I had myself a large dose of nostalgia today. One of my favorite pastimes is re-visiting and reminiscing about my computer past, and think about how far technology has come. You know, just generally taking a stroll down memory lane, so to speak.
One of my favorite games of all time is Blade Runner from 1997. It is loosely based on a similar concept to the favorite movie (which incidentally happens to be one of my all-time favorite movies) and follows a different member of the Blade Runner-unit, a man named McCoy. When released it was considered a landmark achievement and managed to mix atmospheric visuals and audio with a well-written plot. It also had up to thirteen (!) different endings, depending on the choices the player made. I managed to get eleven of them, that I know of.
Today I remembered the game for some reason. It’s been rattling around in one of the drawers in my desk for the last six or seven years, but today I dug it out. The game was a gift to me on my birthday from my then circle of friends, and I enjoyed it a lot.
The only sad part is that somehow, somewhen, the box has suffered some minor… uuh… cat-damage. So it has a somewhat pungent smell. But the contents were blissfully unharmed.
(Speaking of which, I miss these boxes. This was back in the day when games came in proper boxes, not just a keep-case. Actual cardboard boxes. I miss it.)
The game comes on four CDs, something which was impressive at the time. I popped the first disc into my drive, and installed it using Wine. I wasn’t sure if it would run, but I had nothing to lose. Also, I had even bigger doubts about Vista (which I occasionally dual-boot for gaming) running it.
Wine installed it just fine, and when I tried running it, it worked perfectly. Absolutely beautiful, and was fully playable. Audio, video, all worked fine. I had a fun half-hour running around in the game.
The introductory scroll of the game is an exact replica of that from the movie, complete with similar music. It sets the atmosphere for the rest of the game beautifully.
Sure, it looks a little odd since you can’t change the resolution of the game, and it was released loooong before widescreen monitors were invented. But it’s completely playable, and I might just dig into it – for nostalgias sake.
…ah, and one could almost smell the gun powder, hear the shells smack the cement and witness the occasional mass slaughter of supposedly Nazi guards with good ole Wolfenstien!
I just installed good old Neverwinternights 1. I own NWN 2 but it never quite grasped me for some reason. (could be that the game was always a couple of patches away from playable but maybe thats just me). NWN 1 on the other hand, lots of good custom content made by other players, very mod friendly and it has amazing scripting capabilities (built in C/C++ language), so I can be creative and make almost any adventure I feel like and play others as well. A little trip down memory lane.
Carmageddon the uncensored version splash moo splash spalsh
I appreciate you sharing your nostalgia trips. I’ve been thinking about the same things too, lately.