4. Related Games

The old C64 Blade Runner game. [See section V. "The Games"]

The 1997 “Blade Runner” game by Westwood Studios (obviously!). [See section V. "The Games"]

Over the years, the influence of BR (the movie) helped create the whole genre of cyberpunk, which in turn had a large influence on mainstream culture, spawning lots of books, movies and games. Therefore, most cyberpunk style games tend almost by definition to be quite “BR-ish”.

Some well-known computer games which take place in the familiar cyberpunk settings are:

- “Neuromancer” (based on William Gibson’s cyberpunk classic of the same name)
- “Bloodnet” (RPG/graphic adventure)
- “Hell – a Cyberpunk Thriller”: A graphic adventure from the mid-nineties.
- “Rise Of The Dragon” (reportedly very BR-ish!)
- “Syndicate” and its sequel, “Syndicate Wars”

Some noir alternatives to Blade Runner are the Tex Murphy series: a number of games situated in a post-nuclear San Francisco in the near future, starring a hardboiled (well, sort of PI called Tex Murphy; the games are, in chronological order: “Mean Streets”, “The Martian Memorandum”, “Under a Killing Moon”, “The Pandora Directive” and, most recently, “Tex Murphy: Overseer”.

For game consoles, there have been a couple of computer adaptations of “Shadowrun”, which is a strange mix of cyberpunk SF and Tolkienesque fantasy but with a genuine BR feel to it.

“Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy”. (Graphic Adventure)

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