Old Sierra Games Breathe Anew

Cow_With_Gun writes: "A small group named Tierra has taken it upon themself to resurrect the classic Sierra anthologies. So far they have brough King's Quest 1 up into the world of VGA and are working on other titles such as Quest for Glory 2 and King's Quest 2."

Comments

Sierra Games, does anyone remember this

[Burritos]

The Incredible Machine is cool!

Re:Sierra Games, does anyone remember this

[DuncanMurray]

absolutely - I even played it again a couple of months ago (while waiting for the other PC to install).

I think people are nuts chucking away old PCs - load up the 200M hard drive with 20-30 good games like Kings Quest etc, and it serves as a neat little backup PC. Even better, because its DOS and menu based they cant break it by dragging the Windows folder to the recycle bin.

Re:Sierra Games, does anyone remember this

[skotte]

I'm replying to this post here, because there's soooo many suggestions all below fFor different games.

I personally am working on Hero6, which is sort of the root of a dozen other off-shoot games and groups. i'm really tied into the group, just now, and i encourage you to check it out.

to the point: the biggest fFactor with what gets reproduced is people to get motivated and start doing it. many groups were started by simply one person in another group getting an idea, and going with it. as with all programming projects, it requires an art person, a programming person, and possibly a "plot" person, and hopefully someone to pull it all together.

and i have fFound The GIMP to be immeasurably useful in the art creation process. it has loads of scripts and tools, which do no end of good here.

There are several gaming engines which have already been produced, inluding MAD, and AGS. so you dont have to invent a whole game, necesarilly. you may just need some killer art work, and some good scripting!

Cheers!

Re:Sierra Games, does anyone remember this

[sharkey]

oad up the 200M hard drive with 20-30 good games like Kings Quest etc

Yep. As soon as I can afford a new PC, my P-200 gets turned back into a DOS PC. Makes playing the old DOS games easier (Except Ultima 7). Privateer, TIE-Fighter, etc.

Re:Sierra Games, does anyone remember this

[SCHecklerX]

And lives on in "Puzzles In Motion" on my palm pilot :)

Now if only the developer would release the source, or re-compile to take advantage of the 320x320 resolution of my Clie...Mmmmmm.

Re:Sierra Games, does anyone remember this

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, this post will be modded down; I simply don't care. What I really hate is seeing posts like the parent modded as troll or offtopic. It's on topic, and made me remember of a smart old game I enjoyed playing in the past. If you have kids, I suggest giving that game to them before considering Quake.

Re:Sierra Games, does anyone remember this

[NinjaGaidenIIIcuts]

Instead of keeping way old pc's which are near of their mobo capacitors bogging down, you'd get Mo'Slo.

Useful to make some DOS games running at a decent speed (e.g. 60 fps, nor 850+ fps) on a Pentium3 or Athlon.

You could make a boot disk to free up "conventional" RAM, also. Most Microprose games for DOS let an option to make efficient bootdisks. You should add some lines in Autoexec.bat and Config.sys, though, usually paths to your device drivers (sound, CD-ROM) and devices' configuration.

Add these lines to MSDOS.sys, attempting to only change their value to "0" if they already were in MSDOS.sys.

[options]

drvspace=0

dblspace=0

Re:Sierra Games, does anyone remember this

[xTK-421x]

Surprisingly, this is one of the few games from the old Sierra that is still being made..

The Incredible Machine: Even More Contraptions

It's pretty faithful to the original, and it's $30.00 at Amazon.

Re:Sierra Games, does anyone remember this

[spookz]

I am maybe taking this to the extreme but I still play some old sierra games on my Amstrad 1512, like Space Quest 1&2, Police Quest, Prince of Persia, etc.

Who needs expensive gaming machines?
Head down to your local tip today!

Wasnt that long ago... or was it?

[moankey]

I didnt think it was that long ago that Space Quest or LSL was out, but I suppose it has been, damn Im getting old.

Re:Wasnt that long ago... or was it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You think you're old because you remember playing Leisure Suit Larry? Youngster, I remember LSL when it was called Softporn Adventure, a BASIC text adventure, on the Apple II.

...a cardboard box? Luxury! Why in my day...

<grin>

Remember Thexder?

[LOTR Troll]

Thexder was great, revolutionary popularity in Japan during the time. Hopefully they resurrect Thexder.

Re:Remember Thexder?

[nicene]

HELL YEAH. man, as soon as i saw this slashdot title, I started thinking about that game. I used to play that game nonstop on the old tandy128 that i had years ago. I've been thinking about tackling a good gaming project. I really need check around and see if anyone has tackled this project recently. If not, who's with me? :)

Re:Remember Thexder?

[[TWD]insomnia]

I remember buying Thexder 2 as soon as I saw it in store. Thexder ROCKED and was one of those few Very Playable games on 8086 systems

Re:Remember Thexder?

[antdude]

Yeah, I remember it. It was so hard! I only got to the underground. I think Firehawk (sequel) was cool and too easy. I hated the ending boss (dumb idea)!

Re:Remember Thexder?

[PaulGibson]

Sure do, coolest game ever (at that point anyhow). I was mostly playing the "Ascii graphics" Rogue and some Digr (kind of a Dig Dug knock off, but better) and then came along Thexder. Pissed me off though, because the copy protection on it was very good (I think it was some kind of physical deformation like a hole) and I never could make a copy. Luckily, the original was my roommate's.

Think Tierra will do a VGA version of Zork ;)

Re:Remember Thexder?

[Raveller]

That's why you needed a friend with a CopyIIPC Option Board at the time. Not that I had one. Not that I got it for cheap. Not that I lorded over the PC gaming peers with the ability to break every copy protection scheme around.

Heh, heh, heh.

Be sure to play it properly...

[wrinkledshirt]

...and put each game onto thirty disks. :)

Re:Be sure to play it properly...

[ungerware]

...and you know you're getting somewhere when it says, "Please insert disk #28"!

God, I remeber these

[Sc00ter]

I hope they bring back police quest, god I loved that game.. And does anybody remember The Black Cauldron sierra game.. what great games! To bad they turned to shit when they started doing it via mouse control. That was the best part, spending hours just working on the right phrase, and typing fast enough to do stuff before you would die.

Re:God, I remeber these

[packeteer]

use mouse on elafant...
elaphant...
elaphant...
elephant...

there we go yah... oh man i remember when i wa like 5 and i played those games and I LEARNED...

hehe thats what i told my mom anyway...

well i did have to look up how to spell some words...

:) good times

Re:God, I remeber these

[jimbolaya]

King's Quest III get's my vote for best adventure game ever. Sigh! What ever did happen to the adventure game genre?

