By John Walker on July 24th, 2009 at 10:50 am.
I’m stuck at this point. The problem is this: for years and years we had to suffer every mention of an adventure game being accompanied by a phrase somehow relating to adventure games being dead. I mean, I wrote them myself when I was young and stupid. They would go, “The adventure game may be dead, but here’s one last gasp,” or more optimistically, “The adventure game’s not dead, but in a coma,” or whatever. The idiocy of these comments was the frequency. Here’s what happened: adventure games, in their abundance, weren’t very good any more. Apart from the good ones. The point of all this is to say how much I want to respond to the news, that following LucasArts’ releasing classic adventure games on Steam, Activision-Blizzard are putting some classic Sierra adventure games on the download service, by writing, “Adventure games may be dead, but their ghosts are coming back to haunt us.” But I cannot, because I’d be One Of Them. So I won’t.
Hidden amongst that drivel you may have noticed the glimmer of news. Activision have decided to parry LucasArts’ (Oh God, is this going to be a Monkey Island insult fighting reference? Oh please say it isn’t – A Reader) cunning move rejuvenating love and attention when re-releasing some favourite adventure games by doing the same. (Phew, that was close. Although not close to grammar – A Reader).
Today they’ve added (along with Aces of the Galaxy, TimeShift and 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures) the Space Quest and King’s Quest Collection packs. Which is a mixed collection.
My memories of King’s Quest games are an awful lot better than King’s Quest games. The rule tends to be, the earlier the better. But there’s some odd decisions made in this particular box, for instance pretending that King’s Quest VIII didn’t happen, but far stranger, using the pre-VGA versions of games that had since received VGA updates. Anyhow, if you want some super-twee fairytale adventuring, there’s your choice.
Far more interesting, however, is the Space Quest Collection. These are the adventures of hapless space janitor Roger Wilco. The first couple of games are criminally short, but for me the box is all about Space Quest IV. I have a theory that when people start getting dizzy with excitement about LucasArts’ games from 90 to 92, they’re accidentally remembering a lot of what Sierra were doing in that mix. The game packed with details, hundreds of hidden jokes by combining objects incorrectly, and so on – that’s Space Quest IV. It’s astonishing. The volume of gags in that game is just remarkable, with lines written, for instance, for using the mouth icon on just about everything you encounter. It’s also a game that does some wonderful frame-breaking gags, none more smart than travelling back in time to Space Quest I, and its CGA graphics. I have a lot to say about this game, and I will say it somewhere soon. In the meantime, I strongly suggest investing in this pack and checking out what I believe to be one of the most important adventure games ever.
24/07/2009 at 11:02 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
I’ve played SQ IV on GameTap recently… It was fun, but their window mode was somewhat bugged. I really dig all those games packed with gags on each screen (QFG, Gabriel Knight…or Al Emmo and partly Blackwell series from Dave Gilbert), so different from today’s games mostly.
24/07/2009 at 11:09 Count Zero says:
I planned to get some of the Lucas Arts games off Steam for the week-end, but it seems like my list just got a little longer.
When these games were new, I played games at a neighbor’s house, I did not have a computer at home, and while I saw most of them in action, I barely played any. Funny thing is, as a kid I loved to read the walkthroughs for adventure games I never played, and just imagine what would happen on screen.
24/07/2009 at 11:10 JuJuCam says:
I have a fairly serious confession to make. I was always a bigger fan of the Sierra games than the LucasArts games, mainly because I was exposed to them and their interminable text parser at the most impressionable period of my life, long before I ever clicked a verb and a noun.
This is joyous. But bring back Quest for Glory!
24/07/2009 at 11:15 Carra says:
The only Sierra adventure I’ve played must be Leisure Sweet Larry. Always wanted to try out Gabriel Knight though. And maybe the Space Quest games…
24/07/2009 at 11:21 TeeJay says:
/clicks on link with mouth
24/07/2009 at 11:23 Sinnerman says:
I would play this but adventure games are dead. It’s true, I read it on Old Man Murray, they died because nobody likes puzzles.
I did actually play SQIV on the old Amiga a few years ago. A lot of the writing didn’t really connect with me unlike the work of Gilbert and Shafer but it was a generally good game with a few horrible sections. (Galaxy Galleria chase sequence, damn your eyes.) Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father on the other hand is a true classic that should be played by all.
