This fortnight Nick continues his retro Sci-Fi tour by taking a look at PC point-and-click classic, Blade Runner.
BLADE RUNNER
Release Year: 1997
Original Console Release: PC (Microsoft Windows)
Developer: Westwood Studios
By Nick Murray, Videogames Contributor.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Blade Runner, arguably one of the greatest and most influential Sci-Fi films of all time. So with that in mind, this fortnight’s Friday Flashback will focus on the cult PC classic of the same name.
Developed by Westwood Studios in 1997, Blade Runner is a fairly standard point-and-click adventure. Thrust into the role of Ray McCoy, you are charged with hunting down a volatile pack of replicants, using all the puzzle solving prowess you have. Occasional gun fights are thrown into the mix, but the general essence of this game is its adventuring, collecting items and talking to inhabitants to gather clues, very much like the Monkey Island games of old. Fans of the genre will feel right at home here, with puzzles ranging from mildly challenging to head scratchingly frustrating, but the same can be said of most games of this ilk and it’s nice to be reminded of a time when developers weren’t afraid to throw continual mental challenges at a player. There's really not a great deal different here in terms of core gameplay that makes it stand fundamentally stand out from the crowd when looking at the title in retrospect, with the notable exception of it's fantastic use and application of the source material.
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba
Screening Reviewed: UK FDA Press Screening (BFI IMAX 3D)
Reviewed by Kyle Pedley
Our Exclusive Prometheus Video Review is now available on Youtube!
To broker the most common concern surrounding Prometheus, it is clear from the first few moments of the film that this is very consciously and deliberately a different entity from the Alien franchise with which it shares both its universe and director. Whereas Ridley Scott’s 1979 seminal sci-fi masterpiece opened with the isolation, silence and cold of space, Prometheus begins with stunning sweeping vistas and panoramas, the sterility of the stars now replaced with roaring waterfalls and aggressive natural majesty. This juxtaposition is in many ways perfectly symbolic of how very different the two films really are, for where Alien was a masterclass of subtlety, prolonged silence and measured cutting, Scott’s latest outing is a far more visceral, bombastic, and even noisy, affair.
