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Blade Runner's Influence on Videogames

Posted by Zonk on from the i-knew-the-nintendo-characters-weren't-human dept.

A 1up feature looks at the influence that Ridley Scott's amazing cyberpunk film Blade Runner has had on gaming. In addition to outlining the (underappreciated) late 90's direct game adaptation, the article discusses the film's subtler touch on tone, music, and content in other titles. "Try as William Gibson might to distance himself from Blade Runner's influence, the game adaptation of his seminal novel ironically takes a lot of its visual cues from Blade Runner, particularly in its realization of the urban sprawl. Even better, we got a little proto-cyberpunk musical influence in the soundtrack. Neuromancer boasted a technically impressive, if scratchy, Commodore-synth rendition of Devo's "Some Things Never Change" playing over the title. Truth be told, the song is actually much improved by the necessary excision of all the lyrics except for the chorus."

14 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Poor William Gibson! by Alzheimers · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Try as William Gibson might to distance himself from Blade Runner's influence, the game adaptation of his seminal novel

    I'm sure Phillip K. Dick will be glad to know that Gibson's now taking the heat for Blade Runner's influence! It must be a huge weight off his shoulders to know that some other Sci-Fi author gets to deal with his burdeon.

    1. Re:Poor William Gibson! by A+Name+Similar+to+Di · · Score: 2, Informative

      I read that too, but it's a poor editor to blame for the lack of clarity rather than misattributing the work. If you read the article in context, the "game adaptation of his seminal novel" is referring to Neuromancer.

  2. Reminds me of Kubrick's "takeover" of The Shining by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    When famed director Stanley Kubrick directed "The Shining," an adaptation of the Steven King novel, he imbibed the original with much more depth than the original and new clever little elements of his own vision thrown in. His movie, in fact, ended up surpassing the novel in many ways and becoming an icon that's inescapable in any discussion of the book. Now, when people think of the Shining novel, they think of the hedge maze, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," the creepy twins, the axe, the western-style resort look, etc. Yet none of these elements was in the novel--they all came from the superior film version (in an episode of "Friends" I got a particular kick out of Joey talking about the novel that he had only recently discovered, with everything he described coming from the movie not the novel--an obvious result of the ignorance, not of Joey, but the "Friends" writers).

    When King himself (who was never happy with the Kubrick version) tried to do a TV miniseries with Mick Garris many years later, the result was not only laughably silly but also drew heavily from the Kubrick film version (literally from the very opening of wide shots of the car on the road to the Overlook, clearly influenced by the opening shots of Kubrick's version). And the elements restored from the novel all fall flat in comparison to the original film. What is a New England style hotel doing in Colorado? Why did they show these goofy ghosts? Is a croquet mallet supposed to be menacing?

    Sometimes a more powerful adaptation can become more iconic than its original source material. And it's impossible to treat that material in the future without acknowledging it and/or being compared to it.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  3. I will now act out a scene by BigHungryJoe · · Score: 5, Funny

    dey say you bwade runnah

    1. Re:I will now act out a scene by ischorr · · Score: 3, Funny

      Wait, are you playing "What if Elmer Fudd played the old chinese guy in Blade Runner"?

    2. Re:I will now act out a scene by ischorr · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, it's brilliant. I'd pay real money for a Blade Runner Ultra-Super-Final Edition with Elmer Fudd as the chinese guy (and maybe some of the guys from Dragon Ball Z as the replicants, etc)

  4. D'oh! by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 2, Informative

    Try as William Gibson might to distance himself from Blade Runner's influence, the game adaptation of his seminal novel

    I'm sure Phillip K. Dick will be glad to know that Gibson's now taking the heat for Blade Runner's influence! It must be a huge weight off his shoulders to know that some other Sci-Fi author gets to deal with his burdeon.

    English comprehension was never your strong suite, was it? Neuromancer was, as advertised, written by... William Gibson (and, incidentally, won the Phillip K. Dick Award).

    Phillip K. Dick wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, on which Blade Runner was based, and which Gibson claimed not to have read. OK?

    --
    I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
    1. Re:D'oh! by snarfies · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I know it wasn't mine. My strong suite was the Presidential Suite at the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore. Had a big party there at Otakon back in 2000. Two of the dealers got in a drunken fistfight in the hall, security was called, they found me passed out in a puddle of strawberry daiquiri.

      I'm not allowed to stay at the Hyatt anymore. True story.

      Good times.

