Westwood's Blade Runner video game sticks in our heart to this day for a single great gaming moment - what are some of your great gaming memories?
We were musing the other day to some friends that there really needs to be a word for when you miss something that, technically, doesn’t exist. At the time, we were talking about the curious sense of missing places and characters from a table-top RPG we’re in at the moment, but that same sense of nostalgia (or, as one pal put it, not-stalgia) can work for games, too. How often is it that some of our best memories come from the digital imagination of a gameworld, or the interaction-at-a-distance of playing with mates online?
Last week we were talking about LA Noire, and how it reminded us of the point and click classic Blade Runner game, and it’s from that great game that our own favourite memory comes from.
Blade Runner was, at the time, pretty groundbreaking. Published in 1997, it received pretty positive reviews (and some poor ones), and sold around a million units. It even scored a nomination for Best Adventure game from PC Gamer for that year, but lost out to The Curse of Monkey Island.
We loved it. It had atmosphere out the wazoo, and took place in parallel to the story of the film. You play another Blade Runner, Ray McCoy, on the trail of some replicants himself. The game featured lots of crime scene investigation, multiple endings, and a heavy reliance on player choice.
But it was the game’s mood, and sense of detail that delivered us one of our favourite gaming moments of all time.
Blade Runner had this wonderful feature that let you review case files and collected evidence. Called the Knowledge Integration Assistant, you could use these to get a vocalised summery of events and case notes, in a suitably digital voice.
Now, at the time, we were between PCs, but I would often crash over at a mate’s place in Surry Hills, and take advantage of his rig (and the most awesome burger joint ever, just a few blocks away on Tailor Square). So, after a night of heavy gaming/drinking, I wake up feeling more than a little dusty, and decide to catch up on my caseload in Blade Runner.
I was the first up, so I had the apartment to myself. I loaded up the game and let the KIA fill me in on where I was at, while I pottered about making coffee (with a healthy shot of whiskey). It was morning, the sun slanting in through the windows, a hint of smog giving the light an orange, dusky hue. Coffee smell, smoky light, the sounds of a waking city, and the droning voice of my smart system bringing me up to speed on the replicants I was tracking down.
For a moment, it hit me – it was the perfect transference of game-world to real-world. As I stood over the sink washing out a mug, nodding along to the details of my case, I was totally and utterly absorbed in the game. It was like I was suddenly transported to that dystopian vision of future LA.
It was a moment that’s stuck with me to this very day, and the kind of thing that only a gamer can ever experience.
So what are your classic gaming moments? Have you had an impossible kill streak you’ll never replicate again? Made true and lasting friends in an MMO? Or had an immersive experience like ours?
Let us know.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012