24/07/2009 at 11:27 Xercies says:
Hmm I may pick up some of these, I never really played any Sierra games since i was a Lucasarts boy. But Space Quest sounds very entertaining.
24/07/2009 at 11:29 EvaUnit02 says:
“This item is currently unavailable in your region.” Australasia gets shafted again, F**K.
24/07/2009 at 11:43 Flint says:
Holy hell I might just have to pick up that King’s Quest collection for King’s Quest 7, it was the first adventure game I ever played and the start of my great love affair with the genre. I’ve looked for it all across the net for ages and finally it’s here, easily available. Combined with a bunch of games that aren’t too interesting but hey.
24/07/2009 at 11:49 IcyBee says:
Space Quest I and II (amongst others) are still available for free at http://sarien.net/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/04/21/ye-olde-sierra-adventures-free-in-browser-multiplayer/#more-10524
24/07/2009 at 11:57 Sol says:
Genius, I’ve been wanting to play through VI for ages, it was one of the games that slipped by and I was never able to find a copy whenever the nostalgia buzz reminded me.
Looks like it’s time to pick this up and put TF2 down for a while.
24/07/2009 at 11:57 bansama says:
“This item is currently unavailable in your region.” Australasia gets shafted again, F**K.
Yeah, but you get one hell of a price on 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures. It’s currently only $0.10! (That erroneous price is only available in AU/NZ)
24/07/2009 at 12:00 Markoff Chaney says:
Let the good times roll! I have all these on floppies and prior CD collections so I probably won’t triple (or quadruple in some cases) dip this time around, but it doesn’t mean it’s not wonderful news. AlleyCat got me started on the PC but King’s Quest the first is the game that cemented my love of my PC over my Atari 2600. I also echo something someone else said in comments a while back: Nothing will teach you to type faster than having to stand somewhere and, with no pausing mind you, have to type in a perfectly parsed and spelled sentence or else meet certain doom. Great times.
24/07/2009 at 12:05 M.P. says:
SQIII wasn’t bad either :)
24/07/2009 at 12:06 GC says:
I got Space Quest 6 for free in a magazine a loooong time ago (when Sierra first announced Half-Life, with screenshots of Freeman looking like that : http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3789/gordonlx6.jpg).
SQ6 was really fun, full of crazy puzzle… I admit I had to use a walkthrough for some of them !
A friend gave me the manual of the game, and I must say the manual alone was better than some AAA games I bought recently :-(
24/07/2009 at 12:06 Ozzie says:
Regarding King’s Quest: The earlier the better?
Are you crazy??
I don’t want to question the importance of the first KQ, but playing it today you’ll notice how badly it aged. The second one is basically just a slight variation of the first and is just as bad.
Didn’t play 3 or 4, just watched Longplays of them, but I got the impression that the series got continually better, up to KQ5 where it plummeted down the quality hill again. Endless amounts of dead ends, sudden deaths and senseless “read the designer’s mind” puzzles ruined the game.
KQ6 was, imo, the first great KQ game. It doesn’t stand out because of its technological achievements, but because of its quality. No wonder, since Jane Jensen co-wrote it.
KQ7….well here they basically eliminated a huge potential of interactivity and turned to a look of an animated Disney movie. Great graphics, but I can’t say much about the gameplay because I lost interest at the very beginning. I guess they reduced the interface options the make it more user-friendly, but it’s strangely more irritating.
KQ8 is a mixed-bag. Great at moments, horrendous at others, overall, I rather liked it, even if it had the most terrible finale ever.
And SQ4…it’s funny, though never as witty or sharply written as many LA adventures. Gameplay wasn’t very interesting. I thought it was a pretty average game. Still playable today, but there’s not much reason if you don’t already know it from the old days.
24/07/2009 at 12:16 SmokinDan says:
Yes! Minigolf is mine for $0.10!
24/07/2009 at 12:20 Jp1138 says:
I agree with Ozzie regarding the KQ games – from best to worse: KQ6, KQ4, KQ3, KQ5, KQ7, KQ2, KQ1…. didn´t play enough KQVIII to put it in the list.
