...I've never actually played King's Quest. Ever. I've Policed, and I've Spaced, but never Kinged, and I'm finally able to admit it!
Also because Steam have the King's Quest series at half price today. So, has anyone else missed out on classic, seemingly obligatory parts of adventure gaming?
No King's Quest? Welcome to the club! \o/
I've booted up most Sierra games at least once, but I've only played...three?...four?...to completion. And only a handful more for any significant amount of time.
Can't stand King's Quest, myself.
I've tried to play kings quest, but there's something about the horrible sugary-sweet Disney-like tone of it all that drives me away before I can double click the exe.
The most honest thing I can say about sierra adventure games is;- I've played quite a lot of them, paid for none of them, and I don't feel even slightly guilty about it.
They're not bad, they're just mediocre.
I never really played Grim Fandango. I just hated the controls. Same reason why I never tried Monkey Island 4. I'm more of a point-and-clicker I guess. Maybe I should give Grim Fandango another shot because people seem to agree that it's a great game.
Technocrat,
don't bother playing them.
I'd watch this instead: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5ACDE10D49E44AA3&feature=plcp (pretty funny KQ 5 Let's Play)
After that, you won't want to play any of them anymore anyway. :)
There are at least two good KQ games: KQ6, and the KQ2 remake by Tierra/AGDI. Try one of those to see if you like the series at all (KQ6 has some dead ends, so you might want to follow along in a walkthrough to make sure you don't miss something and have to go back to the beginning later).
KQ5 and Mask of Eternity are usually regarded as the worst ones, so don't bother with those.
I've never beaten an adventure game without a guide. And I've never beaten a Sierra game. :o
I'm not really a Sierra lover to be honest. I bought all the Space Quest games on offer a few years ago, but only played the first and didn't really like it. I've never played Police quest, but I have played Kings Quest 1... I think... though I might not have completed it.
More of a Lucasarts man, but that said I still haven't played Grim Fandango... I technically own it, but it wouldn't work on my computer and I let my friend's ex-boyfriend borrow it, and haven't seen him since they broke up about two years ago. I'm hoping it gets released on Steam or GOG or something in the not-to-distant future, coz then it will have been tweaked to work properly on modern computers.
As someone who played pretty much all the KQ games, mask of eternity was actually a step up from the 'oh look, a rock to trip over and die in the road, Graham' hateplay of the earlier titles. I'm not saying it was a good game but at least it didn't gleefully punish me every five seconds for not being a mindreader.
I never finished I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, I never Policed and Spaced. Yes, I never played a single SQ game.
Aaaaaand I had to use a walkthrough for ALL of Woodruff and the Shnibble of Azimuth. That was a baaaad day.
If I had to suggest two King's Quest games to someone who never played them, it would be King's Quest I, in its original goodness, for nostalgia and history sake and if you've Spaced and Policed, I'm fairly sure you know the kind of challenge to expect from it, and King's Quest VI, because most of what a lot of people hate about King's Quest is absent from this game.
My embarrassing confession is that I haven't played Barn Runner since The Armageddon Eclair (I think), nor Ben Jordan after the fifth game, because both of those series have such an extensive lore that is somewhat required to remember in order to fully appreciate the plot of each chapters and the series as a whole, and since I don't have enough free time to replay every games prior to a new chapter release, I've decided to simply wait 'til both series are completed before playing them in one long go.
But Ponch knows all about this and pardoned me already. :=
Quote from: blueskirt on Sat 24/03/2012 04:35:53
Ponch knows all about this and pardoned me already. :=
It was a difficult decision. Possibly the hardest thing I've ever had to do. :=
As for my confession: I much prefer Robert E. Howard's Conan stories to any of Tolkien's LOTR stuff. Give me swords, picts, and boobies over boring, snooty elves any day of the week. Also, I've never played World of Warcraft. Oh, and I kind of liked Duke Nukem Forever.
There we go. All my deepest, shameful secrets out in the open. Feel free to judge me. 8)
Maybe it's an age thing, but I grew up entirely on Sierra games like PQ, SQ and LSL.
I've played most of the KQ titles, but found them too stressful and annoying. However KQVI is a game I adore, even though I've never completed it. It's a game they could have made so much better, by removing the dead ends and the slightly weird timed events. The artwork, the puzzles and the wonderfully imaginative settings are just lovely.
It's a pity Sierra grew out of the "let's kill the player all the time to add game time" mentality a bit too late.
Objectively I know that KQV is a terrible game, but it's one of the first games I remember playing and I get the warm fuzzies just looking at it. Even hearing the title music makes me want to run out and play it again.
Grew up with KQ 1-3 and LSL 1-3 and still love KQ3. It was the first KQ I've played.
It was awesome both AGDI and IA brought out a KQ3 remake :)
Quote from: Snarky on Fri 23/03/2012 21:09:16
KQ6, and the KQ2 remake by Tierra/AGDI. Try one of those to see if you like the series at all.
+1
Wanted to write exactly the same thing.
(and indeed, KQ6 is slightly less affordable because of the few dead ends. You usually see them coming, but it's still frustrating if you get screwed).
KQ3 remake is also nice, but is a bit frustrating because of the rythm of the
original game (lots of time-based puzzles - yuck!)
KQ1 remake is nice but the puzzles are very simplistic -- you can clearly see that the point-n-click genre was still looking for its gameplay.
I was raised on King's Quest and Quest for Glory, all of which I have beaten, and all of which I enjoyed, probably because I didn't know any better at the time. I just figured all computer games were fiendishly hard. Before all the Sierra goodness, I played text-only adventures (which I can't remember EVER beating), and some old 5.25 disk game called "Demon's Forge," where my only memory is throwing a blanket on an assassin before he shoots you.
