Sierra Quest Collections

[A Black Falcon]

Problem is, with this release I don't see another release of these games coming for a long long time...

They care enough to actually re-release these games, but not enough to make these versions of the collections truly great... it is annoying, but still, the mere fact that they ARE re-releasing this stuff makes them better than most any other major PC game publisher out there, who mostly completely disavow all knowledge of everything they made more than a few years ago...

Never played SQ5. I have SQ1 and PQ1.

Never played any PQ games (unless the demos of SWAT 2 and SWAT 3 count, which actually they kind of do), and as for SQ I've only played 5 and the demo of 6. I said 'as you might remember' because I've discussed that manual before. It's quite funny and all... remember? You responded by talking about ... um, the "we have a cow a lovely cow" game...

The King's Quest collections must be the exception then. They have released 3 KQ collections before this one, each more fantastical than the last. The first just had 1-6 (and was released just before KQ7 was released I believe) but it had most of those interviews and such as well as a preview video of KQ7. It came on two disks, with 1-5 on the first and 6 on the second (well 1-4 are such tiny games relative to anything on CD that that's no issue). The second KQ collection not only included 1-7 but also the two Laura Bow games and all of Roberta's Apple II adventures as well as an Apple II emulator (which was surprisingly good). Oh and Mixed Up Mother Goose was on there too. The third collection was basically the exact same one only renamed the Roberta Williams collection. Nothing really noteworthy there. I think one had a 5th Apple II game (The Dark Crystal) that the other didn't and that's why they ended up making the change. I don't have much info beyond that. At any rate, all 3 had rich full instruction booklets with the full text from the originals, well the full story text anyway.

QFG Anthology was the first collection of QFG. Games one through four on a CD, with some form of manual that didn't contain the full texts of any of the manuals. Manuals on CD. QFG: Collection Series was the second. Disk 1 had the four games, disk 2 (in a separate jewelcase) the QFG V soundtrack and a demo of QFG V: Dragon Fire (unless the demo was on the main CD? Doesn't matter, it was there). The various manuals (each game had an adventurer's guide to the region and a game manual), in text-only form, were on the CD. The paper manual, as I said, just had basic information.

Special features? Hah! Unless you count the QFG V music CD (I guess that is one) and a bunch of savegames for use in the four games, and various icons you can use for the games in Windows, there are none.

Not buy the game. That's the way to send the message.

We're not going to get anything better anytime soon. It's this or go on EBay and buy the original versions.

Firstly, they wouldn't have to "completely reprogram" it. They would just need to find the pointer that called for KQ4's keyword checker and remove it so the game just directly loads into the startup sequence. It would take searching for that hex code but it would be a simply "dummying" procedure once they found it. Besides that plenty of people online have already released a number of similar hacks for old games anyway. Further, I do not suggest they tamper with the KQ6 and KQ3 copyright protection. That was actually FUN and I wasn't even aware they had done that as copyright protection to begin with.

Secondly, I acknowledged that they had to program the game's installers. That's child's play though. Hardly something that would take such a long time to make. I mean a simple "put this file here and make this text file" program isn't what I could call "back breaking coding". Nope, I'm not buying that as an excuse.

I didn't say that it explains the ridiculous amount of delays, but that I doubt that they were actually ever trying to reprogram the games in any way, whether it was to make them Windows-compatible or to remove copy protection...