Regarding the Space Quest games, I liked them all except VI, which I have hardly played because it didn´t run on my system at the time.
Let´s hope Activision does something with all this IP someday.
24/07/2009 at 12:21 kevlar says:
I just want to warn everybody that this is just Activision noticing how much hype LucasArts recently got, and they’re essentially just putting the 2006 shovelware treatment collections out on Steam, so they all run in the standard version of DOSBox with little to no tweaking. Don’t expect perfect compatibility or proper emulation on all of them on current systems.
24/07/2009 at 12:31 Ozzie says:
Yeah.
Really, I would have loved to have a Windows SCI interpreter, but no, apparently they would have to do some work then…
…I already own all these game and I can configure them on my own for DosBox, so, no thanks.
24/07/2009 at 12:33 Grey_Ghost says:
I liked Space Quest 1-5, but didn’t really care for 6 to be honest. Never played any of the King’s Quests. Wonder if they will add Hero’s Quest to the list… I refuse to call it that other name QFG.
24/07/2009 at 12:36 Grey_Ghost says:
Oh balls! So this is just to make a quick buck eh, just your standard DOSBox fare? What about the Lucas stuff that was released recently, like The Dig etc.?
24/07/2009 at 12:46 Alistair says:
What did you write when you were young and stupid John? Used to be a big adventure fan :)
24/07/2009 at 12:53 jackflash says:
Agreed, SQ IV was probably the best of the series. The graphical leap was huge (not that that’s very important) and it was just hilarious. What a great series. Those were the days.
24/07/2009 at 12:54 airtekh says:
Hmm. Might pick this up after I finish Time Gentlemen, Please!
Also, I get the feeling that I’m a lot younger than the posters above me; my first adventure game was Grim Fandango and I’ve worked backwards from there!
24/07/2009 at 13:11 leederkrenon says:
adventure games died because books are better.
24/07/2009 at 13:26 Quests says:
Adventure games died because now players are basically oafs who prefer killing rather than thinking.
-Roberta Williams.
(and DAMN is she right)
24/07/2009 at 13:34 Brulleks says:
Well, Mr Walker, you’ve just sold Space Quest to me so I hope you’re right…:)
24/07/2009 at 13:39 AndrewC says:
Adventure games died because now players prefer doing rather than triggering.
24/07/2009 at 13:49 Hümmelgümpf says:
@Quests:
Who cares about Roberta anyway? Space Quest, Gabriel Knight and Quest for Glory are the only good series Sierra created, and Williams wasn’t directly involved in any of them. Games she did design have painfully bad puzzles that defy all logic and simply aren’t fun to solve. She is just a bad designer who chose to blame the audience rather than her own abilities (or lack thereof), and that’s all there is to it.
24/07/2009 at 13:58 Frans Coehoorn says:
The zombie android thing on the streets of Space Quest XII was one of my scariest gameplay experiences ever. My dad installed a Sound Blaster card without telling me, so the game started with awesome music and such. And then came the screaming…
24/07/2009 at 14:01 Frans Coehoorn says:
I can recommend the remakes of KQ1 and 2 in VGA (with voice-acting) by the way. AGD Interactive did a very awesome remake of Quest For Glory 2 as well. Check them out here http://www.agdinteractive.com/games/games.html
24/07/2009 at 14:05 NateN says:
@Frans: That zombie android thing would gave me nightmares as a kid. SQV holds a special part in my heart however since it was the first computer game that I bought with my own money and I had to figure out how to edit autoexec.bat on a boot disk to make it work.
24/07/2009 at 14:11 Paul Moloney says:
“Adventure games died because now players are basically oafs who prefer killing rather than thinking.”
Roberta Williams should stop smoking the nostalgia crack pipe and be shown a copy of “Research and Development”, “Portal” and the, oh, myriad of non-adventure games that don’t feature killing. The first computer game involved killing stuff, so I’m guessing that gamers have been “oafs” from the very beginning.
P.
24/07/2009 at 14:25 Hermit says:
I never really got into the Sierra games in the same way I did with Lucasarts offerings. I think it was partly due to the constant punishment for failure being death. Almost as demoralising as Eric Idle’s “That doesn’t work!”, which is a sound burned into the depths of my brain.