My embarrassing confession is that the ONLY LucasArts games I have ever played were Out of This World (that's LucasArts, right?), Day of the Tentacle, and The Dig. I've never been to Monkey Island, hit the road with Sam and Max, gone anywhere Full Throttle, been trained to use the Loom, and I've never entered Maniac Mansion, not even with a remake. I don't even remember hearing about Grim Fandango until I started hanging out in the forums here.
But even being one of the Sierra faithful, I've never played Police Quest or Leisure Suit Larry, either. Not that I regret missing out on either of those. My Sierra favorites were QfG3, KQ6, and Gabriel Knight 1.
I have no respect for someone who doesn't like Sierra or calls one of their games "mediocre", and I never will. Ever.
Well, this applies to adventure game fans only...
antipus: You have a lot of catching up to do then!
Secret Fawful: And I have no respect for a self proclaimed Sierra fan who's into blind fanboyism and never sat down and played every Sierra games to examine what made these games tick, what they did right and what they did wrong. Sierra made a lot of great games but they also made a lot alright and bad games too. ;)
There are a lot of Sierra games I do like, just not their "Quest" adventure titles... That said I think some of the recent AGS space quest remakes will actually tempt me into giving them a try now. Do yous hate me still Micheal? :=
I have to admit though Technocrat, I've never fully played a game by Technocrat.
Quote from: m0ds on Thu 29/03/2012 20:09:11
I've never fully played a game by Technocrat.
You should. They're not just good, they're the technocratiest! :D
My mind blanks when I see people bashing Sierra. No, I don't hate anybody, and my anger is not personal, as once I see the bashing everyone gets clumped together in an "evil Sierra hater" collective, but I bet anything that the things that you people consider flaws I consider great strengths in gameplay, because I have thought it out. I really don't care how much the game frustrates the player or rips the player apart as long as it's winnable in the long run. I consider Gold Rush and Leisure Suit Larry III masterpieces of adventure game design. And to be fair, when I said Sierra games shouldn't be called mediocre, I forgot about Phantasmagoria 2, which I will definitely be the first to call mediocre. I hate Leisure Suit Larry 6 and I don't care to play 7 and on. 5 isn't mediocre but it's the least of the best of the series. People who say the parser games or the QFG games are bad will find themselves in a fight with me. And the parser games are the worst of them all by the popular opinion. So when I see the bashing, the first thing I think of is the parser games. I'll apologize for my rashness, but never for my "blind Sierra fanboyism".
I don't like it when people say a game is bad just because they couldn't handle it. From an objective standpoint, this is the idiot's opinion to me. I remember a time when Sierra games were revered for their death sequences and people played them 50% because they wanted to see all the random and hilarious ways you could die. I don't see any of those people anywhere anymore, and apparently having the opinion that these deaths were bad poorly-thought-out game design is cool now or something.
But truthfully, 75% of the reason I'm backing down is because I greatly respect Mark. Even if Kinky Island doesn't have a random plant that finds you and kills you within 15 minutes, with no possible way to escape.
Hopefully it's not all attributed to design and such, I mean - it's not for me. Yes I dislike text parser, but personally with Sierra it's more about the directions of the stories. Strangely when I was younger I had no interest in playing the role of a "king" or as a "spaceman" or as a sex addict with a head five times larger than his body. It was just all too "off the wall" for me as a younger player.
And I'd already had misconceptions about movies with 5 sequels, so when I saw LEC games were standalone titles and Sierra had 5 games under each title, I didn't consider this was because it was popular, moreso that Sierra were failing to create a decent, one-off standalone game. There was no fun being 12 and thinking, "Well, I can either play one full length original title, or I can play one Sierra game, and then have to fork out another £100 for the 5 sequels to find out what happens". I don't deny they brought a lot of joy to people. And some of these AGS remakes are really tempting... There are so many old adventures I still really want to play (cos I never have) but still for some reason I just don't feel bothered if I die without ever having played a Sierra adventure.. ;)
It's natural to have a Sierra/other brand argument at least once a year, at least to just remind you that you are an age-d adventure gamer of some sort :P
Ponch: I will try and have a technotastic time soon!
It's not all about design, but to an extent, most of my respect for the games comes from their uncompromising design. In the case of games like Gold Rush, uncompromising is an understatement. I'm nowhere near an aged adventurer...not like most here probably are. I love Sierra and Lucasarts equally, with some other companies thrown in as equals, but I never played an adventure game until the year 2000. Of course I was nine then, so starting from an early age helped give me a similar amount of nostalgia and love for the genre. But my arguments for Sierra themselves stem from a recent place. I'm one of these weird guys that thinks that adventure games got dumbed down more and more and more and more as the years went on because people believed the genre needed simplification. Oh well, back to playing Moonmist for me, I guess.
You won't find me saying Sierra is better than Lucasarts or some AGS games I've played, but I will never agree to say they're worse either.
It makes me sad when I occasionally see the obsessive hatred against Sierra (or King's Quest specifically), but I figure they're hated so much because they were so popular back then.
I guess the two complaints most often levelled against them is that the stories are generic and bland, and that the puzzle design is horrendous.
The original King's Quest games WERE perhaps a bit bland. But this was the beginnings of the genre, when admittedly, they probably focused more on the idea of them having graphics than creating a detailed and involving world and story. I'd say King's Quest 5 and 6 (and even 4, I guess) had some greatly enjoyable and involving worlds. Sure, they picked up and used generic fairy-tale tropes (wicked witch in the woods, Ice Queen in her fortress, etc.), but that was their shtick!
