1st August 2004, 1:25 PM
Utterly bizarre. I went to play KQ5 and decided to try the DOS version again (after going to 640x/256 color). I launched the Win version first then the DOS one... and it loaded! I was quite surprised, to say the least... I quit both and then ran it and it loaded again. So weird! And I do not remember changing anything except moving the voice file to the HDD... uh, weird, but hey, if it works...
Of course, the real test will be if it works after I reboot my PC. But I won't do that right now. :)
Okay... KQ5 for DOS. Have you played it? It's got nice color cursors. The cursor is a lot bigger (the Win cursors are really small in comparison!), but they're in color and look nice... Other differences? There are some. First, voices. In the DOS version, when you click on an object (for the description), if you click you will cancel the speech. This also works for some things people say (when Graham is talking, or anyone else whose voice shows up with a picture I think). This is EXTREMELY useful and a huge improvement over the Windows one where once you click you cannot cancel what is said. Tiresome and irritating when you are trying to find new things you can click on... as I'm sure you remember in the Windows version when you try clicking again it'll jus start the sound file again and cut off the old one, making it a jumbled mess. Not good at all. Oh, and I'm not sure if I am remembering wrong, but do those heads animate in windows (mouths move, etc?)? They do in DOS anyway.
There are other differences as well. In Windows, the voice sounds echoey to me... but in DOS it does not. No reverb or echo or whatever. Better. Okay, music. In Windows, I guess it's MIDI... in DOS I can use Roland or Adlib, but the Roland doesn't sound too good (it doesn't really have Roland support, but kind of emulates it with MIDI...) so I used Adlib. It sounds pretty similar to the MIDI in the Windows version... either I have the Win version installed using the lesser Win sound drivers or this game doesn't have a great quality MIDI soundtrack. Either way, I can't tell much of a difference with the game configured as it is. Which is good, I thought there would be a bigger sound quality difference going from MIDI to the SB emulation... :)
Oh, and of course it's fullscreen. Well, like the other DOS Sierra titles there's a black bar on top of the screen (where the topbar will drop down), but there is no black bar at the bottom of the screen, no blue menu bar... the graphics look different because it's a different window size of course, but that's fullscreen versus windowed... and full screen looks better for sure.
In short, I hope that the DOS version keeps working. Like all of Sierra's adventure games I've played that have DOS versions, the DOS version is better.
Only one downside to the DOS version. It crashed a couple of times. The Windows version didn't do that.
Of course, the real test will be if it works after I reboot my PC. But I won't do that right now. :)
Okay... KQ5 for DOS. Have you played it? It's got nice color cursors. The cursor is a lot bigger (the Win cursors are really small in comparison!), but they're in color and look nice... Other differences? There are some. First, voices. In the DOS version, when you click on an object (for the description), if you click you will cancel the speech. This also works for some things people say (when Graham is talking, or anyone else whose voice shows up with a picture I think). This is EXTREMELY useful and a huge improvement over the Windows one where once you click you cannot cancel what is said. Tiresome and irritating when you are trying to find new things you can click on... as I'm sure you remember in the Windows version when you try clicking again it'll jus start the sound file again and cut off the old one, making it a jumbled mess. Not good at all. Oh, and I'm not sure if I am remembering wrong, but do those heads animate in windows (mouths move, etc?)? They do in DOS anyway.
There are other differences as well. In Windows, the voice sounds echoey to me... but in DOS it does not. No reverb or echo or whatever. Better. Okay, music. In Windows, I guess it's MIDI... in DOS I can use Roland or Adlib, but the Roland doesn't sound too good (it doesn't really have Roland support, but kind of emulates it with MIDI...) so I used Adlib. It sounds pretty similar to the MIDI in the Windows version... either I have the Win version installed using the lesser Win sound drivers or this game doesn't have a great quality MIDI soundtrack. Either way, I can't tell much of a difference with the game configured as it is. Which is good, I thought there would be a bigger sound quality difference going from MIDI to the SB emulation... :)
Oh, and of course it's fullscreen. Well, like the other DOS Sierra titles there's a black bar on top of the screen (where the topbar will drop down), but there is no black bar at the bottom of the screen, no blue menu bar... the graphics look different because it's a different window size of course, but that's fullscreen versus windowed... and full screen looks better for sure.
In short, I hope that the DOS version keeps working. Like all of Sierra's adventure games I've played that have DOS versions, the DOS version is better.
Only one downside to the DOS version. It crashed a couple of times. The Windows version didn't do that.
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