I bet he can play it on that guitar.
I’m still amazed no one has made a ScummVM type program for running the old Sierra games.
This is the point a death screen is meant to pop up. Awful puzzles, not funny, trial and error beyond a joke, and oh god, the tentacle monster maze… Gah! I would rather corkscrew my eyes out and serve them up on a stick in martini glasses than play SQ2 again. the only good thing I can say about it is that it’s better than SWAT 2 - a game so bad, I’m jumping genres just to spit on it.
I’m still amazed no one has made a ScummVM type program for running the old Sierra games.
Too many engines. SCI, AGI, the interactive movie ones… There are emulators for some of them, notably FreeSCI and Sarien. But DOSBox works fine for almost all of them, so it all ends up more or less the same, really.
Jumping genres… but it was the sequel to Police Quest: SWAT. And I believe it was called Police Quest: SWAT 2.
But you are right. SWAT 2 was as bad as it gets, really.
Maybe it’s just because I’m younger, but I was more of a LucasArt’s adventure game guy myself.
Still, my cousin, who doesn’t think of himself as a gamer, has notes taped all over his apartment. I asked him what they were and he explained that they were translated notes from Space Quest. Wow. He had just played through a bunch of the games with friends over that weekend. Sounded fun, actually.
I loved both. Sierra games were the equivalent of TV shows - regular, predictable, fun, and varied enough to meet any sudden gaming whim. Lucasarts was Pixar - rare but glorious treats from some of the best people out there.
In utter agreement. QFG4 is, sadly, often overlooked, but is arguably the single best Sierra adventure of all time. I imagine a lot of people must have missed it the first time round, due to its being a plus-sized headache to run trouble-free. In contrast to KQ5, it had consistently good voice acting and was well written, to boot.
I enjoyed both Sierra and Lucasfilm adventures, though I probably have warmer feelings to Sierra since King’s Quest was one of the first games I played on a PC. Growing up with Sierra games meant a greater willingness to put up with “quirks” that, these days, would lead to long, angry screeds being posted on forums. Back then, I’d gladly accept a ridiculous puzzle or an unfair death, then dial the Sierra hint line at 209-683-6858.
Scarily, I did not have to look that up.
Rob: Gold Rush was one of the worst offenders in arbitrary deaths. During the voyage west, you could expect to randomly croak in a variety of ways, regardless of whether you traveled overland, around the Cape, or through Panama. Sure, you’d be forced to restore many times through no fault of your own, but you learned something about California prospectors, doggone it!
Pfft, where’s his Time Zone box?
QFG4 and Gabriel Knight 1 came out right around the same time and were both instant adventuring classics to me.
Yes, of course GK would eventually become a giant joke thanks to a certain mustache puzzle, but GK1 was awesome. Did anyone else have it in the wacky box the CD-Rom version came in? God, I wish I could get that to run. I tried a while back and the midi would never load right, the sound wouldn’t play and I couldn’t save games.
The first two GK games were fantastic, although both had at least one truly woeful puzzle. That bloody snake mound. That bloody cuckoo clock…
I looked and didn’t see a box for one of my old time favorites, Jones in the Fast Lane. Kind of like the game of Life. It was a blast to play. I’m sure it’s in there, but I just didn’t see it.
Felt like a simulation. Guess thats why I liked it.
The only part part of GK1 was Tim Curry. I liked Curry, don’t get me wrong but I couldn’tunderstand hardly anything he said in the game.
The second Gabriel Knight game was seriously great too, and a notable standout for being a great FMV game in a sea of badly acted Myst clones. The story and acting were strong, and in fact seriously creeped me out a couple of times, a strong quality in a horror game. I do remember it had a few whacky illogical puzzles, but I just figure that’s a requirement on the Sierra checklist when making adventure games.
Oh man, I forgot about The Black Cauldron. That one was cool too. I thought the interface was great - no stupid guess-the-word stuff like you had in the standard Sierra adventures, but you still had full control of your character unlike in the Lucasarts games. I’m sad that it didn’t catch on - had the best of both worlds. Grim Fandango sorta attempted it but it wasn’t nearly as good.
Oh man, now I really wanna play more QfG games - I only ever played the first one for some reason (maybe because the settings of the other ones didn’t seem as interesting?), but I loved it. Might have to hit Amazon.
What a fantastic collection! I’ve been very slowly building my vintage Sierra collection up. The problem is that sealed/mint copies are often into the $100 range.
When I was a kid, I kept all the boxes and manuals/etc of all the games I had (which were mostly Sierra *quest games) and kept them in nice condition, but they ended up being sold in an auction. Which I didn’t know about until it was too late, heh. Someone got a fine deal there.
I also kept the Sierra magazines (and later Interaction magazines). I still have most of those, though.
They released an anthology a few years ago that includes the first four games (and both versions of the first game). As an added treat, it’s got the talkie version of QfG4, which has pretty damn great narration.
If you can get past the copy protection at the beginning of part 2 (getting to the money changer and back without the magic map), you’re pretty much set. That part was pretty damn obnoxious, though.
Ah, the glory days of the adventure game. Sierra adventure games were entertaining, if often unforgiving. As mentioned, they often had “delayed failure” problems, where failing to take an item or do something in an early part of the game would make the game ultimately un-finishable. Later games were better about this, allowing you to finish the game but without the “best” ending.
Sierra games were also infamous for their punitive gameplay, where even the slightest deviation could get you killed. You could accidentally drown, walk off of a cliff, eat something poisonous–the games would let you do it and punish you with the “game over” screen. In short, they penalized exploration and experimentation.
Lucasarts adventures embraced the opposite design philosophy, rewarding exploration and experimentation with funny dialog. In many of the later Lucasarts game, you couldn’t die, and it was impossible to progress to accidentally forget an item or action as they were built in as dependencies for story advancement.
That said, you can have my copy of the Quest for Glory Anthology (and QfG5 which was released separately) when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
- Alan
I’d also note that the QfG series probably featured the fewest number of punitive and delayed game overs. Off the top of my head, I can only think of eating the acorn in part 1 (which the game basically tells you is stupid and penalizes you 50 points for doing) and the thief in part 3.
Yet another reason why it was the best series!
I had my magic user character that I managed to move from computer to computer as a kid with QfG and played him and won with him in I-IV. I’ve still yet to play V, but I’m pretty sure there is a disk somewhere at my parents with his save file on it, just waiting to be played.
One of the more fun things to do was to create a hybrid character, leveling up all the skills, so you’d have your fighter/magician/thief, and you could choose how you’d take on each challenge on your own. Man, I want to go play them now. Dammit.
You can also steal from the alchemist, who then locks you out, attack the stag or the plant, and pick the root for Baba Yaga early (or at the wrong time of day) in QfG1. But mostly, yeah, your death is immediate. And importantly, almost always justified or funny enough that you don’t care.
Entirely random: Conquests of the Longbow is another one that never gets the attention it deserved. Christie Marx may have been the very Queen of Copy Protection Puzzles, but she made a good adventure.