Sierra's old Quests rererereleased!

[Dark Jaguar]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6144828.html

Get this, a company has gained the rights to release a large number of "Quest" collections. I think I may just get ALL of them, for one single reason. They are actually fixing all the bugs and are making them all fully compatible with Windows XP.

Basically, it seems to be King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, and Quest for Glory collections.

Since those various games, in various ways, seem to comprise a large number of the reasons I hold onto my old Windows 98SE OS, this is pretty nice.

Also, I highly suggest anyone who missed out on KQ6 pick up the KQ collection. That game is simply awesome.

Edit: I misread. Quest for Glory is not announced as a collection. Leisure Suit Larry is. That's annoying. With all ABF has said about it, I was really looking forward to a collection of those games.

[Great Rumbler]

This is great news! The King's Quest and Space Quest games were some of the first PC adventure games that I ever played. I'll definitely be getting those.

[Dark Jaguar]

I'll pick up King, Space, and Police (all three were pretty fun, and I've lost the Police Quest 1 handbook, the one that used that awesome form of copyright protection where they fed you a bunch of knowledge about the game world and forced you to look it up in an actual book so you could use it in the game, and also that knowledge is actually a police officer training guide, or some stuff based on one in the real world).

Leisure Suit Larry? Probably not...

But really, I would very much like a Quest for Glory collection.

I wonder one last thing. Will the King's Quest Collection contain anywhere near as much as the last two itterations of it released by Sierra? Aside from every King's Quest game except Mask of Eternity (which I can live without, but yet have anyway), it also had a very large number of images, a trivia quiz, all the old videos and documentaries made for even older collections, some special walkthroughs for what are acknowledged to be "ridiculously tricky" parts of old King's Quest games (images of how to climb the whale tongue in KQ4, walk down the honeycomb mountains in KQ3, and a couple others, though it was missing a nice walkthrough of both the desert, Mordack's Castle, and the ocean sequences of KQ5 (also just plain "hard for the sake of hard" with no real actual clues on where to go segments). It even included almost every other game Roberta Williams herself had made, from the two Laura Bow games (pretty fun actually) to "Mixed up Mother Goose Deluxe" (sorry, not the original ancient version, but since it is intended for VERY young kids and the "puzzles" don't even exist unless you are 3, that's fine) to 5 different Apple II games (run on an Apple II emulator) including Mystery House, the first adventure game to use graphics EVER.

I'd like them all included, updated to run on XP, please :D. Or at the very least, be lazy and just "toss them on the disks in their original form" so I can get rid of the older collections I have laying around.

You know, having played a number of those "made for 3 year old kids" games, I have to say I still think it's a good idea to have games like that. It really helps the youngest of the young to learn basic computer skills. In fact, when the Rev controller is modified to become the standard interface for PCs, a number of simplistic but "shiny" games should be made for that too. There's nothing wrong with a game where the entire objective is to just see if you can point and click at a thing if you keep in mind the right target audience. I myself played a similar game a long LONG time ago called "Manhole" where the entire "game" simply involved opening a manhole and going on a strange and magical journey through some sort of weird "Wonderland", and also some PC speaker based voices sprinkled here and there in the game. Ancient as dust, and barely worthy of being called a good Flash game these days, but for something intended for a children type person, it's perfect, and I loved every second of it.

[EdenMaster]

Oh, man! Good old Quest adventures! The kind where missing some insignificant detail could be the difference in your game hours later! Delicious!

[A Black Falcon]

Don't be so expectant... these have been listed on a online sales site (Amazon I think) for the better part of a year now, and nothing has happened, except for that little flurry of news in February when Gamespot picked up on it... but given how long they have been listed, with pretty much no news about them coming out, I long ago decided that this was probably a con VUG is trying to pull to discourage their download as abandonware or something... I don't know if they have any intention of ever releasing these collections, but by this point let's just say that I'll believe it when I see it... but I'm skeptical. That comment from the VUG person saying that these things actually do exist is interesting, but after a year of nothing, not exactly enough to convince me...

Oh yeah, and even if these do actually come out someday, Quest for Glory is by far Sierra's best series, and there's no sign of THAT collection...

[Dark Jaguar]

I didn't know about that history...

Well, I'm catiously optimistic. I'll forgo preordering anything, now that I understand and have confirmed that these have been listed for some time now. However, since Vivendi has actually stated something at this point, and given a nice concrete date of release, I think that puts a little weight behind it.

As it stands, I will not preorder it but I will look around stores on the 24th (perhaps the 25th) of this month. If I don't see anything, I'll be disappointed and forced to ignore future reports unless I actually see some videos or some actual confirmation from Vivendi themselves.