Sorely tempted to pick up the Space Quest series over the weekend, anyway.
24/07/2009 at 14:38 Brulleks says:
Yup, and that’s about what’s doing for me immediately on SQ1, Hermit.
Jesus H Christ. I mean, landed with a countdown, alien death stalking you on every screen, a puzzle that requires the manual to solve (thanks walkthrough) and dying because you *SPOILER*click too fast when crossing a gangway?
This is not the best of starts to a series…
24/07/2009 at 14:40 Hermit says:
@Brulleks
Aye. Death can work in adventure games. Beneath a Steel Sky make use of it, for instance, but it’s used sparingly as a means of adding tension to certain sections.
Contrast to King’s Quest VII, for instance. We got this free with one of our computers. You start the game in a desert, and you die after wandering more than a few screens. Essentially, you can die by just having a look around until you get a water supply. That’s not adding tension, it’s just annoying.
24/07/2009 at 14:43 Paul Moloney says:
” I think it was partly due to the constant punishment for failure being death”
Perhaps Roberta’s quote should be rephrased “Adventure games died because now players are basically oafs who prefer killing rather than dying.”
P.
24/07/2009 at 14:56 JKjoker says:
i love Space Quest, but they are so goddamned hard, in SQ1, SQ3 and SQ4 there are probably 8 ways to get killed in the first screen, you get killed even if you stand around and dont do anything
SQ5 was the best one imho
Quest for glory and Larry had also some of my favorite adventure games (Larry was the king of killing yourself in weird ways : you could die by entering a sauna with a polyester suit, trying to plug in “Larry Jr.” in the electric socket, trying to cross a street, etc), i never got into King’s quest, i played the Sixth one and i had to use a walkthough from the first second because it makes no goddamn sense
24/07/2009 at 15:00 Alaric says:
I always liked Sierra and Westwood adventures more then Lucas Arts ones. So in that sense I am glad that KQ is once again released.
On the other hand, I hate Steam. =( Yes, it’s been reliable so far, but I hate not owning a CD. And I will hate losing all my games when it closes.
Yes, it will one day close. Nothing is forever, not even Valve. And yes, I heard that they said they will release all the games should they close, but until I see a legally binding document, I dismiss that as utter BS.
24/07/2009 at 15:11 Frans Coehoorn says:
http://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/10110/0000008659.1024×768.jpg?t=1241745840
Brrr.
24/07/2009 at 15:34 Gilgameeshclone says:
The VGA remakes of Kings quest 1 and 2 made by AGDInteractive cannot be recommended enough, they are also free to download!
For me Space quest V is the most fondly remembered of that series, but quest for glory takes the cake as far as sierra games go.
24/07/2009 at 15:41 JuJuCam says:
My favourite example of cruel cruel adventure game death logic comes from “Les Manley in Search for the King”, a game that will happily allow you to carry on past a crucial item on the second screen that only comes into play about half way through the third act, and well beyond several points of no return.
…I hope that game never sees retail again…
24/07/2009 at 15:44 JuJuCam says:
On the other hand Les Manley also had the unique and interesting quirk of not recognising the verb “use”. Took a bit more wit to determine exactly how each object should be used.
24/07/2009 at 15:52 Markoff Chaney says:
Regarding King’s Quest (the first) I would like to attempt to defend it, if I may. For its time it was something completely new and provided quite a good bit of immersion, 4 colors and PC Speaker sound only be damned. Yes, I had to run it at 4.77 MHZ, unless I was flying across the screen to get somewhere quickly (Which led to more than a few deaths by the witch) but I could walk in a 3 dimensional plane and interact with objects by typing parsed commands, even if I fell off that tree branch more than a few times as well and struggled with figuring out what the hell that blob was supposed to represent some times. I actually had to think about words to use and what objects were without the help of an interactive cursor which really led to a sense of accomplishment that seemed to always lack, for me, in the LucasArts games, great though they are.
There was one puzzle which I felt was a bit much (the damnable gnome’s name. It was the sole time I actually called the Sierra hint line after being flummoxed a month or so) but most other puzzles were firmly rooted in fantasy tropes that were well known to most any decently versed child. In retrospect, even the gnome’s name is. I still think King’s Quest III was the most brutal of the Sierra games to my young mind but that may have just been the potion making and some of the timing that was needed. SQs were phenomenal, especially with their added humor, except the one that had that wonderful restart the whole damn game and you better well pick that piece of your ship you have no way knowing you need unless it’s your second time through.