    2. Re:D'oh! by Ian+Lamont · · Score: 5, Informative
      I read an interview with Gibson some years ago in which he said his reaction to seeing Blade Runner (before Neuromancer came out) was disappointment that Scott et al were the first to create this dark future world. The interview (or a similar one) is referenced here and apparently came from a 1992 issue of Details:

      Gibson, in an interview by Lance Loud in an article on the 10th anniversary of "Blade Runner" for the magazine "Details" (October 1992 issue), had the following to say:

      "About ten minutes into Blade Runner, I reeled out of the theater in complete despair over its visual brilliance and its similarity to the "look" of Neuromancer, my [then] largely unwritten first novel. Not only had I been beaten to the semiotic punch, but this damned movie looked better than the images in my head! With time, as I got over that, I started to take a certain delight in the way the film began to affect the way the world looked. Club fashions, at first, then rock videos, finally even architecture. Amazing! A science fiction movie affecting reality!"
      The same reference says Heavy Metal actually influenced both Scott and Gibson:

      "Years later, I was having lunch with Ridley, and when the conversation turned to inspiration, we were both very clear about our debt to the Métal Hurlant [the original Heavy Metal magazine] school of the '70s--Moebius and the others. But it was also obvious that Scott understood the importance of information density to perceptual overload. When Blade Runner works best, it induces a lyrical sort of information sickness, that quintessentially postmodern cocktail of ecstasy and dread. It was what cyberpunk was supposed to be all about."
      There is also a connection to Escape from New York, according to the reference.
  5. Great Game by Chaymus · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I was really happy to see a shout-out to Westwood's version of the game. I remember getting the game returned multiple times since the box of CD's always had one or two scratched, eventually we opened like 4 and I picked ones that weren't.

    For me, the game provided a bizarre element of spectatorship. You felt like you were playing a movie, rather than being the lead role in a game. Very Myst-like if you've never played it.

  6. Martian Memorandum by ischorr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's not so much a "how it influenced video gameS", but "how it influenced A video game", but Blade Runner definitely influenced a game called Martian Memorandum. In fact, it pretty blatently ripped off elements of a number of differend Philip K. Dick-related properties, including plot elements of Blade Runner and Total Recall, and most directly, the visuals of Blade Runner (right down to Tyrell's giant Pyramid office and windows).

    Martian Memorandum is one of those weird games that no one ever discusses and there's virtually no information about on the 'net, despite the fact that it was part of a 5-game series spanning 10 years. It was fairly leading-edge game at the time (1990). It was a Sierra Adventure-type game with mouse/keyboard interface, but it had a much grittier look and storyline than anything Sierra or Lucasfilm were putting out (Virgin would start to come close with "Beneath a Steel Sky" 4 years later, though Memorandum was more cyberpunk-noir with less goofy humor). It was visually well done, taking full advantage of VGA (still a rarity at the time). It even had a little full motion video and one of the only games to do speech - even through the *PC speaker*. But it had a good storyline and was a pretty good game overall.

    I don't know why it's turned out to be one of those largely forgotten games. I suppose some of the sequels, like "Under a Killing Moon" and "The Pandora Directive" got some mainstream attention, but Memorandum is worth checking out.

  7. Re:Reminds me of Kubrick's "takeover" of The Shini by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Err, let's try this again, more intelligably:

    When King himself (who was never happy with the Kubrick version) tried to do a TV miniseries with Mick Garris many years later, the result was not only laughably silly but also drew heavily from the Kubrick film version (literally from the very opening of wide shots of the car on the road to the Overlook, clearly influenced by the opening shots of Kubrick's version). And the elements restored from the novel all fall flat in comparison to the original film. What is a New England style hotel doing in Colorado? Why did they show these goofy ghosts? Is a croquet mallet supposed to be menacing?

    Congratulations. You've demonstrated that, left to his own devices, King does a crappy job adapting his works to the big screen (a fact that is, I think, reasonably well known).

    But how does a good adaptation, which differs signficantly from the novel, and a bad adaptation which is closer to the novel, demonstrate that the good adaptation is better than the novel itself?

    Hint: it doesn't.

    In fact, I would argue the film adaptation is more "iconic" than the novel simply because a) it's film, and therefore will have a greater pop culture impact, and b) it's Kubrick. 'nuff said.

    And, as it happens, I think both the book and the movie are excellent, but for very different reasons (which shouldn't be surprising, given they're completely different mediums).

  8. Phantasy Star Online by Saffaya · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Pioneer 2, the colony ship city from where you teleport to the planet below, has several elements directly influenced from blade runner.
    The background music is inspired from the movie score, several flying vessels pass above you regularly, and if you know where to look, you can even notice a sign on a nearby building that is very similar to the ATARI symbol.

    (The latter has been removed in ulterior versions of the game).

  9. Don't forget Snatcher by gmezero · · Score: 2, Informative

    Can't forget one of the most important Blade Runner inspired games to have been forgotten by and large by the masses. If you haven't played it, it's a toss up between the Japanese PCEngine and US/EU SegaCD releases as to which is best. So depending on your language skills, pick your poison.