The other issue people have with the games is their horrible puzzle design, which, if you play those games now, is pretty hard to deny. But while I disagree mostly with what he considers a good game, he may be absolutely correct in that that may be intentionally how they designed it, and it definitely is what many people expected, hence the "Save early, save often". Again, I myself admit that some of the Sierra games had sub-par puzzle design, but for quite a bit of their stuff (for example KQ5, which people here seem to hate for that reason), the other things made up for it, sometimes even within the puzzle design. For example, I absolutely loved the final battle in King's Quest V!
I suppose, again, since they were so popular, they get extra flak for that, but quite a few adventure games (KGB, Starship Titanic, Kyrandia 1 and maybe 2, Dark Seed, etc.), had it even worse, and are still understood to be great (outside of the puzzle design, obviously, or sometimes because of it).
I get a bit upset when critics (GameSpot, etc...) rate GK3 with no more than 6 stars out of 10. Even Tim Curry gets a bash with the voice over Gabriel. The reviews criticise all the things that I loved about the game. And I'm still waiting for THAT feeling of being on a village, in France, solving templar myth riddles and puzzles. Was it me that played the game at the right time to play it? I remember that getting away from the common fantasy element of MI and the likes felt really refreshing to me.
As for the topic issue, I guess I've played most of the games out there, from classics till Gray Matter more or less, and I do agree that adventure game players don't have to try that hard to finish a modern game. And that's bad, IMO.
Sierra's KQ belong to a era where things were pretty different and when looking at them we must distance ourselves.
I tend not to like sierra games much. I can see the nostalgia for the early King's Quest and Quest or Glory games, and the humour of Space Quest kept me going in spite of the horrible puzzles.
However Gabriel Knight is a category on its own, for me. GK III is really one of the best adventure games ever. All the criticism levelled against it is true. The graphics and interface are awful, and the cat-moustache puzzle is as silly as they get. But it the atmosphere and plotting is so enthralling that I forgive everything.
It's not a 6/10 game. It's 2/10 AND 9/10.
All valid points, but I don't dislike Sierra games for their stories or puzzles, I dislike them because of what they probably considered providing a challenge and realism simply ends up as frustration in the long run.
I don't think that killing off the player is bad in general, but doing so casually, and arbitrarily, is another story. KQ3 required you to walk down and back up the mountain path multiple times, under a time constraint. But if you walked a single pixel too close to the edge, you die, instantly. I don't think I need to explain why this is obnoxious.
Another obvious flaw is walking-deads. I like a challenge, and I'm not one who refers to a walkthrough after being stuck for five minutes. But knowing that basically at any time, it might not even be possible any longer to find the one missing interaction that will advance the game instantly kills any fun I might have.
To me, this isn't a question of era or personal taste, it's simply a dealbreaker. And it already was one back in 1980, in my opinion. It just took Sierra way too long to realize that, so it became sort of a charming feature in the minds of the fan(boy)s.
Quote from: Khris on Fri 30/03/2012 17:19:32
All valid points, but I don't dislike Sierra games for their stories or puzzles, I dislike them because of what they probably considered providing a challenge and realism simply ends up as frustration in the long run.
I don't think that killing off the player is bad in general, but doing so casually, and arbitrarily, is another story. KQ3 required you to walk down and back up the mountain path multiple times, under a time constraint. But if you walked a single pixel too close to the edge, you die, instantly. I don't think I need to explain why this is obnoxious.
Another obvious flaw is walking-deads. I like a challenge, and I'm not one who refers to a walkthrough after being stuck for five minutes. But knowing that basically at any time, it might not even be possible any longer to find the one missing interaction that will advance the game instantly kills any fun I might have.
To me, this isn't a question of era or personal taste, it's simply a dealbreaker. And it already was one back in 1980, in my opinion. It just took Sierra way too long to realize that, so it became sort of a charming feature in the minds of the fan(boy)s.
+1
I like how if you disagree with the complaints against Sierra, you're a Sierra fanboy. It's like, you can only like one (Sierra) or the other(Lucasarts), but you can't like both. That's complete bullshit.
Quote from: Secret Fawful on Fri 30/03/2012 21:28:09
I like how if you disagree with the complaints against Sierra, you're a Sierra fanboy. It's like, you can only like one (Sierra) or the other(Lucasarts), but you can't like both. That's complete bullshit.
I don't think anyone has ostracized you for liking Sierra games. Much the opposite, you seem to take umbrage at anyone questioning the quality of Sierra games at all, lumping them into a collective faceless class of "you people" that you don't hate individually, but as a whole. These are game designers questioning the design decisions that led to, in their opinion, sub-par games. They're not attacking your religion (unless your religion is Sierra, which would make Leisure Suit Larry the Pope?).