Actually, I’m just going to try to sum it up with an apropos quote from Homer Simpson “Well of course, everything looks bad if you remember it.” Even if you loved it back then it seems archaic and twisted today. Without those rose tinted nostalgic glasses though, the negative can tend to overwhelm.
24/07/2009 at 16:01 Gutter says:
Hero Quest were the best one, and the one with the best chance of succeeding as a remake, and they already have “newer” graphics for them (the VGA clay stop animation version wasn’t so bad looking)
But lets face it, the Lucasart offerings are closer to “modern” casual games, because you can’t die. The whole save game shuffle of Sierra titles will not be received well by younger gamers. (especially if they remake Manhunter)
24/07/2009 at 16:02 LionsPhil says:
Yay, boxed sets.
I have to say, though, SQIV wasn’t a patch on I-III. Yes, the voice acting from the narrator (and Vohaul) was perfect. A lot of the jokes were pretty good. The puzzles were OK. But the actual plotting and story was a disconnected mess of bits they wanted to throw in but had no proper way to connect together.
I recon V could have been better, if it had had IV’s budget, and thus voicework. The less said about VI, the better. (You can’t even die within the first screens!)
24/07/2009 at 16:04 Gutter says:
@Paul Moloney: This should be changed to “Adventure games died because now players are basically oafs who prefer killing rather than suffering insta-death in the 4th act of a game for mistakes they made in the first act”
24/07/2009 at 16:23 dingo says:
Guess I will skip.
I’m pretty sorted for now
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/120/lecsierra.jpg
24/07/2009 at 16:38 jonfitt says:
I was quite excited until I found out it’s the quick zip and dump that was released a few years ago. There’s been no effort put into this “collection”.
Beware if you run a 64-bit OS, or Vista, some of them reportedly won’t work.
24/07/2009 at 16:40 Fumarole says:
I bought these from GoGamer on DVD about a year ago, so don’t fret if the Steam version is unavailable in your area.
24/07/2009 at 16:41 JonFitt says:
@dingo
Holy moses! That’s beautiful.
Were those original purchase, or something you’ve acquired?
I didn’t have the money at the time to buy them all, so some I borrowed from friends, and some I just read about.
24/07/2009 at 16:48 Axess Denyd says:
Alaric: Nowadays I trust steam more than the actual CD. It will be way easier to play HL2 from Steam in 5 years than Bioshock from disc.
24/07/2009 at 16:59 JonFitt says:
I’m excited about the resurgence of adventure games, but I think what killed them in the first place hasn’t changed.
What they allowed people to do was experience fantastically drawn stories with great plots, but at its core all you were doing is clicking “use monkey on steam iron”. Action games couldn’t compete with the visuals, but they could have varied and flexible gameplay. Adventure games are essentially one linear story where you perform simple tasks to unlock the next passage.
But action games got better. Games like Tomb Raider allowed you to play an adventure with a story while also jumping, shooting and solving simple puzzles. Then there’s things like HL and Portal.
The stories and dialogue probably weren’t ever as well written, but adventure games were stuck in a time warp.
I always thought there was room for all types of game to live in harmony, and I’m glad to see them being re-released for a new audience to enjoy, bit when are we going to see adventure games evolve?
24/07/2009 at 17:32 Thirith says:
Even though I was always more of a Space Quest/Quest for Glory guy, I very much enjoyed the whimsy of King’s Quest VI.
24/07/2009 at 17:37 Railick says:
I really enjoyed Space Quest (I can’t remember the number but it was subtitled the Time Rippers or something but I never got past the space mall, for some reason I couldn’t get out of it even though the walk through I had mentioend something about going through the ceiling in the zero gravity rink in the middle it just never worked for me I was stuck playing that chicken game for days until I finally gave up ) and Ques for Glory 2 . Also played and loved each of the 3 Goblin’s games, never tried the new one they released though :( I’m glad tosee these games coming back, maybe I can give that Space quest another shot.
