games. Furthermore, Selling over a million units, as Blade Runner did, is not considered fairing poor commercially. Over a million is considered successful or at least semi-successful. To give an example, Gears of War sold 3.7 million and is considered universally successful, a better example would be Saints Row which only sold over a million copies, yet it is considered successful and even has a sequel underway. 72.49.194.69 02:55, 1 August 2007 (UTC) Joshua

[edit] Only 4CD version... sure?

Hi, i have noticed that this videogame has released on 4CD. This is strange because I have a 1DVD version and this DVD was attached at a Pioneer DVD-Reader. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KymyA (talk • contribs) 17:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure it's an official release and not a copy someone burned? --Eruhildo (talk) 18:40, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

BR came out ages before DVD games appeared. Might be a re-release or compilation version or pirate. - X201 (talk) 18:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly, it came out when DVD was new, expensive and not widely adopted. There is an official DVD release of the game; thanks for pointing that out, I've added it to the article. - RoyBoy 800 05:08, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll add to that with this quote from alt.fan.blade-runner archives:

The retail version of the games consists of 4 CD-ROMs. There is also a DVD-ROM version, which to my knowledge was only sold bundled with certain DVD-ROM drives. To my knowledge, the DVD-ROM game is identical to the one available on CD-ROM.[1]

So a limited re-release seems accurate, though as it is technically available, I've added it. - RoyBoy 800 05:12, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Blade Runner The Game (Soundtrack)

Hello,

I remember exactly when this game came out there was also a soundtrack for the game published from Westwood Studios. It was on a stash next to the normal CDROM version of the game. I was very tempted to buy it at that time. But as a poor pupil I couldn't afford it. Today I could kick my arse not having bought it.

Do you guys know by chance where I could buy that CD? Did a Sound Track with music from the actual game ever released or am I hallucinating? I am pretty sure it was there though but can't find any reference in Internet becaus ethe keywords overlap with the proper movie sound track.

Do you remember the Blues sound track in game or the final ending sound track? It was different than the movie... If you have any information, please let me know.

Cheers —Preceding unsigned comment added by Houmie (talk • contribs) 18:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)