Quote from: Secret Fawfulas once I see the bashing everyone gets clumped together in an "evil Sierra hater" collective, but I bet anything that the things that you people consider flaws I consider great strengths in gameplay
Yep. I take umbrage. Lots and lots of umbrage. Don't know what umbrage is but I take plenty of it. Too much talent went into these games to call them bad or even sub-par, and it's taken people like AGDI years to remake even one of them, so complex are they. I'm not so much on the offensive here, as I'm on the defensive. And I don't see why I should back down at all. These people made games the way they wanted, and they thought out every aspect. You guys call it bad because it frustrated you or you didn't have fun, or because you were generally inept at the games. That doesn't make sense to me. I don't see how the game should be engineered to suit you. I think games should be engineered just as much to give you a finish point you can get to as it should be engineered to defeat or best you. Exploration is dangerous, and good adventure games should have good exploration. Deaths don't have to be there, but I prefer it when they are. I prefer adventuring in a hazardous environment. I prefer it when things don't always go according to plan. I prefer games that require trial and error to solve. I can't count how many times I've had to start text adventures over, figuring out each step until the finish. And what's wrong with that? Gamers have gotten far too cushy for me. They feel they're entitled to quick solutions. I respect Sierra games and earlier adventures because they spit in the face of this idea. I'm not saying this pointing fingers at anyone here. To be fair, this is a pretentious idea, but I'm a pretentious bastard.
Honestly, this topic scares and frustrates me. I came here to make games under such design philosophies, but this leaves me wondering, as a designer, who exactly I'm making games for. Because I don't think anyone here would play any game I would make if they wouldn't play a game like Gold Rush or Kings Quest III. And what about the remakes by AGDI and Infamous? These are nowhere near mediocre. These games are some of the best to come out of AGS and deserve every bit of respect they can get. I agree that walking deads are bad...but I've never played a Sierra game that had more than one...I'm probably forgetting one, and I honestly can not say that one bad puzzle makes an entire game bad. Full Throttle had an incredibly obscure puzzle...and so did Monkey Island 1 and 2....those aren't considered bad games.
Well, it just strikes me that if you're not willing to approach the situation with civility yourself, it doesn't make sense for you to pretend like it's everyone else who's being uncivil.
Games are part of the great cluster of media for which judgments of quality are subjective. If people didn't enjoy Sierra games, you can't force them to like them. I haven't played many myself, a few Leisure Suit Larries, and a Police Quest. But those didn't provide me with the enthralling experiences that other games did, so I didn't feel the need to return to Sierra myself.
I don't hate you for liking Sierra games, and if anyone is identifying you as a Sierra fanboy, it's because of your frankly over-the-top responses to what is, in the end, subjective criticism. To you, Sierra is the pinnacle. To others, they were lesser games. That doesn't mean you're a horrible person for liking them, any more than it means that others are horrible people for not liking them. It just means we're human beings with different tastes, goals and ideologies when it comes to games.
Maybe you should join forces with the guy who's attempting a King's Quest multiplayer game. Your love of Sierra seems to be matched by him.
Really, Fawful, nobody here's it "attacking" Sierra games, but a lot of people don't like some aspects of gameplay they offered. Yes, it does give weight to a game when you can fail. But there are a lot of cases in Sierra games where you failed without it being obvious you are about to fail or you don't even know when you failed until some time later. Plus there is a bit to the fact that if you get frustrated it really tints the experience.Also, what is the opinion that not liking Sierra games, makes me somebody who can't handle a difficult puzzle?
Adventuring should be dangerous, but in an adventure game that offers exploration, it's not really fair if that exploration causes death. What if every time you examined something, your computer crashes, would that still be fun? What if you just played for 3 hours only to find out you cannot progress because 3h ago you didn't do something or, even worse, you weren't at a certain location. Yes, that maybe makes it realistic, but it doesn't really make it fun nor does it offer immersion for me.
It's not bashing if you don't like something.
@Eric: Ew. I hate how you say a love of Sierra like it's a bad thing. Sierra isn't the pinnacle to me. It's simply equal to Lucasarts and Infocom and Infogrames and such- and it strikes me since I backtracked on my first statement I've been very civil. My responses are well reasoned. Are they over-the-top because they're long and defensive? I have a lot to say on the matter and I have a perfect right to be defensive on the matter.
QuoteIt just means we're human beings with different tastes, goals and ideologies when it comes to games.
Wait a minute. This idea hasn't been applied even once so far in this topic. People have done nothing but call Sierra subpar and mediocre and bad, and I've been doing nothing but argue for the idea that Sierra isn't bad because it runs under a different ideaology and philosophy of game design. It seems like all of the most important things I've said have been brushed over and ignored in an attempt to make this about me. That irritates the shit out of me. I mean, I started it, but apparently the fact I backtracked on my statement regarding respect doesn't really matter?
QuoteReally, Fawful, nobody here's it "attacking" Sierra games, but a lot of people don't like some aspects of gameplay they offered. Yes, it does give weight to a game when you can fail. But there are a lot of cases in Sierra games where you failed without it being obvious you are about to fail or you don't even know when you failed until some time later.
I can't think of a Sierra game that does this more than once. KQ5 with the cat. LSL3 with the locker. I know I'm forgetting instances, but my memory is poor, so feel free to list ones I've forgotten.
QuoteAlso, what is the opinion that not liking Sierra games, makes me somebody who can't handle a difficult puzzle?
I really hate how I went out of my way to say that I wasn't saying this in my post and it was entirely ignored.
QuoteAdventuring should be dangerous, but in an adventure game that offers exploration, it's not really fair if that exploration causes death. What if every time you examined something, your computer crashes, would that still be fun?
That's not really....a good comparison, but okay. I have played a game to the finish that crashed on me every time I moved from room to room. I still enjoyed the game, and I consider it a near masterpiece, even if my computer hated it. It just wasn't the game's fault.
QuoteWhat if you just played for 3 hours only to find out you cannot progress because 3h ago you didn't do something or, even worse, you weren't at a certain location. Yes, that maybe makes it realistic, but it doesn't really make it fun nor does it offer immersion for me.