24/07/2009 at 17:37 Pod says:
I love Space Quest, but I hate Kings Quest, therefore I treat this news with complete neutrality.
24/07/2009 at 17:41 Dante says:
Surely it’s a net positive, with King’s Quest generating indifference?
Unless you hate it so much the possibility of others playing it repulses you.
24/07/2009 at 17:51 Hümmelgümpf says:
@Gutter:
“Adventure games died because now players are basically oafs who prefer killing rather than suffering insta-death in the 4th act of a game for mistakes they made in the first act.”
Not really. Punishing players for making mistakes is perfectly fine, and I’d like to see more games doing it. The problem with some adventure games (and Sierra’s are the most infamous for this) is that you can’t progress further not because you did something stupid, but because you missed a well-hidden plot-critical item. Often you don’t even know that the game is unwinnable until you check a walkthrough.
24/07/2009 at 17:59 Hermit says:
@Hümmelgümpf
Punishment is fine, but it shouldn’t be gamebreaking punishment. Imagine if you got to the end of Half Life 2 and had missed the Gravity Gun. You’d have to find a save (If you had one) and replay hours of the game.
There should always be a way out of a situation at your present time, not “Whoops, you missed a tiny inconsequential detail”. If you have to have something like this in the game, then either signpost it or prevent the player from moving on without it, because it’s not entertaining at all to learn you’re stuck completely.
24/07/2009 at 18:02 Railick says:
It can be entertaining if it happens once, but if it happens over and over again it gets to be mind numbing. I never had that problem with Quest for Glory II (I actually beat that game as each class when I Was a kid, now I go back and play it and I can’t figure out the game at all! Just proof I’ve been spoiled by the green arrow of Oblivion lol. I have no idea how I was able to beat this game as a kid. I remember my dad being amazed I could spell Clothes right the first time considering I was and still am a horrible speller. I was just VERY determined to beat that game, I thought there was a slim chance of seeing the cat lady naked lol)
24/07/2009 at 18:07 Vinraith says:
Argh. This is producing a lot of internal conflict. On the one hand, King’s Quest and Space Quest are some of the defining games of my childhood. On the other, usually when I buy things for nostalgia value I never end up playing them, or barely play them and can’t get back into them.
24/07/2009 at 18:12 Alex says:
I remember getting the Space Quest 1-6 compilation as a kid. I never did get to see much of SQ6 thanks to a bug around the part where you make Roger analyse that hairy thug’s trimmer clippings. When someone made a <a href="http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Space%20Quest/chapter40.html"Let's Play thread for it years later, I was horribly disillusioned.
24/07/2009 at 18:20 pilouuuu says:
I’ve never been a big fan of Sierra games. While the concepts and characters seem interesting to me, the sudden ilogical deaths, the interface… it all feels less polished than a Lucasarts game.
Space Quest IV is your favourite one? I thought it was unfairly hard and never got very far in the game. Maybe there’s a good game for those that are terribly patient.
But I must admit that I found Space Quest V really fun. It definitely works like a crazy parody of sci-fi. I should probably put myself to the challenge of playing Space Quest VI someday, but the stuff mentioned previously keeps me distant to Sierra games.
24/07/2009 at 18:32 Railick says:
It was 4 I played. astro chicken away ! I have GOT to get this again. I remember when I origonally played it the game crashed a LOT ontop of me getting stuck in the space mall.
24/07/2009 at 18:47 Mika says:
So, do these collections have the original AGI versions of the first games, just the remakes, or both?
24/07/2009 at 18:50 dingo says:
@JonFitt:
I collected all of this in the last 10 years.
Quite expensive but it’s worth it I think and maybe my future children will be able to go to college from it. ;)
24/07/2009 at 18:50 Railick says:
I really would like a pack that includes Lesiure suit Larry 1-6 and MAYBE Love for Sail, but none of the ones after that. I really enjoyed the first one but the third one is my all time favorite adventure game.
24/07/2009 at 19:14 Brass Gerbil says:
Adventure games are like reading a David Weber novel: The plot is slack-jawed juvenile and you know exactly what’s going to happen — it’s just a matter of how contorted a path you’re forced to follow.