Incidentally, The Black Cauldron didn't have a text-based parse. You hit a key on your keyboard, or joystick, as I played it, and selected one of three options, "Do", "Use", or "Look."

Re:God, I remeber these

[Moridineas]

Black Cauldron is freely released! It's on Al Lowe's website, http://www.allowe.com/

Scott

Re:God, I remeber these

[Jethro]

That's no joke for me. My English spelling was simply HORRIBLE until I started playing all the Sierra games.

That, and after I learned to stop asking my dad how to spell stuff (he spells like he speaks and has an Indian accent - took me forever to figure out how to spell "sceptre").

Re:God, I remeber these

[nat5an]

KQ3 was absolutely the best. The evil wizard dude who kept you hostage, how you had to collect all the ingredients to do the various spells. How you had to sneak out to the countryside without getting caught and get back within a certain time. And then, nothing was more satisfying than when you turned that bastard into a cat. Oh it was sooo cool.

Quest for Camelot....

[Arctic Fox]

If only they remake this game..... this was awesome.... haven't seen it anywhere available online.... What about Star Control 2? Accolade I know, but it was awesome too...

Re:Quest for Camelot....

[NanoGator]

The definitive version of Star Control 2 was on the 3DO. I realize that may be virtually impossible to acquire, I thought I should mention that.

Man... those Sierra games sure had character. Damn I hope that genre has a comeback. Both Sierra and Lucasarts knew what they were doing.

I wonder what mixing the Legend of Zelda (64) interface with a Sierra game'd be like....

Re:Quest for Camelot....

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently ran across this site while wandering aimlessly throughout the galaxy.

http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/timewar p/

It's a sc2 clone. The best clone i encountered.
^_^
ui is a bit clunky but the melee mode is almost the same as that in sc2. lots of new ships too.

there is a new game mode called GOB that's addicting.

Re:Quest for Camelot....

[SuiteSisterMary]

Star control 2 is available for purchase and download, 14.95 American, and it runs great on modern hardware.

blah blah blah, King's Quest and POP

[CheechBG]

I just want Leisure Suit Larry. In 32 bit color. Antialiased would be nice too, but now I'm being picky.

Re:blah blah blah, King's Quest and POP

[Suppafly]

yeh.. and dont forget the bump mapping :)

ScummVM

[bparrish]

There's an emulator for old LucasArts games that use the SCUMM scripting system.

http://scummvm.sourceforge.net/

There's also a port for Pocket PC. I've been playing Day of the Tentacle on my iPAQ with full speech. Runs great.

Re:ScummVM

[flewp]

Day of the Tentacle - Awesome game. I used to crack up at the donkey or horse or whatever that thing was >every time I saw it.

Re:ScummVM

[0x0d0a]

DoT works perfectly (except for a few issues with music late in the game), but I don't think any of the other SCUMM games work flawlessly in it. Sam and Max works, but has definite issues and crashes frequently.

Re:ScummVM

[roe1352]

The monkey Island series rocks! I dont like how the new one is 3d though...

Re:ScummVM

[hasse]

I've played through Indy4 - Fate of Atlantis (whihch is supposed to be used as the story behind the new Indy movie), without much hassle. Monkey Island 2 also seems to work ok.

Re:ScummVM

[56ker]

Ah - brings a tear to my eye just thinking of these old games - at least software houses produced quality then - unlike these days with the likes of Daiktana *shudders* around.

Sue

[Wise Dragon]

I have little doubt that these folks will be sued by Sierra for infringing on their "intellectual property" much as I would be sued by Disney if I made a game starring Mickey Mouse.

The question, of course, is the outcome!

Re:Sue

[skotte]

possibly. their main safeties here are: they are european; they go by "anonymous gamer #..."; they have the support of the game designers (perhaps not the publisher, but the designer, yes); the publisher doesnt intend to use the Kings Quest identity anymore (unlike disney, which is still using Mickey Mouse).

can they get sued? of course. is it likely? i dunno.

Now the real question is...

[Wells2k]

...will they bring back Softporn, the precursor to Leisure Suit Larry.

For that matter, when are we going to see an OSS release of all of this stuff? :)

Re:Now the real question is...

[skotte]

For that matter, when are we going to see an OSS release of all of this stuff? :)

good question! there is a really big underworld fFor these games. some of them are actually using/creating open source engines. one worth pointing out is Hero6's MAD engine. it uses an open source engine, to read scripts. the engine can be compiled under any OS, and is totally open.

Re:Now the real question is...

[ZiZ]

The Interactive Fiction Archive already has some useful links if you search for SoftPorn... As IANAL, I can't speak for the legal ramifications of the Apple II version, or the DOS executible, Inform remake, or other variations you might find there, but it is avaliable.

Why is it so large?

[norkakn]

I used to play KQV on the mac, and it was only 5 disks, but this thing is 20 meg!

is it all the directx/windows crap?
*confuzzled little quaker*

Re:Why is it so large?

[JacobO]

Perhaps it is the new graphics and installer? I'll let you know when I have downloaded it :-)

Sierra Game Timeline

[e1en0r]

This might be a little OT, but I found this link which has all the Sierra games and when they were released. Just in case anyone else was interested.

Re:Sierra Game Timeline

[CraigoFL]

Hehehe... that page lists "Softporn Adventure" as one of the games they developed in 1981. Since the highlight for that year is "Leisure Suit Larry is born (without a name)", it seems likely that that's what "Softporn Adventure" turned in to. Too bad they didn't keep the original title... could you imagine seeing that box at your neighborhood software store?

Re:Sierra Game Timeline

[blacklambda]

Softporn adventure was a text based game for the Apple II platform. IIRC it had such lovely commands as "fondle hooker" I had a copy on 5.25 way back in the day when i was first strting with computes.. of course at the tiem i had no idea what softporn was and immediatly after asking my parents (I was 6 at the time) the disk disappeared... hmmm

Re:Sierra Game Timeline

[zonker]

Haha. Actually, I just found Al Lowe's (creator of Larry) website and it has an article about the pre-history of Larry Laffer.

Re:Sierra Game Timeline

[smallduck]

the highlight for that year is "Leisure Suit Larry is born (without a name)", it seems likely that that's what "Softporn Adventure" turned in to

Indeed it was. Google found pages here and here (pg 69, ha).

The three Apple II programs any 12 year old boy was sure to have in the early-mid 80s were "Softporn Adventure", "Strip Poker" (with Suzi or Melissa!), and another one I can't quite remember the name of - if it had a name at all. It might have been called "Spanish Fly" but probably not. It wasn't a game, just a badly drawn hi-res cartoon that used page flipping and crummy beeps to remarkable effect (not really).

