Having spent rather a lot of time talking about how unfairly unremembered the Sierra Space Quest series are when people get nostalgic about adventure games, I went back in time to replay my remembered favourite, Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers. The results were an interesting combination of absolute brilliance and maddening failings, with a story more interesting behind the scenes than in front. You can read the results on Eurogamer, which include this:
“The story behind the development of Space Quest IV is certainly more interesting than the story in the game. The tale of Roger Wilco, hapless space janitor, travelling through time to prevent something something, and rescue maybe his son or something, is clumsy at best. In fact, in a throbbingly bad bit of storytelling, you only find out any of the motivating reasons for doing anything you do in the closing cut-scene. However, SQ4 is about gags, lots and lots of gags, everywhere.”
