Ever sit and think about what you did 18 years ago? No? Maybe it's an age thing as I am closing in on my 32:nd birthday, but I have. Especially in light of games these days often incorporating player choice and consequence, but also mature themes and ideas.

Around 18 years ago I was 14 years old sitting in my friend's room in front of his old Mac seeing a type of game unfold that I had never seen before. On a superficial level it was an adventure game with static hand crafted backgrounds and the characters were filmed animated puppets, as opposed to digital models. Everything had a bleak eerie look to it. It was cartoonish expressionistic but sedate enough to let you accept the world as it was. Of all the games I've played over the years, the images of this game are still as clear as though I saw them yesterday. It was one of those perfect marriages of right thing at the right time for my impressionable mind.

In Blackout you start the game by waking up in a bloody bed next to a headless corpse, things start getting really surreal until you faint and wake up again to a clean room without no real understanding of how or why things are happening. So you venture out into the city to try and figure out who you are. From here, the game pretty much give you free reign over figuring things out on your own. You can explore the various parts of the city, talk to people and hopefully find out what's going on.

So what is going on? Well, spoilers for an 18 year old game; at one point you meet a woman in a car. The vibe she gives off is that of some sort of mobster boss. An underground queen, if you will. She explains to you calmly that they are in the business of making movies. The type of movies in which the heroine doesn't survive. In other words, they make snuff films. Remember that headless corpse at the start? You are part of that.

But that's not all. During your stay in the city you can talk to your therapist, visit a brothel (to talk or have sex, up to you), eat food at a Chinese restaurant (and play different tunes on it's jukebox) while the waiter explains the meaning of the dish, discuss big boxing icons with a bartender, listen to an argument between a tattooist and a priest that ends with the tattooist indirectly threatening to burn down the church. And much more.

This city is bleak and filled with aspects of the worst of humanity, but in a really human way. And your trek through it is uniquely your own because the game will end in describing who you end up being by the results of your actions. I recall on my first playthrough ending up as a demon of sorts. These endings, whichever you might get, was a side of your character because your character suffered from multiple personalities and the ending highlights your dominate characteristic.

To be honest though, I don't know how well this game has aged since I haven't played it for a long time. But it's one of those games that even back in 1997 didn't treat adult themes in a game as having the biggest selection of cuss words or gore. It was adult not only due to some of it's story content but the level at which it took itself and it's characters seriously. I felt like the game respected the time I spent in ways even game's these days don't. At least, that's what my brain is telling me happened 18 years ago.

From what I understand, the game isn't only a cult hit in my circle of friends, but was actually at the time one of the games that heavily influenced getting the Danish game's industry up and running. And to my utter surprise and delight, according to Nordic Game Bits, the game is undergoing a remaster treatment (which currently is in it's infancy) and will be released for tablet in the future. If this ends up being the case for real, I'll be beyond excited.