Re:Sierra Game Timeline

[friday2k]

Geee, thank you, now I remember how old I am.
Was King's Quest II really in 1985????? And Space Quest I in 87?
Excuse me Sir? Could we please go back in time to find some decent gameplay? And 15+ years to live again? These years were just fun (with or without computer games)

Re:Sierra Game Timeline

[bjb]

could you imagine seeing that box at your neighborhood software store?

Actually, better yet was the magazine ad for Softporn adventure.. it featured 3 "nude" women in a hot tub with champaigne glasses and the bubbles coming just over the line-of-profanity. Interesting fact is that one woman was (I believe) Ken Williams' assistant, one was his wife, Roberta Williams (i.e. the creator of Kings Quest and many others), and the other, I forget. You can see the ad here. Roberta is the one on the far right.

Re:Sierra Game Timeline

[fat_mike]

I've still got the source code for softporn printed out on my bookshelf. Apple basic. Christ, that was a long time ago.

Re:Sierra Game Timeline

[Gumshoe]

There's a ZMachine remake of Softporn

ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/s of tporn.zip

The ZMachine is the virtual machine used by
Infocom for their classic games. It has since
been completely reverse engineered and is
well supported by interpreters and programming
languages.

To play the game, dowload frotz for your platform

ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/infocom/inter pr eters/frotz

infkovhgroghprm...

[ThomasMis]

Rumpelstiltskin backwards in a reversed alphabet.... do you know how many times that little dwarf on the big stairway stole items from me until I figured that out!!!!

Re:infkovhgroghprm...

[jag164]

And you'd get a good hint if you typed "nikstlitslepmur". Ah, how every time I here Rumplestiltskin I think of the backwards name.

Re:infkovhgroghprm...

[svferris]

Wow, this brings me back. I used to practically chant this so I wouldn't forget it.

In-ef-kov-hi-grog-hi-poor-him

Played all those old school games on my IBM PC Jr, with 640k of memory! More than enough for anybody (according to Billy Boy).

Already been done for KQ1?

[Zlorfik]

I have a CD collection of KQ 1-6, and unless I mistake it for another collection, it has an enhanced version for KQ 1 on it. I prefer the original... for people who played the original, we want to remember the original. New players however will probably find it impossible to play with the graphics of yesteryear.... :)

I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[interstellar_donkey]

Excited because I love these games.

Sad, because as a general rule, despite all of our graphics and sound advances, todays games just don't have the greatness that could be found a decade ago in EGA.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[grammar fascist]

Sad, because as a general rule, despite all of our graphics and sound advances, todays games just don't have the greatness that could be found a decade ago in EGA.

Mind if I throw in an alteration for discussion?

Sad, because as a general rule, because of all of our graphics and sound advances, todays games just don't have the greatness that could be found a decade ago in EGA.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[argStyopa]

I entirely disagree. I'm a game reviewer and I run into this from reader email all the time.

While nostalgia for old classic computer games might be cool in sort of a "I remember when..." way, PLAY THEM. Go to the Underdogs site and download them and play them. You will soon see that despite rosy-colored memories of how much fun you had playing Empire or Sword of Aragon, suddenly it's apparent that, while great games for their time, our expectations are tremendously higher. Games back then managed a very small number of variables, and were incredibly easy to 'break' by disobeying the programmer's expectations. Either that, or you were straitjacketed by the game to play the way it wanted you to. And let me say right out: this is NOT to demean the creations of pioneering game programmers like Dan(i) Bunten. Dani created some outstandingly playable games. But play Command HQ (probably the best game of its type at the time) and then play a beta of Warcraft III or Europa Universalis2. There are a jillion more levels of strategy, AI capability (sans cheating), units, capabilities, flexibility for mod authors, and on and on and on...

In the same sense everyone likes to dis as 'chrome' modern graphics ("real computer gamers will play in EGA and like it!"), that's horse puckey too. EGA SUCKED. I still can't even see the colors Cyan or Magenta without being nauseated.

Face it, like it or not, while some modern games blow, so did some old ones. And the good ones then can't really hold a candle to the good ones now (SFC, Shogun, West Front, EU2, etc) except through the fuzzy favorable view of nostalgia.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[Geek In Training]

Sad, because as a general rule, despite all of our graphics and sound advances, todays games just don't have the greatness that could be found a decade ago in EGA.

Don't be swallowed by nostalgia here.

*NOBODY* spent more time playing Kings Quest 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (I was in college by 6, I think) than I did. And I loved them; I still own the collection that was released on CDs a dew years back.

But I don't think King Graham et al. hold a candle to a good, solid 20-minute round of Quake III Team Arena (Capture The Flag mode).

I know what you're saying; I don't find Return to Wolfenstein (nor CounterStrike) to be as engaging as Q3 for some reason, but I'm not going to let meself believe that it's because Wolfenstein sucks. It just means I have different tastes.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[gnovos]

And the good ones then can't really hold a candle to the good ones now (SFC, Shogun, West Front, EU2, etc) except through the fuzzy favorable view of nostalgia.

Just put your theory to the test, and you lose.

The very FIRST Sierra game I ever played, KQIII. Loaded it up, played it. It rocked. It rocked so incredibly much that, frankly, it's hard to believe that the "games" you mentioned are ever let out the door. Cookie cutter soldiers, even in fully rendered 3-D, don't hold a candle to the simply amazing amout on creativity and wit that these old Sierra games have, even to this day.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[Decimal Dave]

While nostalgia for old classic computer games might be cool in sort of a "I remember when..." way, PLAY THEM. Go to the Underdogs site and download them and play them. You will soon see that despite rosy-colored memories of how much fun you had playing Empire or Sword of Aragon, suddenly it's apparent that, while great games for their time, our expectations are tremendously higher.

Not necessarily true. Only a couple of years years ago I stumbled across The Quest For Glory VGA remake on an abandonware site. I had only been playing newer games like Unreal and Half-Life, but I dropped those and bought the whole QFG collection from Sierra for $20. QFG2 was an awesome game and the best of the lot, IMO. Last year I found another gem: Escape from Monkey Island. That game totally blew me away and I'm still working my way through the series. The Curse of Monkey Island has been the best so far. There are still some more modern adventure (Myst III) and RPGs (Escape Velocity Nova) that I play, but nothing compares to those old, yet "new-to-me", titles.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[DaCool42]

Well I played scorched earth on a 286 last year, and it was pretty sweet (doesn't run properly under windows 95/98 BTW). Plus I've got a bunch of old mame roms, which I play regularly.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I have gone to Underdogs and downloaded all sorts of stuff...Below the Root, Systemshock, A Mind Forever Voyaging, etc.

