I got an email from David Ko who forwarded these amazing images:
abandonware box running King's Quest 4. note the little box under the right speaker... Roland MT-32 baby!
took a long time to find all these sierra titles
mmmm vintage sierra
Near as I can tell, Mr. Ko has every Sierra On-Line game ever made in the original boxes, and a set of vintage computer systems to run them all on, too.
Impressive, to say the least. My hat's off to you, Mr. Ko.
Last edited by wumpus; 03-25-2008 at 01:44 AM.
One image is broken but still awesome.
fixed
Is it my imagination, or does he have spares for half of those games? That looks like three copies of Quest for Glory 1...
Sigh... I used to have a very extensive collection of Sierra games, all purchased new, and with every box -and contents- in excellent condition. I even had hint books for a bunch of them, plus a stack of Sierra Newsletters (I didn't bother holding onto the mediocre Interaction magazines from later years). Unfortunately, a move in 2003 forced me to hand these over to a friend's teenage brother, who had become interested in classic adventure games. I'm not sure if he still has these, and I'm too afraid to ask and possibly discover that his mother's thrown them all in the dump.
I even used to have a Conquests of the Longbow T-shirt I'd won as a consolation prize to some contest (the big winner got a trip to England). However, I still have my Sierra Soundtrack CD with me, including the barely listenable "Girl in the Tower". ("WHOA, AH'M CALLIN' OUT!!!")
I never got why anyone got bothered about Girl In The Tower (or indeed Squirrel With The Power). It was never one of Sierra's better tracks.
The same reason why multimedia KQ5 was such a big event. Somebody bothered to record voices and throw it onto a CD. Never mind the quality of the so-called voice acting.
"Ahh... Life-giving water. Nectar of the gods!"
"Ahm Laura Boow. Ah have ai noise feh noos."
Man, nothing brings back fond memories like vintage Sierra games. I believe KQ4 was the first PC game I ever played... But in the end, I dont think there was a Sierra adventure game that I didnt beat. Space Quest series was probably my favorite, followed closely by Larry. Notable mention to Colonel's Bequest, it's still the best murder mystery game to date I think.
-Chris
My favorite sierra adventure game was one of its less well known titles. Goldrush!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Rush!
After that, I loved the Leisure Suit Larry series and finished most of the space quest games. Kings Quest I could take it or leave it. The first few I liked and KQ5 was novel at the time. I hated P{olice Quest and Laura Bow series. Got killed all the time for stupid stuff.
The worst part about Police Quest and Space Quest (and most of these games) were the 'delayed' deaths. You know, you run the checklist of actions you think appropriate, the game gives the illusion that all is well, you pat yourself on the back for thinking a job is all well and done, save and progress forward...then WHOOPS! That thing you forgot to do an hour ago, its come back to haunt you. Dead.
Classic example is not using a condom with the prostitute in LSL1, death waits until a seemingly random unspecified moment awhile in before the big screwjob. I also remember performing every routine task an officer is hardcoded to doing when making a routine traffic stop in PQ1, with some research from the bowels of the manual and trial/error. However, because I forgot to make a quick walk-around-the-car look at the tires on my vehicle before leaving the station, an hour later when I go through the mess of miranda rights and assorted doctrine that took an hour alone to get proper, it's all moot when the game decides to randomly kill me because of that thing I forgot to do when I started the game...
I still adored the crap out of them though. Space Quest series probably will always be my favorite of the bunch. I probably still have Vohaul's Revenge memorized.
Police Quest 3 had the worst instance of that. You had to steal your partner's house key and make a copy of it because she had been acting strange. I'm not really sure if that is proper police procedure, but you can continue a big chunk of the game after that without knowing you missed anything. Eventually, you just reach a dead end where you can't do anything else.
Yeah, dead-ends were an absolute pox on the genre.
Actually, that's not too bad. The death happens as soon as you go back in front of Lefty's. Either Larry gets the STD, or forgets to take off the condom and gets caught by a cop. You die pretty quickly, and it's very obvious what you did wrong. Some of them could stretch the entire game.Classic example is not using a condom with the prostitute in LSL1, death waits until a seemingly random unspecified moment awhile in before the big screwjob.
(The one that I always bring up is from Les Manley in Search For The King - an Accolade Larry rip-off. You get right to the end of the game and get trampled by a crowd, unless you've psychically deduced that... oh yes... right at the start of the game, you had to assault a fairground gypsy (by suddenly kissing her for no reason), then pet the lizard sitting on her desk, which would spit out... a 'resurrection card'. That promptly did nothing on the many, many other deaths in the game, but was required to actually win.)
The worst in Space Quest is at the end of SQ2, where you get french-kissed by the Alien at the start of the last area, and think it's just a joke. Then you chest-burst just before facing the final boss. I remember that one specially because I'd (stupidly) been saving a lot, and had to replay the entire (shitty) game to have another go. I still taste sick in the back of my throat to think of it...
I grew up with these. They hold basically no nostalgia for me now, but I have plenty of good memories. My faves were Space Quest II and V, King's Quest III (well, not to play - but I thought it had a cool/scary hook and a great atmosphere) and VI, Larry II and III and Quest for Glory I. I really wanted to play the QfG claymation remake - is there a collection coming out sometime? Or is it abandonware?
There's a collection of QfG that was released ages ago. Bitch to get running though, as of course, they never bothered to do any porting or updating. Goddamned installer was still dos based.
There was a collection aeons ago which had the first four games in (Dragon Fire wasn't out by that point, not that it's very good). The remake was superb - hands down the best of Sierra's VGA updates.
Quest for Glory IV is still one of my favourite adventures, even with all the horrible, horrible bugs. I loved the depth of world design in that one.
Sierra's old stuff works pretty well in DOSBox. It's much harder to get the Windows games up and running, thanks to things like them demanding 256 colour mode for palette shifting, or being incapable of altering the resolution on their own.Bitch to get running though, as of course, they never bothered to do any porting or updating. Goddamned installer was still dos based.
No one's mentioned not feeding the thief in QfG3? Not only is there no indication that it's something you should do, but when you die in the end there's no indication of what you missed.
Til I die the QfG games will be among my best memories, but I will never forget putting QfG3 aside for three months when I realized what was going wrong and just not being willing to replay the whole damn game.
Is anybody else worried that the owner of this collection has a "Girl in the Tower" CD in the stereo, ready to play at any moment?
Shitty game my eye. SQII is the best thing Sierra did. The worst one was the 'throw the boot at the cat' in King's Quest V. God, what what a piece of shit that game was.Originally Posted by RichardC
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.
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.I'm still amazed no one has made a ScummVM type program for running the old Sierra games.
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...
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