Recently Released "Kings Quest Collection" Review, by Lo_Res_Man

[lo_res_man]

First and foremost this will be a review of the Windows XP compatible, “Kings Quest Collection” not the games themselves, which have already been reviewed enough for any soul to find at his or her own leisure.
Recently released by Sierra, the “Kings Quest Collection” comprises practically all of the “Kings Quest” adventure games. Most fans won’t miss the only exception, “Kings Quest IIIV”.  The installation was painless, in my view too painless. I would have preferred more options in the installation. As it was, all I got to choose, was were I would put the file dump and then it was time to install. I would have much preferred been able to choose which games I wanted installed at that time. Installation took quite a while on my computer, and though I have worked with slower, I am sure most adventure fans don’t exactly go for speed demons. Then the system itself, barebones, but very user friendly just a list of the games and button under each to play and another to bring up the manual. Unfortunately, the game only has one manual, with all necessary information included. But even with editing to make each games segment as short as possible (though it does include the back story for each game) it still feels long and ill put together. It would have been nice to have scanned-in copies of each games original manual, but at least those are easy to find on the Internet. But I just paid 25 bucks (Canadian) for some old software I could download for free, at least give me some goodies for my respect for copyright laws.
In conformation of rumours, yes the illustrious DOSbox is used to allow Windows XP compatibility. And luckily the programmers have made it so it starts automatically when you start a game. The only typing you will have to do is in the actual game itself, like I said, user friendly. Uninstalling is again breeze, but again too much of one. Say I want to uninstall some of the games? Is it possible I don’t want all of them on my hard drive at once? Of course you can delete any of the dos games in their folders without fear of screwing up your computer, but I am not so sure about the seventh. 1.4 gigabytes isn’t much on a modern computer, but we adventurers like our games old, so upgrading can often be a downgrade in compatibility with our old favourites.
In conclusion, though it is nice to get these hoary old classics all at once, somehow it feels kind of sad. No more shall I search thrift stores and flea markets for these jewels of a bygone age. Nor more shall I bid on ebay franticly for a cd the probably has more scratches then drapes after a  millions cats have been at them.
On the other hand… this collection doesn’t have the ORIGINAL “Kings Quest,” or “Space Quest” or “Police Quest”, or anything Lucas…so come ye old adventure freaks, The Games Afoot!

[ManicMatt]

It doesn't have the original King's Quest? What do you mean? Is it a remake version?

Indeed, this collection is released alongside Police Quest, Space quest and Leisure Suit larry collections. I did the honourable thing as an adventure gamer and ordered them for my shop! None of them sold on Saturday though... give them time!

I also have a pre-owned copy of Sam 'n' Max with Day of the Tentacle on one disc at 14.99. Do you think I am asking for too much? It seems quite rare to me, I can't even get it on Amazon. (UK consumers remember)

[LimpingFish]

I saw all the Sierra collections today in my local GameStop. E19.99 each. I hummed and hawed over them for a while, but in the end I didn't buy them. I probably will...eventually.

ManicMatt: Preowned S&M/DOTT for 14.95? Dunno, but it seems a little high. I got mine (the same one) two or three years ago for...E9.95?...in HMV. A "new" copy. That works out at about five or six quid sterling. I'd say £9.95 would be acceptable,

EDIT: Actually, eBay have a copy here. £21.99 seems a little steep. I suppose it depends on what people are willing to pay.

[lo_res_man]

It doesn't have the original King's Quest? What do you mean? Is it a remake version?

It is the SCI version, the one the Tierra based there games off of. Iddeed, most of THIER backrounds are major retouched versions of the SCI versions
I was in luck recently, I found a copy of both Day of the Tenticle, and Sam and Max for 11 buck (can.) each with taxes. unfortunatly they were the mac versions. bummer, then I found out I can play mac version on scummvm, IF i use a mac drive emulater. But the zip vesion of the file was corrupted ( like the scummvm wiki says) so bummer. then I repared it using the tools in Win RAR, and hip hip horray, I know own Day of the Tenticule AND Sam and Max, YIPEE!

[Radiant]

It is the SCI version, the one the Tierra based there games off of.

Oh that's funny, I still have the LOADER version somewhere around. That's the version that predates actual AGI, and comes on a 5.25" boot disk. Not that I can run it or anything

It's the same as the AGI but with some quirks. It doesn't use F1-F10, but rather uses the number keys for save, restore, etc. It doesn't have popup text boxes, but the text appears in the bottom area of the screen, word by word. The screen flashes a bit when being drawn when you enter a room, thus you can see what the "objects" are because they appear last. The parser allows you to do all kinds of dumb things like throwing away the treasure, an issue which was dropped in the AGI version because it's just asking for dead ends. Oh yeah and Graham's walking anim doesn't stop cycling when you walk into a wall.

Most importantly, it has better music/sfx than any AGI game, nearly but not quite on par with the earlier Lucasfilm games. I have no clue why Sierra decided to change that part.

[Helm]

Most importantly, it has better music/sfx than any AGI game, nearly but not quite on par with the earlier Lucasfilm games. I have no clue why Sierra decided to change that part.

Is it made to run on Apple II as AGI games are? Are there any screenshots of this? Sounds interesting.

[LimpingFish]

This one?

[Helm]

Oh wow this is better art how?

edit: excuse me, I misread. music/sfx, not better graphics. Sorry.

[Babar]

This seems the simplest place to ask a question that's been bugging me for quite a while now, even if it is not really related to the topic (sorry).  What is the name of the tune that plays in King's Quest 2 when Graham dies?

[Radiant]

Requiem by Faure, IIRC.

Well, a variation thereof, anyway. The cheerful notes at the end don't belong there.

[MillsJROSS]

I can't speak for the KQ new collection, as I have not bough it yet. However, I did immediatly buy the SQ collection, even though I had the previous collection.

All in all, it was obviously quickly put together, and the manual wasn't complete. However, as you can find the original documentation on-line, it wasn't that big of a deal. I found the install to be fine, mainly because the games are so small, you might as well just have them on your system. They ran well, and I had a lot less timing issues than I've had in the past. The only problem I had was running the sixth one, which because it was running from the DOSBOX it was running far slower than it had a need to. I ended up just making a seperate installation of SQ6, from a previous cd I bought.

I'm kind of half and half on how I feel about these products. From what I can gather, they were hastily put together. I think they could have been put together better, manual wise. And if any of the collections had their AGI remake, they didn't include the older version of the game. It seems like it took far too long for this collection to come out, considering the product. However, that said, it is more manageable on newer computers. Yeah, you don't have the option of playing with settings on installation, but it took me an hour sometimes to install and fiddle with everything to get some of the games working previously. It also worked with my soundcard a hell of a lot better, and I wasn't forced to listen to my internal speaker. And as the collections compromise, generally, five or more games, 20 dollars isn't that bad of a price.

I do intend to buy all the collections, as there are a few games in some of these collections that I've missed. Yeah, they do suffer from some flaws from packaging, but the games themselves are gems.