And you know what? I still love to play those old games, and I get mad as hell when I can't play them because of poor backward compatibility. I would play them more if it weren't for the fact that W3000 or whatever it is can't play something written for DOS and CGA graphics or whatnot.

Now, I'm not about to say there aren't good new games like The Longest Journey or Half Life or Deus Ex or UT or Baldur's Gate or whatever. There are good new games coming out all the time.

The problem with many current games that I have that I resonate with the parent post about is that too many new games rely too much on graphics to pull us out of an otherwise bad experience. Not all games, but many. And regardless of the actual number of games doing so, it seems to me that reviews and the gaming media focus a bit too much on the technical aspects of things. Not that the technical limits shouldn't be pushed, but rather, that there are good low-tech games out there that don't get nearly enough attention.

Interactive fiction [text adventure] is a good example. It's about as old and primitive a computer gaming genre as you can get, and still going strong. Writing in IF is as solid and mature as it has ever been, and has a strong if relatively small community. I play IF regularly, mainly because, for all the flashy graphics and AI (that I love) from new games, nothing beats your own imagination. It's kind of hoky sounding, but it's true. And it's a genre, along with MUDs and other things, that doesn't get a half a blurb from most gaming sites ever.

There were crappy games in the past, there are crappy games now, and there will always be crappy games. But it seems that at some point (Quake?) some sort of obsession with visual and AI technique arose that has gone a bit too far. Maybe it's dying down a bit, maybe it's justified. I don't know. But I do think that primitive technically speaking doesn't mean primitive in terms of gameplay, and it's something major gaming sites have seemed to forget. During the "golden age" of gaming some people seem to be nostalgic about, there was excitement about games because they were _computer_ games, and computers allowed you to do things you couldn't do with pencil and paper or on a gameboard. There probably was more experimentation with gameplay and less refinement of existing genres. Now the balance seems to be in refining what's out there to make it more shiny, rather than trying to come up with something entirely different.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[wysoft]

I still can't even see the colors Cyan or Magenta without being nauseated.

Then you must be talking about CGA :)

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[jawtheshark]

So explain me why I still love to play Civilisation I, X-Com 1 and X-Com 2, Maniac Mansion, Pirates, the whole Space Quest series and the whole Larry series (Okay, I just have up to 5 for SQ and up to 6).

Oh, and I still love to play Alley Cat once in a while. Great game... and that was only CGA.

You new kiddies don't know what was good gaming. Unfortunately the Adventure genre died years ago, the only thing we get nowadays is Simulations, First Person Shooters and Real Time Strategy games. As long as there is eye-candy.
I feel old, and I'm only 25.... :-(

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[interstellar_donkey]

But I don't think King Graham et al. hold a candle to a good, solid 20-minute round of Quake III Team Arena (Capture The Flag mode).

I think it can. Those old games had something to them: writing.

Quake III is a compleatly differnet genre. There is no writing in it. The quality of game play relies almost entirily on the people you pick to play.

I don't play Quake III. Mostly, because I suck at multiplayer (and have never really enjoyed it), but I was really let down when I found out Quake III did'nt really have a game with a story line.

I loved Quake II. I felt a great sense of satisfaction when I beat the game. Quake III has no game to beat; it's never ending, and when broken down to it's key elements, all it basically consists of is a graphics and physics engine. To that end, the only real craftsmenship in most modern games is in technical tricks.

The older games had craftmanship in their stories; something we just don't see anymore.

Which is better? That's a matter of personal taste. Personally I'll take a good story over graphics any day.

And craftsmanship is, to me, key.

At present, I typically only play simulation games. One of my all time favorates is Sim City. As somebody who waisted a good deal of time in college playing Sim City 2000, I folowed the development of Sim City 3000 very closly.

I became worried when everything comming out of Maxis seemed to indicate the new version would have better graphics/more buildings/better interface. But nothing was said of game play.

I was heartfallen to discover after 20 or so hours of play with the new version that really nothing had been done to the simulation engine, and it seemed, under the auspicious of making the game more accessable to the new player, they had stunted the realism of the simulation.

The message sent was clear: Software developers today are more interested in making a game look pretty then givig it guts.

The really sad part is, the only game line I can think of that has real advances in every new release is the flight sim series distributed by Microsoft.

I've never sat down with a new release and been disapointed. When they put out a new edition, it's actually better. When I load up ms2k2, I never said 'oh I miss the wire frame world of version 2'.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[krmt]

I just bought Grim Fandango for $10 at Best Buy, and man is it great. Adventure games might have died with this baby, but if you havnen't played it yet you must pick it up! It makes me long for the days of Space Quest and the like.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[jawtheshark]

I'll try it...thanx for the tip. I don't know that game (just by name).

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[stripes]

While nostalgia for old classic computer games might be cool in sort of a "I remember when..." way, PLAY THEM. Go to the Underdogs site and download them and play them. You will soon see that despite rosy-colored memories of how much fun you had playing Empire or Sword of Aragon, suddenly it's apparent that, while great games for their time, our expectations are tremendously higher

Well there is some of that. Rogue's ASCII graphics just don't stand up. I don't get the same fear in the pit of my stomach when the "K" comes into the room where I was hoping to recover. On the other hand CivI can still cause a "lost weekend"...

I think there are two things going on. One is nostalgia (esp for lost forms like the text adventure), and playing those might not make the grade anymore. The other is you are looking at 20+ years of computer games and picking a handful of the best ones, then you compare them with whatever has been around for in the last few months...well of corse master peaces of the past can trump a few randomly chosen games. They might not beat the best game of the year though. Even a Civ lover has to admit that the new Civ might be better then the original! Then again they might beat the best game of the year, as a Civ lover I think Civ won out for about a decade.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[stripes]

The message sent was clear: Software developers today are more interested in making a game look pretty then givig it guts.

As a former CoinOp game developer I have to say the game developers do still care strongly about game play (er, they use to when I did it), but management didn't. More over the users frequently didn't, and since they pay the bills, well, frequently you follow their wishes.

Or you quit and program something else for a living.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[StarFace]

That is precisely what I was thinking as I was reading through this thread. The only game that I've purchased within the past half year that I've honestly completely enjoyed is Microsoft's latest Flight Simulator. That team really outdid themselves this time. I've been playing the game since before it had a version number, and it was freshly licensed off of its original creators, on a tiny 5" amber monochrome screen in the first IBM "portable" computer. The latest incarnation beats the pants off of its earlier siblings.

