Richard's Online Journal

[04/05/07] Sierra “Classics”

QA provided by Fester Blatz. "When Even The URL On The Box Doesn't Work"

Grr. Going to be one of my angsty, shouty ones I’m afraid. I just got hold of one of Sierra’s big adventure re-release packs, and it’s tough to see it as anything other than two fingers stuck right up at fans and newbies alike. It’s embarassingly bad.

Honestly, how hard is it to put together a compilation of old games? On this evidence, it’s up there with the Labours of Hercules and threading a camel through the eye of a needle. I know, I know, I sound like I’m taking it personally. I am. Sierra’s adventure games were a big part of my gaming growing up, and it’s tough to see their lords and masters treating them with such contempt.

Where to begin? For starters, we’ve got Police Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and King’s Quest back on the market after many a year - but no Quest for Glory. Boo! Of those collections, we’re missing several games. Most notably, there’s no Leisure Suit Larry 7 (the best), and no King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity (crap, but whatever).

What’s the point of a collection which doesn’t actually bother to collect together the series? Even assuming some compatibility problems, it would be better to have them and be able to experiment, especially since the only concession to modern systems is a DOSBox launcher that doesn’t play them all that great anyway. As it is, these compilations are less comprehensive than the last set, which also lacked the most recent games, but shoved in the spin-offs and copies of some of the supplementary material. Strike One. Right to the face.

This is Gaming History. In very bedraggled, badly-drawn box form.

Let’s take a closer look at the Space Quest one. No manual, you’ll notice - just a little pamphlet that mostly talks about DOSBox. I don’t really care if that’s how the games have been made to run on modern systems - it’s a good piece of software. On the disc itself, there’s a more comprehensive manual… but… it’s the manual for a previous compilation of Space Quests 1-5. Would it have killed them to scan in a copy of the Galactic Enquirer? If so, wouldn’t it have been worth the sacrifice? This stuff was part of the game experience! Christ only knows how new Police Quest players are going to handle things, given how many rules you have to follow. And Larry 3 is nothing short of Copy Protection Gulch - only Conquests of the Longbow (which is excellent, incidentally) really beats it in terms of manual lookups. If you’ve used DOSBox, you’ll likely know that alt-tabbing out can be troublesome. It’s definitely a pain in the arse.

Why can’t the damn codes be on a paper sheet with the game? Again, would that really have been so hard? Strike Two and Strike Three combined. In a bun.

Moving onto the disc, one thing instantly leaps out: where’s Space Quest 1? Yes, yes, there’s Space Quest VGA - but come on. The original game was built for floppies! Why can’t we go back and see how it all began for real? That’s kinda the point of a long joke in the fourth part, that’s now completely neutered. At least the important ones - Space Quests 4 and 5 are firmly in place, and 4 is the talkie version with Gary Owens’ superb sardonic narrator. I’m still tempted to dock points for the inclusion of the fetid Space Quest 2, but only because I hate and despise everything about it.

Dear Stupid, Newly Unsolvable Datacorder Puzzle: I HATE YOU, I’M LEAVING, AND I’M TAKING THE KIDS.

But wait! Wait wait wait! What about Space Quest 6? That had two manuals with it - the main manual, and a second… a joke manual that held what weren’t meant to be but ended up being the copy protection codes! There’s no sign of them. Anywhere. Not in the PDF manual. Not supplied with the disc. No text file. No PDF. Not even the .WRI files Sierra released after the game hit the shelves. How are you meant to solve the already tricky Datacorder puzzle? Where’s your lookup table for making the fuel? Well, if you’re on the internet - a reasonable guess, unless you’re reading this in its new papyrus edition - I guess you could Google it, but that’s not the point! With what you get in the pack, you get about a quarter of the game, and a quarter alone! Hurrah.

I guess… on

...the… plus side…

it runs… so

...slowly… in DOSBox… that…

you probably… won’t

...get that far anyway. Still, a pathetic showing; up to at least Strike Seven before so much as loading the first game. Classic adventures. Cack-handed treatment. Boo, fetid zombie corpse of Sierra Online! Boo! Hiss! I bite my thumb at you.