This is a valid point, but it's a level of difficulty I enjoy. I admit in this case, this is just my personal taste. However...calling a game bad because you didn't have fun....doesn't work? I can't get myself to finish Grim Fandango, but I still LOVE everything about the game.
QuoteIt's not bashing if you don't like something.
No, but not liking something often leads to bashing. I don't like Citizen Kane but I acknowledge it as a great piece of filmmaking.
Quote from: Secret Fawful on Sat 31/03/2012 00:25:33I agree that walking deads are bad...
See, we are in agreement.
The only difference between us is that you still love the games and have great respect for the designers, while I turned to LucasArts and Revolution games because they specifically chose to follow the "fun > realism" philosophy I happen to share.
I could have been more diplomatic in my first post but I simply assumed that Technocrat would much rather find out about the gameplay "features"
before getting hopelessly stuck.
Also, I already can't stand having to replay the 15 seconds since the last checkpoint over and over again, and replaying long portions of a slow paced game like an adventure is simply out of the question.
(And just to clarify, when I said fanboy, I was talking about people who are so in love that they can't even admit the existence of a single flaw. By that definition, you clearly aren't one.)
Edit: You did mention "inept", and when you raved about Sierra, what we hear is that other companies put less work/creativity/innovation/whatever in their games, which isn't true.
And since Goldrush was mentioned, if you don't pick up an item at the very beginning, the game is unwinnable at the very end.
Sierra games have plenty of walking deads, one per game is definitely an understatement.
I still say the pros outweigh the cons. Well, I've said my peace, but I could have said it better. Chock it up to my terrible debating skills and my thoughtless rashness. I'm not out to make anything personal, I just jump to the gun too quick when I have a disagreement. I actually greatly respect this community. I wouldn't be here if I didn't, and there is a lot of talent here. I'd just as quickly jump to defend this place as I would to defend Sierra. I apologize for my uncivility.
Oh, just to clarify my stance on Sierra:
A number of LucasArt's titles are just as undeserving of universal praise. Revolution made two good games, and a whole bunch of mediocre ones. And, in general, 75% of all the adventure games I've ever played range from terrible to average.
Hooray for opinions!
QuoteI can't think of a Sierra game that does this more than once. KQ5 with the cat. LSL3 with the locker. I know I'm forgetting instances, but my memory is poor, so feel free to list ones I've forgotten.
Let's take Space Quest I as an example because I'm familiar with it. You can get screwed up if you:
Spoiler
Forget to get the cartridge and/or translator before leaving the Arcada,
Forget to get the glass shard before entering the cave,
Cross the stone bridge twice without killing the Orat,
Forget to read the cartridge,
Forget to pick it up again,
Get your skimmer stolen,
Leave Ulence Flats without the jetpack and/or the coordinates to the Deltaur,
Miss your chance to pick up a grenade.
That's ten just in the same game.
Space Quest II? Which I replayed last month...
Spoiler
Forget to rescue the Pinkunz,
Don't get the Labion Terror Beast mating whistle,
Don't get the spore,
Don't find up the gem,
Tie the rope to the stump instead of the log,
Forget to pick up the gem when it falls from your hand,
Don't pick up the glass cutter,
Don't stop the clone invasion.
Eight.
King's Quest V? Oh, that one is a bit fuzzier...
Spoiler
Don't rescue the mouse,
Forget the gold coin and/or the lamp in Ali Baba's cavern,
Get stuck in the forest without the honeycomb,
Eat the pie,
Tie the rope to the stump instead of the rock,
Forget to get a piece of crystal in the Yeti's cave,
Forget to get the necklace in the nest,
Forget the hook on the harpies' island,
Go in Mordack's castle without saving Cedric, (I'm not sure about this one)
Don't pick up the cheese on your first visit in Mordack's dungeon.
Eleven. I probably missed or got one wrong. I'm much less familiar with this one, and I know there's a bunch of hidden flags before you can get past the snake.
And to clarify my post, a whole lot of Sierra games are flawed. Sometimes the pros outshine the flaws, other times, it's the other way around. Sierra made plenty of awesome games but they also made some mediocre and bad games. Like you, I find the notion that all Sierra games are mediocre/bad to be ludicrous, but I also find the notion that all their games are brilliant to be just as ludicrous. Sometimes you just need to compare them with other games in the same series to notice a disparity in term of quality.
And on the Sierra versus LucasArts rivalry, I think, and it's just my opinion, that most LucasArts adventure games are superior than most Sierra adventure games, but I have a little bit more respect for Sierra because it was a company with employees to pay and ends to meet, they had to diversify their activities and push hardware, LucasArts was much more like a fun project for LucasFilm, and they could afford to spend more time designing and polishing their games. And yet, I don't have as much fun discussing LucasArts adventure games as I do with Sierra. I love Monkey Island, but I never registered on a forum to talk about it. Sierra however I love to discuss. Probably because I have more fun talking about flaws.
Oh, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is easily LucasArts' most flawed, most player unfriendly, most badly implemented game LucasArts ever made. It's objectively a mediocre even bad game which I love dearly. Even more than Fate of Atlantis. Which is no doubt superior to The Last Crusade. Yet, The Last Crusade had this awesome multi linearity aspect which they completely butchered in the sequel. And I love to talk about it all the time on m0ds' forum because I hope Fountain of Youth will steal some elements from it, and better implement them.
Oh, and Leisure Suit Larry VII is awesome, and you should give it a try, because that crazy Al Lowe implemented a text parser in addition to the point and click interface. And you can try and type all kind of verbs in addition to the context sensitive verbs the point and click interface gives you, for extra jokes, although it's no IF game.