There are other examples of modern games that manage to provide solid entertainment for hours, weeks, months, years.

The problem with perception is partially due to nostalgia, but I would venture to say it has more to do with the simple fact that you cannot have a classic instantly (despite what marketing would like you to believe.) We are living within the world of modern gaming, and in 20 years there will be games that we look back upon fondly from this era. We just don't see them yet because the present is not all condensed in distant memory.

This all said, there are still games being developed on old tech! Sure, the market isn't big, and quite often they are open for free play, but the world of MUDing is far from dead. You can find fresh MUD servers dishing out comparably advanced games, with good engines, methods for fun role playing, and intriguing universes and story lines, to this day.

If you look for the good games out there, you'll find them. They might not be stacked up in CompUSA with an entire row to themselves. They might not have 24/7 BluesNews.com coverage. But they exist, and to deny that is just to fool yourself and others.

P.S. to all of this. One of my favorite strategy games ever, Stars!, never had much in the way of graphics. It was simply presented, but had enormous strategic turn-based appeal. They've been working on the sequel for years now, and I'm in the same SimCity boat as you. Worried about the fact that they are spending X amount of time on graphics. I hear the latest beta is up to almost 2GB of graphics. *sigh* Hopefully they spent as much time on the engine, because that was an honestly good game. It even put VGAPlanets to shame.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[sgtrock]

If you want to kick the tires on a absolutely fantastic single player FPS experience with a great storyline, check out Operation Flashpoint. Or, if your PC is a couple of years old, check out Half-Life.

Of the two, I preferred OFP. Many people swore by the original HL SP, though. It certainly had the best opening sequence of any game that I've ever seen.

The thing that both of these games that they were written as labors of love by a small handful of people.

Another game that I highly recommend is Combat Mission. This WWII tactical wargame was written almost completely by one individual. He did things that no one else had tried, and did it with style. The biggest knock on it is that its graphics look dated, but the gameplay is fantastic.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[rho]

You will soon see that despite rosy-colored memories of how much fun you had playing Empire or Sword of Aragon, suddenly it's apparent that, while great games for their time, our expectations are tremendously higher.

Maybe. But, then, gameplay is gameplay, and good gameplay stands out. Or do you think that old ass Galaga game is still in the arcade for shits and giggles?

Older games were built by people with a love for games and game playing. Recent games are built by automatons punching out Yet Another Quake Engine-Based FPS--the standouts still stand out because they have good people behind them.

Overall, I think the signal-to-noise ratio was much higher in years past because the industry was just getting underway. Great things were done back then--it's much more automated and industrialized now, packaged up in slick marketing and clever graphics.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[interstellar_donkey]

Even then, I'm not so sure there is much nostalgia involved.

It's not that I dislike fancy graphics and sound, it's just that I've not seen much time and energy devoted to it recently.

Another person posting in this thread touched on it: Software developers care about making a great all around game. Managers care about selling a product. Because computers keep changing and new software keeps comming out, a new game can only really expect to have 18-24 month shelf time before it's pushed out of the way.

That just does'nt seem to be enough time for word of mouth to spread. So, it's probably not that there are'nt good games being made, it's probably just that I never hear about them throught he noise.

The gaming press has a lot of fault here. When I read their articles, they seem more focused on the fps and rts games. I mean, that's fine, it's just not my cup of tea.

I really wonder if there is a source of news I can turn to for game reviews that cater more towards people like me, who think graphics and sound are neat, but don't belive they should be the primary focus of the games.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[StarFace]

That is basically what I was getting at, from a different angle. These days, you have hundreds of games flying at you all of the time. Some of these games might be truly incredibly -- but you either don't hear about them, or you put them aside before you really get a chance to fully flesh out the game because Something Better just came along.

Back "In The Day" the arrival of a new game was a special thing in itself. There wasn't as much volume, and the amount of people playing the games was smaller. The percentage of people playing these games were concentrated more in the dedicated gamer demographic. You had less people who were casually interested in them, because the route to them was obscure and expensive. Personal computers just were not as viable. Now lots of families owns multiple computers, and more people have a much easier path to games.

This is elementary, and this is what causes glut. The percentage shifts from the dedicated core (which incidentally still exists, but is completely stifled) to the more casual gamers. These sort of volumes and percentages are what give you the trends that create the game press engine. It's a symbiotic relationship, they feed off of one another.

Another large factor, in my mind, is where the games are pointed at. What is the average demographic? In the late 70s and 80s, games were targeted at an older age group (though they attracted more than that.) These days, many games (even the "mature" ones) are targeted at a younger demographic. A 32 year old is going to enjoy poking around in a text described dungeon more than a ten year old (in general, of course!)

Throwing all of it aside, getting to the important thing. I don't really care how many feathers and bubbles they throw around, as long as they don't impact the quality of the games I like. In the past, that has happened once or twice, but not enough to really ruffle my feathers. The games I've always enjoyed have been the more detailed simulator types, text based MUD or MUD analogues, or completely anal, rules focused turn based affairs. These have much smaller markets, and thus have been able to survive the explosion around them. I just revisited the Stars! development page, and despite the quantum leap in graphic presentation over the older versions, it still looks as if it will be a fundamentally solid game in the core. If so, that's great! If not, then I'll have to add it to my attrition list, and all of these years spent hopefully waiting for it will be in dissapointment.

I'd be willing to bet there are resources out there for gamers like us who are more interested in the game, and less interested in having to spend several thousand dollars every few years to have the fanciest specular highlighted fragments in our explosions.

If you find anything, let me know.

Re:I dont know if I should be excited or sad.

[Dirtside]

Pardon me if this sounds like a flame, but your entire post is bullshit.

The proportion of games that have "craftsmanship" has not changed over time -- the same goes for music, movies, books, comics, take any art form. There were just as many horrible, stupid, piece of shit games in the "old days" as there are now -- but back then, bad games didn't even have shiny graphics as a saving grace!

I get so sick of reading posts like this. There are just as many good, well-crafted games today as there have ever been; we only REMEMBER the old games that were any good, because all the crap ones have passed into history and nobody talks about them any more. (To use a movie example, which one are people going to spend their time reminiscing about: Casablanca (1942) or Hillbilly Blitzkrieg (1942)?)

What do I want?

[professortomoe]

I want an updated Betrayal at Krondor. That is one of the greatest RPGs ever :o. I'd sell my first born (Like I'll ever have one ^_-) to have that game in all its updated glory. I can dream, can't I?

direct download

[ender_wiggins]

http://www.officebase.de/cgi-bin/ias?Template=Exte rn/Main/Frameset.html&aktGruppe=3044

Ultima is coming back as well

[Hadean]

Although I loved Sierra games, I always preferred certain other RPGs... For those who loved Ultima instead, there are remakes being made of them as well.