24/07/2009 at 19:56 Railick says:
I checked out David Weber just to see what you’re talking about, this guy has some of the worst titles for his books I’ve ever seen “X of Honor x 10″ :P Same person must have helped him whom assited the people who named Steven Segal’s movies or subscribe to the “Title must be 3 words exactly school of thought
24/07/2009 at 20:14 K says:
Adventure games died because now players are smarter with higher expectations, and recognise god-awful writing and expect some logic and reasoning in puzzles. And I’m a terrible person who probably eats children.
- Roberta Williams
24/07/2009 at 21:12 Railick says:
I have to say I really only ever played the Sierra adventure games and I loved them all. I remember the first time I played a demo for one of the Police Quest games. I got to subdue a crazy naked person running around in a lake :P I was hooked at that point lol. (I shot him the first time I believe and lost because aparently shooting an unarmed person is against the law. Real police should be required to play Police Quest before they are allowed to have a gun)
24/07/2009 at 21:15 Quests says:
@Hümmelgümpf:
Roberta Williams made Colonel’s Bequest and it’s an INCREDIBLE, nearly MIRACULOUSLY good game.
I also love Larry and Police, they’re wondrously good games.
In any case, all of those games come from diverse makers but they all obey to one or two guidelines, and those guidelines are Ken’s and Roberta’s.
And Space Quest is not my favorite cause it doesn’t have many deadends.
And dead ends is what makes it a game for mature committed folks.
24/07/2009 at 21:19 Quests says:
… and my all-time favorite(also among every other genre) is Conquests of the Longbow
24/07/2009 at 21:27 Quests says:
K wrote:
“Adventure games died because now players have higher expectations, and recognise god-awful writing and expect the game to treat ‘em like retards, if there’s a puzzle that gets ‘em stuck they piss themselves and cry for a bug problem to the producers. And I’m a terrible person who probably eats children”.
there, fixed your grammar, you’re welcome ;)
24/07/2009 at 22:13 Railick says:
Did you see that Russell Crowe is going to play Robin Hood in a new movie coming out? I’m so freaking excited.
24/07/2009 at 23:07 LionsPhil says:
I can’t remember how dickish the latter ones were, but Space Quest I wasn’t too bad for unwinnable situations—the only one I can remember is not having the McGuffin. To do this, you have to either completely ignore the room to the left of the one you start in, what with dying scientist literally pointing you to it, or be careless later in the game about leaving it in the drive of a computer (which, IIRC, was even visible in the VGA version, not to mention the fact it leaves your inventory).
SQ will kill you at the drop of the hat, but i) it’s sufficiently funny that you’ll try to find all the deaths ii) you shouldn’t have to go back far in your savegames to avoid it.
Compare this to whichever goddamn Kings Quest had that stupid rickity bridge which could be crossed just enough times for an optimal solution before collapsing and killing you. Wander around and explore the area before making beelines for objectives, or ever double back? You’ve doomed yourself.
24/07/2009 at 23:17 Markoff Chaney says:
Adventure games died for Sierra because our pure gravy business model of running a hint line where we charged you per minute for answers to nonsensical puzzles no sane human could ever solve that we put in most of our games ran dry when the internet came about so I started eating more children whilst salting their dead flesh with my tears of bitterness.
-Roberta Williams
24/07/2009 at 23:19 Nick says:
Adventure games died for Sierra because they tried to cross the road.
25/07/2009 at 00:31 Martin K says:
Space Quest V is where it’s at, for me. Much better than IV: I found IV way, way too punishing, and never really managed to get beyond the first few screens, on account of BEING KILLED BY EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME FOREVER. V, on the other hand, I actually completed, and I had a blast while I was at it.
25/07/2009 at 00:33 Martin K says:
Also: wherefore art thou, Quests for Glory I-IV? (Noting I did enjoy V, but I would forgo V entirely if someone would actually release, in some kind of commercially available format, a fully-patched version of IV, the game which had, by far, the most potential of all the QfG sequels. Good Lord, it was good fun. When it wasn’t crashing. Fucking marsh.)
25/07/2009 at 00:37 Railick says:
am I the only person that stood in the hall way with all the doors picking locks for 2 hours straight training my skill in Quest for Glory II ? (as far as I remember it turned out to be a total waste of time lol)
25/07/2009 at 00:58 Melf_Himself says:
Curiously, the games don’t seem to currently even be on Steam. Remove for some political reason? Hmmm.