Oh, and m0ds, if you want, I'm pretty sure we could write you a list of Sierra games that are player friendly, worth playing and have stand alone plots.
I did get some of those dead ends, like the crystal in the yeti cave, but I entirely forgot about them.
Clearly it's possible to love something even though you know it's bad, which is fascinating!
Lure of the temptress will always have a special place in my heart, even though it's a very poorly designed game, looking at it objectively. There is not a single "clever" puzzle in the entire game - they're either completely straightforward (use lockpick on lock, use tinderbox to start fire, etc), or downright dumb (the only way to get an empty flask is to have a character drink its contents - instead of just emptying it anywhere).
There are very long chains consisting of giving random objects to random characters, who will in return give you new random objects to give to new characters.
To defeat the dragon, you have to use a magic potion *yawn*, and to create the potion you need some ingredients that are simply picked up at random places.
Still love it.
But I don't look at it for cues on puzzle design :)
heh, I was just going to mention Lure of the temptress too, because I once spent 4+ hours looking for a way to start the fire, and the tinderbox had disappeared by that point. I didn't actually find out that it was a dead-end until I re-installed the game 6 months later.
- Unfortunately that sort of thing dumps it in the 'mediocre' camp for me. It's not good or bad, it's a mix of the 2. That makes recommending it, particularly when money is involved, a difficult prospect, even if I personally enjoyed it.
If the good and bad are balanced, it's average\medicore\5/10 stuff. Anything else will come down to personal perspective. You might love it regardless of the flaws, Or you might hate it and wish you'd bought something else.
It's like recommending Marmite to people.
Quote from: Ali on Fri 30/03/2012 16:54:24
I tend not to like sierra games much. I can see the nostalgia for the early King's Quest and Quest or Glory games, and the humour of Space Quest kept me going in spite of the horrible puzzles.
However Gabriel Knight is a category on its own, for me. GK III is really one of the best adventure games ever. All the criticism levelled against it is true. The graphics and interface are awful, and the cat-moustache puzzle is as silly as they get. But it the atmosphere and plotting is so enthralling that I forgive everything.
It's not a 6/10 game. It's 2/10 AND 9/10.
That's exactly how I feel about it.
I guess adventure games turn out to be as any other art form. Like people can love the Beatles Yeah-yeah-yeah simplicity or a classic book like Bram's Dracula. Although things have changed we all learned to distance ourselves from the flaws and admire those works of art for its innovation and concept.
So, I guess we guys, true lovers of adventure games, must cherish the classics of adventure gaming, and remember new-comers that a lot had to be done for the earned possibility that we now have to criticize (based on solid understanding of the genre) every new game that comes out.
Those Sierra and Infocom games are a gift to us, it allowed room for LucasArts and the rest to emerge and polish the genre.
Is Dracular considered flawed? Crikey. People have high standards, don't they? It's an amazing read.
If you're talking about my reference to Bram Stoker's Dracula then here's my opinion on the book: yes it is a step-stone work about vampires and a fascinating story, but the endless diary pages between the main character and his beloved and yet more diary entries are, in my opinion, the most boring time I've ever had while reading. But, and this is the issue, because I know that there's more to the book than those middle pages I did read them and can distance myself from that. So, to me it is a flaw. For you might be exciting to go though the diary entries. It's all a matter of taste in the end. And the reason me and you can discuss Bram's book is because the book meant something and was ultimately--good.
I'd say that what makes a bad game is not the flaws, but the lack of anything good, and so it's no wonder that there are a lot of very flawed games that manage to find their place in our hearts because of what they got right. And what is "right" is very much a matter of opinion, hence the Sierra bashing/loving.
Personally, I'd pick Sierra over Lucas Arts any day of the week, even though I'd admit that LA released more great games. It's just that none of them are as special to me as Quest for Glory 4 and Gabriel Knight are. I've never finished a single KQ game, but at least I enjoyed playing them (parts 2, 5 and 6). Which brings me to an embarassing confession of my own - I haven't finished any of the Monkey Island games, because I didn't really like anything about them. I tried my best to fall in love with them, but failed miserably every time. Is there something wrong with me? :)
While technically, they'd be referred to as dead ends, in my mind, if there is stuff that you forget to pick up, and then just a couple short screens later you are stuck in a position where you can't return to get that stuff, but you need it for a puzzle in front of you, I wouldn't REALLY consider that one of those game-breaking dead-ends, since you can probably reload a save you had (stuff like what Blueskirt mentioned about KQ5 near the end in Mordack's castle). The explanation I agree to is when it is described as "forget to do or do something wrong at the beginning of the game, and then near the end of the game (or much later, I guess), you get stuck (or even killed)".
Again, while today I have no patience for that sort of gameplay, back when these games came out, I understood that these games operated with a certain ruleset of what was expected of the player, and what was expected of the game. Many of these don't make "realistic" sense , but there they were:
You were expected to have multiple saves, and constantly create new ones (you were probably expected to save before attempting any "new" thing).
You were expected not to do anything obviously stupid (or at least save before doing it, doing it, watching the result, then reloading)
You were expected to try and pick up everything.
You were expected to explore as much as possible, but still always save first.
There were a couple of times when Sierra itself turned these rules on its head, of course, which I found annoying and unfair. The unstable ordinance in SQ4 was an example. The boulder rolling over and killing you if were on the wrong side in KQ1 (which I care about less, because I don't really consider it a relevant game in terms of puzzle design or immersion in the game world, it was just the first at what it did) is another example. Mazes generally operated on a completely different ruleset from the rest of the game as well (take out some paper and plot the maze, save every screen, save before going to the next screen, you are very probably EXPECTED to have to die several times to do this properly, etc.), but again, it was generally understood that this is the way it was.