Ultima 1: A Legend is Reborn - http://www.peroxide.dk/ultima/

Ultima 4: The Dawn of Virtue - http://www.hut.fi/~jtpelto2/ultima4/

Ultima 5: Lazarus - http://www.u5lazarus.com

Ultima 6: Prophecy - www.laymeduck.com/u6

Ultima 9: Eriadain - http://eriadain.multimania.com

Ultima 9: Redemption - http://icdweb.cc.purdue.edu/~fountain

Also, Bard's Tale is being remade into Devil Whiskey (Bard's Tale 4). It can be seen at http://www.bardslegacy.com

Re:Ultima is coming back as well

[Evangelion]

No Ultima 7?

Ultima 7 was fucking amazing.

What was more amazing was actually getting it to run.

I'd love to see an updated engine that I can actually play, without having to deal with the Pure Evil that Origin inflicted upon thier users with that hack of a DOS memory manager that they included with the game.

Re:Ultima is coming back as well

[aridhol]

See the Ultima Reconstruction Project for info on all the re-creation projects.

Re:Ultima is coming back as well

[mindsiphon]

Actually Devil Whiskey is an original game and not a remake or continuation of Bard's Tale. The style is old school crpg inspired but the content is totally original.

Re:Oh No!

[professortomoe]

Nah, I beg to differ about the ressurection of old games. Look at the NetHack article. That game's still text based and it has hordes of players. I myself just started playing and am loving it. I would definitly go back and play some of these old games. Nice to be back with them.

King Quest

[jsse]

I played KQ II many years ago. I was stunned by the state of the art fine work of pages-after-pages high-res scenes which totally immersed me into fantasy world, running on the newly bought Apple IIe with 128K extended memory and a EGA card on a monochrome monitor....oh wait, what was I so excited about?

Heh

[zapfie]

You have to admit, they give their games better titles than the originals. (see sidebar at http://www.qknowledge.net/royalquest/kqdownload.cf m)
Why play "Kings Quest I: Quest for the Crown" when you can play "Royal Quest 1: Retrieving Lost Shit"?

(yes, I'm serious, they really named it that...)

Re:Heh

[skotte]

. . . "Royal Quest 1: Retrieving Lost Shit"?

Royal Quest was intended to be a bit of a spoof of the KQ series. it was to be a great deal more baudy, and adult natured. in short, a true parody.

And now the bad news. Royal Quest was cancelled by the team, because they fFelt it really dragged the whole genre down, and basically spat on the nature of it all. so rather than make a mockery of what they were trying to preserve, they just called it all off.

You want to play classic Sierra games?

[mewsenews]

Then I have two words for you: Sarien and FreeSCI (uhh ok so FreeSCI is an acronym). Both of them are GPL, both of them run in Linux, and both of them seem pretty polished.

Get the PC games free

[MoceanWorker]

I have this site bookmarked that links to many different "Abandonware" websites that let you download those old PC games (i.e. Sierra, Broderbund, etc..) for free. Just playing Police Quest 1/2/3 gave me old memories of how I used to spend my days on the computer trying to solve the game. :-)

Re:Get the PC games free

[Peyna]

I still have 3.5" floppies of all the Police Quest series (1-4), a couple King's Quests, and a Space Quest here or there. Those games were great, and Space Quest always had that quirky humor in it. Actually they all did, that's what made them so fun.

Hell Yes!

[cscx]

> pick up mouse
>> Ok.

> move mouse to reply
>> Why don't you just walk there yourself?

> click reply
>> You suddenly notice a gust of wind through the room, after which you are greeted by an object with the strange words "Subject" and "Comment" on it.

> type shit
>> If only your mother heard you say that!*

> type comment
>> Ok.

> click submit
>> You suddenly feel sick and nauseous, ready to pass out. The next thing you know, the room goes black and you are whisked to an unknown location.

I have to say that the MUD-style EGA versions of the games kicked ass. I was actually disappointed the other day when they weren't listed on the "favorite game" poll.

* It always made me chuckle how Sierra always programmed in some quip in response to foul language typed in at the prompt.

Re:Hell Yes!

[JabberWokky]

If IE's Windows integration is a monopoly, then I'm all for the removal of Konqueror from KDE.

Integration wasn't the action that defined Microsoft as a monopoly, it was an action performed by Microsoft, a legally recognized monopoly (which is not itself illegal). It's not illegal for a fruit vendor to require you buy an orange every time you buy a banana, as you have a choice to walk to the next vendor - but if your only choice in electricity (thus a local monopoly) suddenly says "if you want our electricity, you have to use our phone services too", and you can prove in court you have no other choice (that they are legally a utility monopoly), then it *is* illegal.

Very simple. The scary thing is that Microsoft's software is, on a very practical level, considered a requirement to do business, and Microsoft is the only source, thus legally qualifying them as a monopoly.

--
Evan

Legend Of the Red Dragon (LORD)

[Nuke Skyjumper]

Since we're on the subject of old 286-era video games, I thought I'd mention that I run a LORD system under Linux via DOSemu.

The player list is currently maxed out, but if you log in just after midnight EST, you might get a spot just after old players are deleted.

Now i can relive my wasted childhood

[taya0001]

yes it cant get any better than this

Weird Dreams

[Sensei_knight]

Speaking of old games, I've have been dying to play "Weird Dreams" for a decade. Being the weirdo I am, I think I'd get a real kick out of it.

Was it released on the PC?

Can anyone help me find such a beast?

Half-life

[zaffir]

Ok, so when will they get to porting Half-Life to the Mac?

Re:Half-life

[rehannan]

I wonder how well a FPS would play in Virtual PC?

Re:Half-life

[zaffir]

Yup. They had like one guy doing the port (maybe a few more), and he finished it. Then Sierra pulled the plug and made him give up the source. He probably kept a copy for personal use, of course, but that doesn't help us Mac users.

Ultima 7 as well

[kdgarris]

Yeah, Ultima 7 too. Check out the Exult project. It's quite playable, and work is progressing on Exult Studio which will allow people to make new games using that engine.

-Karl

Re:Ultima 7 as well

[thetzar]

All I can really say to this is... YES! YESYESYESYESYES! My life is now complete! Hoorah for reverse engineering!

Re:Legal

[skotte]

potentially, yes. which is, i believe, why they go by "anonymous game designer #1", "... #2", and "... #3".

it is worth pointing out, they sometimes have direct contact with the game's original designers. Sierra might not approve, but the actual game designers certainly do.