And yes, from what you keep telling me, it would be a very good idea to release a Quest for Glory collection as well. Allow me to even add that a Gabriel Knight collection might also be in order. I have 2 and 3, but I would like to play the first one.

And here's a Black Cauldren download for ya. It's freeware now. http://www.allowe.com/More/download.htm

Hey EM, I hear ya on the design of Seirra's earlier adventure games. Getting "permanently stuck" and needing to restart a game was bad game design then and it still is now. Still, I got past that and enjoyed a very nice game despite that little flaw. Fortunatly, around KQ7 Sierra finally realized what it took to get a game where it was impossible to get permanently stuck.

I doubt they fixed those issues, considering they might have to change a lot around in the games to get that to work, or at least add some sort of cinema sequence somehow that got you "unstuck" with the minimum needed to keep going. It'll just be nice to play KQ5 without running out of heap space.

[A Black Falcon]

There's a reason I always preferred Lucasarts-style adventure games to Sierra ones, and it's because the random deaths for doing things you would never expect to kill you gets really, REALLY old... Lucasarts one are just plain more fun to play. I have various Sierra Quest games (Space Quest V, King's Quest I, V, and VII, Quest for Glory I-V, Laura Bow II, EcoQuest I, Dr. Brain 1 and 2 (also have 3 and 4, but they are pure puzzle games, not puzzle/adventures like the first two)... but I can't say that any of them are better than any of my Lucasarts adventure games. Not counting QfG because those games are Adventure-RPGs, not graphic adventure games.

Hey EM, I hear ya on the design of Seirra's earlier adventure games. Getting "permanently stuck" and needing to restart a game was bad game design then and it still is now.

Oh yeah, Sierra did that too, didn't they... yeah, NOT fun, not fun at all...

I doubt they fixed those issues, considering they might have to change a lot around in the games to get that to work, or at least add some sort of cinema sequence somehow that got you "unstuck" with the minimum needed to keep going. It'll just be nice to play KQ5 without running out of heap space.

I can run KQV just fine on my computer... though I did copy the files to the HDD and modify the file in the game folder, because the game slowed unplayably every time it had to access the CD otherwise... did the same for Quest for Glory IV (though that one has CD copy protection checking when the game launches so I have to have the disc in the drive anyway). For some reason fast CD/DVD drives don't work too well with older games designed for slow ones and the drive has to spin up all the time, delaying things... but anyway, for me in WinME KQV works fine in Windows (windowed 640x480 256 colors required only) or DOS (where I played it, because fullscreen is so much better...). The game itsself is more of a pain than it's worth, but it runs... (and in DOSBox too, if I remember correctly)

I also played KQVII's DOS version, because that one too is stuck windowed-only in its Windows version. Same for Quest for Glory IV and Laura Bow II, too...

... okay, some of these games were a bit tricky to get working (several of the QfG games required fan-made timer patches to run properly outside of DOSBox on new machines, KQV was a bit tricky to get working (I remember the thing taking some effort to run properly...), etc, but I did manage to run them all. Though it would be nice if it were easier... one of the rumors about these collections is that they'd make the games work in XP, which would be great if it's true, but that would require actually thinking that these things will ever actually be released...

I still have never finished Space Quest V because, fairly near the end, there's a part where you need to control this spacesuit thing to rescue this guy and this other thing, but the fuel runs out almost instantly and it is impossible to do through normal DOS (after to game running fine up to that point)... I tried to then do it on slowdown programs, but wasn't able to there either (incredibly hard and it required impossible precision and timing to pick up these really-hard-to-see objects ("3d" would be a misnomer... "pitiful", perhaps? "Broken"?)... and that after some years earlier quitting the game at a particularly frusterating timing-based puzzle where you had to avoid this person repeatedly in a short period of time, or die...

... yeah, Lucasarts adventure games are better. :) At least in Quest for Glory dying for doing something stupid is acceptable because the series is also an RPG, where such things actually make sense... and I don't think that the QfG games were usually quite as randomly cruel as many Sierra adventure games were, random-unexpected-deaths wise. Of course, as RPGs they've got other ways to make you hate the games, but oh well... great games anyway. :)

[EdenMaster]

I seem to remember one of the King's Quest games where, when you entered a certain area, you could see a mouse being chased by a cat, and if you didn't shoo the cat away intime, it would eat the mouse. If you did chase him away, later in the game when the protagonist was tied up, the mouse would come and chew through your ropes. If you didn't save the mouse (or didn't even NOTICE the mouse), you were done for.