As far as the original topic is concerned, if it is still relevant in any way, I'd recommend:
King's Quest 5 (with the caveat that you should understand that you should pick up everything you find, and if there is a cat doing bad things, THROW SOMETHING AT IT :D, and be careful what you eat, and don't eat too much :P) and 6
SQ1 (I personally prefer the VGA remake), 3 and 4 (and 5 if you REALLY want to)..
Quest for Glory 1, 2 (you might like the VGA remake AGDI did for that, I haven't really played it fully, though), and 4.
I'd definitely recommend Gabriel Knight 1. I wasn't too fond of the FMV of 2, and I don't share Ali's love of 3, but sure, you can check those out if you feel like it.
I'd also recommend Conquest of Longbow, and if you are able to overcome the more slightly troublesome interface (and slightly more evil puzzle design :P), I'd definitely recommend Conquest of Camelot and The Colonel's Bequest.
You might also want to try Heart of China from the Dynamix Games Sierra published. I'd recommend Willy Beamish too, but I'm not sure if that is just my nostalgia speaking...it was difficult in such an insanely scary, yet hilarious way. Snake will back me up on that :D. I've heard Rise of the Dragon is also great.
Perhaps it is my personal taste, but I could never really care for the Police Quests (they just seemed to be "follow police procedure to the dot, and win"), Leisure Suit Larrys, and Freddy Pharkas (the aimlessness and lack of goals of the first half of the game didn't motivate me enough to continue, even though it seemed very well made otherwise).
If I had to choose much fewer, I'd say KQ6, SQ4 (and maybe 3), QfG4, GK1
/me embarrasedly confesses to have not realised Technocrat was only talking about KQ.
So yeah...play KQ6.
PS: Ilyich, if you didn't like ANYTHING about Monkey Island 2 (the music, the atmosphere, the humour), then yes, something is wrong with you :P.
Heh. That's pretty much why I like Police Quest. :=
Oh, another confession, I have LOOM, and I've never finished it, I just can't get into it, the whole interface. It's confusing to me. :=
In Loom, sometimes when you examine an object, a four note melody will be played on your staff. You got to write down those melodies and use them to solve puzzles.
One of the first melody you learn is the Open melody. When you look at an object and play the Open melody on your staff, whatever you are looking at will open (if it's an object that can be opened of course, like a door.) If you play the melody in reverse, the object will close. You start with three different notes, as you progress in the game you will unlock more notes and be able to play more melodies.
Most of the game is spent exploring your surrounding, learning melodies and using them to solve puzzles and make the story progress. There are no inventory puzzles. And one last advice, if it's your first time, play on Beginner, not Expert. The interface has more information and is easier to use on that difficulty. It's not like Lechuck's Revenge, the puzzles are not different from one difficulty level to another (although a cutscene near the end of the game is extended if you play on Expert.)
Play it, it's a short and easy but fun game.
I think a case can be made for Lucasfilm Games, later Lucasarts having the clear advantage over Sierra out the door. Not only did they come along with a massive heavy hitter for an entry adventure game but they were Lucasfilm Games. This wasn't a company put together by a husband and wife in a tiny studio but a major player with the resources and talent available to pop out games like Monkey Island 2 and Full Throttle without really breaking a sweat. As much as I dislike most Sierra games, at least I am willing to see the differences between the two companies. When you take that into account, genre-defining games like Gabriel Knight and even the experimental efforts like Quest for Glory become more impressive, and I think the reason for it is that Sierra was willing to take greater risks than Lucasfilm/Lucasarts was willing or able to, which locked Lucasarts games into the category of safe, sure bets that preferred to be innocuous rather than be potentially offensive, with the notable exception of The Dig where they tried out an adventure based on a movie narrative. You can see this dynamic play out in how one company chose a conceptually safer route of preventing dead-ends and player deaths vs. a company that often refused to hold your hand and would punish you for making mistakes. Some people prefer the former, others the latter.
I've always been somewhere in-between where I thought deaths were fine if the game justified it. Gabriel Knight never infuriated me with the death scenes but games like Space Quest and Kings Quest did because they were treated like an essential game mechanic rather than an unfortunate consequence in those games, and to make it worse, they would often poke fun at you as well. This to me was the absolute worst aspect of Sierra games and why I despised many of them, so comparatively I favored Lucasarts games much more highly.
As far as games I've missed, I'm not aware of any major ones. I pretty much gave every game that came my way a chance (including some of those Sierra Ecoquest games).
When I was a tike, and having a PC was still the exception, for years I've thought that me and my little circle of friends were quite unique (and nerdy) for owning a PC - the nerdy bit was probably very true, but the uniqueness wasn't, I've played KQ - mostly just walking the little guy aroundusing the arrow keys, getting chased by the witch and wondering why I couldn't just shoot the bitch off her broom with a lasergsun, like in a "proper" game - there wasn't even a car or a racetrack in the forest. It never dawned on me that it was a puzzle game hence I never got far, and I always got killed by the witch.
Here's a game I recall reading about when I was older than in my KQ-days, I'm still curious about it: http://www.lbahq.com/ (http://www.lbahq.com/)
Here's a game that I played too much: Remember how in Castle Wolfenstein 3D you could push walls and some of them would slide back to reveal a hidden room with weapons etc? It got to the point that, when I closed my eyes, I would see chunks of wall sliding back. That's when I told myself I had to cut back playing the game. Luckily, my brain quickly reverted to portraying the normal images after that. in art because soon after, Doom was released, without sliding walls. A much better game to play.
