16th March 2006, 10:47 PM
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.
Oh yeah, Sierra did that too, didn't they... yeah, NOT fun, not fun at all...
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. :)
Quote: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...
Quote: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. :)