Hero6

[skotte]

It is very much worth pointing out:

Tierra is kinda an off-shoot of the Hero6 team, which is working on a sequel to Quest fFor Glory.

What platform?

[masonbrown]

Is this Win only? I don't see a single mention of any platform / system requirements on their site......

Re:What platform?

[skotte]

yeah, it's win only. see, the game actually uses scripts, which access libraries. these are all called up by the gaming engine (In this case, AGS), which can be ported to any platform. but as it happens, AGS presently runs on win32.

Kings Quests overrated

[Ubergrendle]

Why play Kings Quest when you could play Ultima, Bard's Tale, Defender of the Crown, Temple of Apshai, or even text adventures like Zork and Planetfall? Although the early Sierra adventures pushed the graphic envelope in the EGA era, their gameplay was repetitive and tired. I remember in King's Quest I you had to get an item by providing a password -- the password was discovered by reversing the alphabet, transposing it with the normal 26 letter placement, and then spelling "Rumplestilskin". If it wasn't for FIDONet I never would have finished. Kings Quest blended into Space Quest blended into Heros Quest...blah blah blah. Although Rebecca Williams was key in forming the company, shortly after her sabatical Half-Life came out I believe...and the gaming world is better off for it.

Re:Kings Quests overrated

[[TWD]insomnia]

I discovered the gnome's name by binhex'ing the executable.. :P

Just To Remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone remember the elegant simplicity of Scorched Earth?? How I miss the pre-programmed quips...

Re:Just To Remember

[Darus77]

yeah... i found a copy of it version 1.5 a while back, it worked fine on my old machine but it doesn't on my new one. both running xp pro, no clue why it won't work though :'(

Re:Just To Remember

[BLAMM!]

It's not just a Windoze friendly game. Version 1.5 was especially unstable, but 1.2 played reasonably well. The only way to run 1.5 correctly is on a DOS box. Ah, the hours we wasted at work blowing each other up. :)

And you do know the comments can be edited, right? Some quotes are just mandatory.
"Push the button, Frank."
"I'm only mostly dead."
"I'll bite your kneecaps off!"

ahhhhh

[ElDuque]

Many happy hours were spent on Mixed Up Mother Goose....Anyone else remember that classic? I've got a paper to write, but I feel somehow it is more important to search for that one.

Re:ahhhhh

[zer0*ryok0]

i actualy used to sit down with my little sister (she was like... 4-5 at the time) and we would play that game together. plus it got her aquainted with alot of good fairy tails.

which imho, is a hell of alot better than those stupid interactive arthur ones, which are basicly 'click and stare' at a bunch of easter eggs on the screen.

TSN/INN

[OO7david]

Well, the site is currently /.ed, but I'll still throw in my $0.02.

What I am waiting for is for someone to rebuild or restart the Sierra Network/the Imagination Network (whichever nomenclature you preffer). Does anyone else remember this?

I remember TSN as having a nice little email feature (text only and only within TSN), a completely graphical interface, nice chatting, fairly customizable avatars, good games, and somehow the lag seemed nonexistant (and I was on a 2400 baud at the time).

Nothing yet has come close to it, and nothing yet has seemed to have the same magic.

Re:TSN/INN

[Fyndlorn]

YEah I loved TSN/INN. I still remember how disappointing it was when ATT took over and soon after it got ruined. That network was really ahead of it's time.

Betrayal at Krondor

[CaptCanuk]

I hope they can recycle Betrayal at Krondor and up the graphics. That would be awesome. That game was RPG of Year 1994! Then again, it was great to play that game the way it was (it seemed so revolutionary back then). Too bad Sierra took it off their site (they used to give it away for free to promote "Betrayal at Antara".

Re:Betrayal at Krondor

[skotte]

I'm replying to this post here, because there's soooo many suggestions fFor different games.

I personally am working on Hero6, which is sort of the root of a dozen other off-shoot games and groups. i'm really tied into the group, just now, and i encourage you to check it out.

to the point: the biggest fFactor with what gets reproduced is people to get motivated and start doing it. many groups were started by simply one person in another group getting an idea, and going with it. as with all programming projects, it requires an art person, a programming person, and possibly a "plot" person, and hopefully someone to pull it all together.

and i have fFound The GIMP to be immeasurably useful in the art creation process. it has loads of scripts and tools, which do no end of good here.

There are several gaming engines which have already been produced, inluding MAD, and AGS. so you dont have to invent a whole game, necesarilly. you may just need some killer art work, and some good scripting!

Cheers!

Re:Betrayal at Krondor

[sigh71]

Lands of Lore?

all i can say is

[panopticon]

duck hunt 2k2

Hell yes!!!!

[igbrown]

Such an awesome game. My friend had it for some DOS-based system. I rememebr trying to copy it, but not having enough RAM to get it running on my system. I think it required 256 KB vs. the piddly 128 KB of our family's IBM PCjr. Oh, how many games of Crossfire and Agent USA did I sleepwalk through, dreaming of space planes that could transform into gun-wielding robots.
The only thing that kept me sane was the Bruce Lee action game with Green Yamo and the Ninja!

Crooked Crooked Crooked

[rufusdufus]

It is clear to me that the gaming industry and its reviewers are in bed together; the fact Sierra's Arcanum won an award (pc-gamer) from anyone is incomprehensible.

I am very frustrated with the obviously biased reviews and stuffed ballots out there. Here is a list of games I have played, or tried to play recently, and a simple review. While these are just my opinions, I don't think they are too far off mainstream sensibilities...

1)Arcanum -- good idea, horrible implementation. The screen is zoomed in at low resolution and doesnt scroll. The characters track apparently using bresenham's algorithm, and actually get aliasing in their path when the walk at angles! The graphics are horrible, the gameplay subpar.

2)Pool of Radiance -- Should be called Pool of Doo Doo. Nuff said. Worst game I ever paid for.

3) Wizardry 8 -- 3d version of Pool of Doo Doo.

4) Dark Age of Camelot -- Everquest and just as pointless.

5) Gorasul -- You drink potions from the commode because the German english translation is so poor. Low resolution.

6) Gothic -- A great game with a bit of a learning curve. Panned by american reviewers who it is clear never actually played the game.

7) Baldur's Gate II, et al -- the standard for RPGs today. Can get boring for the less... enthusiastic.

8) Icewind Dale et al--Like Baldurs Gate II (with Heart of Winter), more accessable storyline, but more linear as well.

9) Anarchy Online -- even more boring (and buggy!) than everquest.