Oh, and I've never played LSL or PQ.
Oh, and I've played 13 days (I think that's the one), but I didn't finish it (is it actually possible to?)
Quotegames like Space Quest and Kings Quest did because they were treated like an essential game mechanic rather than an unfortunate consequence in those games, and to make it worse, they would often poke fun at you as well
To each their own I suppose. A little pleasure I have with Sierra games is to die in every ways I can think of because much of the humor and some little pearls of animations are hidden in these deaths. I would have loved if they implemented a Try Again button from the get go to remove the hassle of having to save and load every time, especially when some of their series took so much joy in killing and poking fun at the player's or protagonist' expense. But I also think in some games the whole walk one pixel off and you die gig is taken too far.
I personally feel that from a sheer dramaturgic perspective, having the lead character die every twenty minutes, doesn't really give the story a coherent feeling. I'm not saying I don't enjoy watching Roger die in all sorts of humiliating ways, all I'm saying is that it does leave the player with a rather disjointed narrative. (Which I think perhaps is one of the reasons why I never really managed to bond with any story or character for that matter in a common fps or arcade game.)
That being said, I can totally understand the love for the Sierra classics. They had a lot of good things going for them. I personally think GK1 is just about one of the best games ever made, and I loved the space quest parser games though frankly I can't remember if I beat a single one of them.
Oh and another thing that has been mentioned but might need to be reiterated: People like different games. That's cool and should be respected. Different things are important for different people. No point convincing people to change their minds. :)
I used to play the King's Quest series as a kid, but I never beat them. Not a single one. Instead, I let this older dude beat them, and he owned pretty much the entire series. I think I was kind of afraid of the whole Hansel & Gretel type atmosphere and the general oddity of the game's inner nightmare-inducing mysteries.
However, when it comes to Sierra, my favourite title of all time is certainly the Space Quest series. I LOVED this series. From the moment I first played Space Quest IV and heard Gary Owens narrate comically, I was sold. That game had one of the most memorable stages and for those who remember, that MALL!! Seriously, how fun is that? You go to the arcade and can play Astro Chicken! And then you can go apply for a job at the burger joint and make burgers!
When I played Police Quest IV and Space Quest VI, they literally blew my mind. Police Quest IV was so creepy and Space Quest VI was all kinds of goofy fun. Stooge Fighter was the best!
But, as much as I loved the Sierra games, the deaths did piss me off at times. I especially hated it in the Space Quest games 'cause there are many times when you have to do certain things in a limited amount of time. Messing up means death and it does deter from the experience a little, especially when it's so difficult.
The first adventure game I ever played was Maniac Mansion. And I hated it. I at first thought I was too young when I first tried it, but having tried to replay it many times since, I've found myself still hating it.
That said, I've played every single SCUMM game there is by LucasArts, and even some Putt Putt games (with a nephew).
Grim Fandango is one of the best games ever. The controls are weird, but unlike MI4, the game itself isn't insultingly bad, so the controls don't bother for too long.
When it comes to Sierra, I've played almost every one of them.
I've finished SQ1, 2, 5 and 6. Space Quest 5 is one of my favorite adventure games ever (go Dynamix!) My nickname isn't voh without reason.
I've also finished KQ 1, 5, 6 and 7. Torin's fricking Passage (and I loved that game SO BAD). QfG 1, 3 and 4. LSL 1, 4 (sadly, was on self-destructing floppies), 5 and 6.
I prefer LucasArts over Sierra, but that's a style thing. I prefer the lack of dead ends, deaths and such. But there's never been a moment where I disliked either's.
I've never understood Sierra VS LucasArts. Also, I've never understood consoles VS PC, Sega VS Nintendo, Sony VS Microsoft. Hell, I hardly understand Mac VS Everyone Else or Windows VS Linux. I just use whatever's best for the job at hand, or, in the case of games, whatever I find fun.
Live and let live. Why so serious?
Can't speak for the other wars but console wars are easy to explain. When you're young, you have no money, it's your parents who buy your games and consoles so you'll be stuck with only one up 'til you get a job and money. So, "Every consoles sucks except mine" is a coping mechanism to compensate for the fact you can't buy every consoles out there.
Then you become old, make carloads of money and you can buy all the consoles and the games in the universe. Except by now you have a job, a promotion 'round the corner, friday's poker night with the friends, a loving spouse, a bunch of kids, a yard to maintain, in laws to visit... but you only have twenty four hours a day, not a minute more. So you start hating dozens of game series, genres, even consoles as a coping mechanism for the fact you can't play all the cool stuff that get released every years, even if you wanted to.
There, the reason why console wars exist.
And on a sadder note, I too have an embarrassing confession to make: I am not participating to this year AGS award on the account that I haven't played all the cool games that got released last year, thus I am unqualified to vote. :(
+1
Quote from: Secret Fawful on Thu 29/03/2012 03:51:26
I have no respect for someone who doesn't like Sierra or calls one of their games "mediocre", and I never will. Ever.
Well, this applies to adventure game fans only...
Quote from: Khris on Fri 23/03/2012 20:49:21
I'd watch this instead: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5ACDE10D49E44AA3&feature=plcp (pretty funny KQ 5 Let's Play)
Somebody poured themselves some water at my job interview today. I couldn't help laughing at that 'nectar of the gods' line. It's not even that funny and probably cost me the job.