Games like that almost NEEDED strategy guides to complete. Otherwise, they were simply maddening.

[Dark Jaguar]

That would be KQ5, and I know exactly what you are talking about. Having memorized it, when I get to that part these days I have the shoe "loaded", so to speak.

[Dark Jaguar]

KQ6 is still perhaps my favorite adventure game.

[A Black Falcon]

Wasn't KQIV the one with the jail? Or did V have one too... I gave up on that game in irritated frusteration in the desert.

Best Sierra adventure game... QfGI, followed by QfGIV. :) Um... straight graphic adventures only (not action-adventures, rpg-adventures, whatever)... hmm... Space Quest V? Great game despite the aforementioned frusteration... KQVII was pretty good too, though. But yeah, I really loved QfGI. EcoQuest is alright, but for children... I liked it back when we first got it, but looking back it's pretty childish. Dr. Brain is also for kids, but ages better I think... The Castle of Dr. Brain is a true classic.

[Great Rumbler]

I gave up on that game in irritated frusteration in the desert.

Hahaha, I remember that part. :D

[Dark Jaguar]

Haha, I don't blame you ABF.

However, I can give you a solution map for that area. Don't consider it cheating so much as getting around a detrimental game flaw.

[A Black Falcon]

The problem isn't just finding your way around, though that's a big one, it's also how bad Sierra's basic game design is... how easy it is to get randomly killed, how easy it is to miss absolutely vital items and not know it until too late, how easy it is to just get hopelessly lost... how they LOVE obscure puzzles that you'd never think of... yeah, Lucasarts puzzles could be quite cruel too, but at least they always made sure that it was always actually POSSIBLE to solve them. :) (though I must admit I didn't finish a bunch of those too, including Day of the Tentacle and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis...)

Anyway, getting around the desert is the first problem. Figuring out what to DO there is the second one. And going to a FAQ every two minuites in a game gets really, really tedious... and doesn't feel right, usually...

[Dark Jaguar]

The puzzles were, as a general rule, solvable in the KQ series. KQ2 and KQ5 are more exceptions than anything... KQ2 was worse though.

[Weltall]

I'll pick up King, Space, and Police (all three were pretty fun, and I've lost the Police Quest 1 handbook, the one that used that awesome form of copyright protection where they fed you a bunch of knowledge about the game world and forced you to look it up in an actual book so you could use it in the game, and also that knowledge is actually a police officer training guide, or some stuff based on one in the real world).

The original Civilization had that protection feature too, where it asked you a question and you had to look up the answer on a specific page of the instruction manual.

I bought the game in a bargain bin several years ago on CD. The copy-protection feature was still intact. Unfortunately, it was just a straight jewel-case game, and there was no manual included, just a single paper insert.

Needless to say, someone somewhere along the line had a hell of a brain fart, as the game is severely restricted unless you manage to guess the answers.

[A Black Falcon]

That's how it works... I've got four or five games which I lost the copy protection to and can't use anymore (floppy games), I have the discs and boxes and some of the manuals but since I lost the codewheels/sheets, there's nothing I can do short of downloading a cracked version... :(

The puzzles were, as a general rule, solvable in the KQ series. KQ2 and KQ5 are more exceptions than anything... KQ2 was worse though.

KQVII wasn't nearly that bad... it had some irritating puzzles, but nothing like KQV's...

[Great Rumbler]

I bet you could find that kind of stuff on GameFaqs or something.

[Dark Jaguar]

The original Civilization had that protection feature too, where it asked you a question and you had to look up the answer on a specific page of the instruction manual.

I bought the game in a bargain bin several years ago on CD. The copy-protection feature was still intact. Unfortunately, it was just a straight jewel-case game, and there was no manual included, just a single paper insert.

Needless to say, someone somewhere along the line had a hell of a brain fart, as the game is severely restricted unless you manage to guess the answers.

Not quite. KQIV had that. It asked you "what does it say on page 4?". What I'm talking about is pages and pages of LORE you actually have to use to solve puzzles. For example, poetry and knowledge about islands and so on. While travelling, you may see a bunch of symbols on the floor, and you may remember that poem, and using that poem you realize exactly what order you need to step on those tiles so you don't die.

[Dark Jaguar]

March 24th has come and gone, and now Amazon is listing it as coming out December 31st of this year. That's quite the delay! Further, asking around Gamestop and such I am hearing that a lot of people have asked about those collections but they haven't heard anything at all.

I'm starting to see ABF's point. This seems vaporware, and it seems as though the news sites didn't do their part to check into the history of this thing and posted the news prematurely.