Blade Runner – Final Cut. Watch Out For The New Rendition.

Blade Runner – a name that brings me back a bag full of memories from the time I started using computer for the first time. It was probably one of the first computer games that I ever played and simply got devoured by it. The game was released in 1997 ( though I got to play it for the first time in 1999) and judging by the standards of those day’s games, Blade Runner was simply unreal. The cut scenes, the graphics and the game-play, I believe, is still competent today, even after 10 years! It was in fact after playing the game I watched the movie “Blade Runner” which was actually released in 1982. After more than two and half decades one more rendition of this great sci-fi movie, namely “Blade Runner- Final Cut” is coming out this December!

I don’t clearly remember the details of the story but it was about a corporation who had been manufacturing robots which are exceptionally close to human being and named them “replicants.” The purpose of the replicants were to only serve the real human beings but as it turned out that these replicants were biologically so very close to human being that they had the same intelligence and wanted to break out of the slavery by destroying the real humanity (or something like that). However, a “replicant” and a real human cannot be distinguished by naked eyes.

LAPD Police officer Ray McCoy (name used in the game) was given the task to hunt down the replicants and kill them. But it turned out near the end that Ray McCoy was not sure if he himself was a replicant or not! The story takes more twists and turns with a 14 years old girl Lucy, with a distinctive purple short hair, who was alleged to be a replicant too, but again nobody was sure; and Ray McCoy who originally started out hunting down replicants actually ended up hiding and running away with Lucy, but nobody knew if they were really replicants or not!

The story of the game was adobted from the original novel “Blade Runner – Phillip K. Dick” and in fact the game was more faithful to the novel than the movie was! The game-play was crafted in such an involving and engaging way that I played it 3/4 times and never got bored because the story/events would evolve according to your moves! I finished the game in 3 different ways and god knows how many more different ways were there. Just have a look at the opening video of the game and judge by yourself (yes it was a 1997 game! if you are wondering).

If that is not convincing enough to you with the excuse that it is a pre-rendered movie then watch this in-game video and bedazzled.

I’m just wondering why isn’t anyone making a new game, with the current technologies, on this great sci-fi story. Given the depth of the story itself and tremendous visual and the overall gaming technologies that have evolved, a new “Blade Runner” should be a great game to play.