25/07/2009 at 01:00 Melf_Himself says:
Oh, and of course, this website may well sate your nostalgia without having to shell out any pennies:
http://sarien.net/
25/07/2009 at 01:54 The Unshaven says:
I too, am out of Region.
To which I respond: MY CHILDHOOD IS NOT REGION-LIMITED YOU ORRIBLE SACKS OF COCKMILK.
25/07/2009 at 05:21 Ishy says:
SQIII and IV are probably my most replayed games of all time. However, I already own both collections, so no purchase here.
25/07/2009 at 06:57 Hümmelgümpf says:
@Quests:
“And Space Quest is not my favorite cause it doesn’t have many deadends.
And dead ends is what makes it a game for mature committed folks.”
If you really like dead ends then you have way too much spare time on your hands. I wouldn’t mind them so much if adventure games at least had the decency to throw in a game over screen saying that it’s impossible to progress any further without restarting or an alternate ending. Multiple solutions to puzzles would further help reduce the frustration without really taking away any difficulty. QfG did it brilliantly. A thief skilled in magic had a lot of options on his hands. Dead ends, as they are usually implemented, are just a cheap way to icrease the game’s length. They don’t challenge your brain in any way.
25/07/2009 at 10:55 M.P. says:
Whatever happened to that fan-made sequel to King’s Quest?
25/07/2009 at 11:40 Frans Coehoorn says:
Vivendi said “Feck off” so they had to remake the whole game.
26/07/2009 at 03:33 Grey_Ghost says:
If I already own all the Space Quests, is there any reason to buy this pack? These are the same games just bundled with DOSBox right? Though I thnk SQ1 or 2 had some crappy bad sector disk check for authentication?
26/07/2009 at 12:21 Subject 706 says:
Theres also a VGA remake of Kings Quest 3 and an upcoming remake of Space Quest 2, both made by Infamous Adventures.
The adventure genre “died” because game design got stuck in an endless loop och creativity deficiency. Kind of like FPSes today.
Add to that publishers refusal to back any project that cannot be projected to sell a gazillion copies.
27/07/2009 at 05:00 squadman says:
Great games. I’ve been moving them from old floppies to newer floppies, CD-ROMS, DVDs etc since their release date, so I’m still playing my original version of the games (thanks DOSbox). No need for a double dip here. Love the sarien.net link. I’m going to finish Space Quest 1 and 2 over lunch for the next week or so. Ahh… memories :)
My hope is that all this interest means they will hire the original developers to do new entries in these sagas. Especially Space Quest and Hero’s Quest (Quest for Glory… bah!).
27/07/2009 at 13:09 oceanclub says:
“And dead ends is what makes it a game for mature committed folks.”
I presume that’s committed in the mental institution sense of the word.
P.
27/07/2009 at 15:39 brulleks says:
Oh dear. I can’t begin to describe how mind-shatteringly awful I’ve found every single one of these Space Quest games.
To me, an adventure game should be about taking your time and being allowed to experiment, receiving amusing, irreverent comments at worst from the protagonists and npcs when you attempt something outside of the actual solutions.
What an adventure game should definitely not do is constantly kill you off until you find the only possible way through a situation.
Having just played through Time Gentlemen Please, which perfectly reflects all the very best aspects of the point and click genre, and which Mr Walker himself agrees is the finest p’n'c er to have been made since Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle et al, I cannot for the life of me understand why he would recommend something as horribly fun-sapping as these Space Quest games.
I wish I’d simply donated the £7.49 I’ve wasted on these to Zombie Cow instead, to ensure that they can continue their brand of adventure game.
The Sierra approach should be left well-buried in the rubble of gaming history. It’s the clearest case of rose-tinted spectacles that I’ve ever witnessed.
27/07/2009 at 21:55 mastrblastr says:
Am I the only one that loved Freddie Pharkis Frontier Pharmacist and is desperately hoping to see it make its beautiful way back?
29/07/2009 at 01:20 Ozzie says:
No, you’re definitely not.
But I don’t think it will happen. Anyway, I own this game in the original box, so I don’t need it to have it re-released. But it’s a game that should be available to a new audience.