10)Harry Potter -- Hey, not bad for a kids game. None to exciting though.

11)Emperor of Dune -- great graphics, interesting RTS. Looses steam over time, largely due to too few too small maps. Fairly slow paced. Great graphics..did I mention that?

12) Black & White -- Best game of the year? What are they smoking? Its nearly unplayable because of the user interface that has you clawing the ground to move. The graphics arent even that good.

Re:Crooked Crooked Crooked

[SuiteSisterMary]

Pool of Radience, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades. 'Nuff said. :-) And Fallout/Fallout 2. Mmmmm Fallout.

Re:Crooked Crooked Crooked

[HobbitGod42]

I gotta agree... games that don't deserve awards get them and games that do don't. its like movies, the more hyped up it is the more it will suck... look at last action hero... if you can. games nowadays are either rehashes or so completly original that they are pathetic. Namley BloodRayne... Penny-arcade has some funny things to say about the subject here. quite funny.

CCNA class was never this fun!

Create your own using SCI and AGI and SQ 1 1/2

[screenbert]

I found a game called Space Quest - The Lost Adventures. Someone has programmed this game based off the Space Quest series. I was curious so I downloaded the game and couldn't stop playing it.

These games can be made either using AGI (KQ1 etc) or the new SCI engine (KQ4 etc). There are 2 complete engines that I found where it shows you how to create your own. They seem pretty easy to use. I found you can use the Above mentioned game to create your own. Sounds like fun. Anyway here are the links:

SQ Lost adventure: http://frostbytei.com/space/download.html

AGI and SCI engines and other info:
http://frostbytei.com/space/download.html

Have fun!

Re:Create your own using SCI and AGI and SQ 1 1/2

[El Panda Grande]

also, you could also use AGS, which uses something like C++. you can get it at www.adventuregamedelevoper.co.uk

create your own sci-based games

[AnimeFreak]

My friend Brian develops SCI Studio which is a Win32 application that allows you to develop games similar to those mentioned in the story above.

In fact, you can also edit those existing games and make them run in Windows. You may also want to take a look at his other site as he is a big AGI/SCI fantatic.

YAY

[HobbitGod42]

whats good about this is you CANNOT get most of those games anymore. and you canot get em for free cause sierra is a member os the IDSA... LONG LIVE ABANDONWARE!

One Shell Script To Rule Them All

Re:Sierra already did it themselves!

[foonf]

Before they went under, they made a 256-color VGA remake of KQ1 for sure, probably other early games too.

They did Space Quest I also. The first Leisure Suit Larry game may have been the other one, I'm not quite sure.

Three words...

[The_dev0]

Master of Magic. Man, that game kicks ass. I know it was Microprose not Sierra, but still...

Re:Three words...

[twalk]

Master of Magic had so may problems it wasn't even funny. The first versions were so buggy they were unplayable. Super stacks and killer heroes ruined the idea of empire building. Diplomacy? Even on the hardest levels, a good player could win most of the time with a single city.

Master of Orion and X-COM were the true Microprose classics. I'd be willing to pay $40 for a new version of X-COM with it's turn based movement style.

Re: Reverse Engineered Games

[Chris Feddern]

A reverse engineered version (binaries, sources) of the original space combat/trade game Elite can be found here.

The source for a replacement binary for Frontier: First Encounters (Unix/Linux, DOS/Windows 98/2000/XP) can is here, and you can get the complete data files here(shareware, meaning you should send 5 British Pounds to Frontier Developments if you continue to use it after 30 days).

Re:Sierra already did it themselves!

[Chris Pimlott]

They did Space Quest I also. The first Leisure Suit Larry game may have been the other one, I'm not quite sure.

They redid Hero's Quest (aka Quest for Glory 1) in VGA as well. I don't believe LSL1 ever got this treatment.

downloads...erg

[r00tyroot]

Getting this game has been one of the most convoluted downloads I've ever done.. one of the sites is in German, and the download rate is stuck at 2.5KB per sec, despite the 100MB ethernet I have to my desktop :(

star control

[Alcimedes]

lol, i actually went on e-bay, bought an old 3do system and downloaded star control 2 for 3do. if you look around, you can find irc servers with 3do games. that thing is so much fun. i finally broke down and bought the console to play the game, i was having a hell of a time getting it to run on my hardware.

Well...

[Restil]

I got 50% of it before it slowed to a crawl and finally stopped alltogether. If only I got it all, I'd host a mirror.

*sigh*

-Restil

Screw a remake! I want the original!

[NineNine]

Like the subject says... screw the remake! I want the original! All of my 5 1/4" Kings Quest 1 disks went bad looong before CD burners were around, so I never got a chance to make a lasting copy of it. Anyone know where I can get the ORIGINAL?

Spacequest!!!

[Triv]

If they ever get around to the spacequest series I'll be a very happy man. You've gotta respect a company that put Bill "Pug" Gates in a video game.

Scumsoft. heh. Man, they were ahead of their time.

Triv

Re:Spacequest!!!

[denzo]

Just to put some perspective into things, Space Quest III was made in 1989. Windows 3.0 was released in 1990, before the BSoD became a household term (it is documented to have existed since Windows 2.0, but who actually used it?). So yeah, they were a bit ahead of their time.

KQ1 on PCjr

[AaronW]

I remember King's Quest I and bought it when it first came out. The very first version was for the IBM PCjr to show off its graphics and sound capability (it could do 320x200 with 16 colors! and had 3 channel sound+noise support) Remember at this time most PCs with color could only do 320x200 4 colors (CGA). What was amazing was that they could fit the entire game on a 360K floppy! The graphics were actually rendered at 160x200 so they could store the coordinates in a single byte to save space. As I recall, when entering a new screen the game would draw outlines of everything and fill them in.

Sierra also came out with the PC version which looked like crap by comparison (4 dithered colors in CGA).

I also remember the later Sierra games where you could get them into interesting modes for script debugging and so forth.

After I upgraded to an 8 MHz 8088 XT with EGA with a hard drive I wrote a program to get around the copy protection of all of the Sierra games so I didn't have to keep inserting the floppies every time I wanted to play. It would intercept the disk requests and simulate floppy accesses for the copy protection. Things have sure changed since then.

Re:KQ1 on PCjr

[Piper82]

I thought I was the only one who experienced Kings Quest 1 on the PCjr! Great to see someone else who enjoyed it as much as I did! At the time I couldn't believe the graphics of this game when everyone else was suffering with the standard PC version. Here we were with brilliant 16 colors and 3 channel (tandy) sound! I can still hear the bird chirping in the tree. That PCjr rocked.

Answers to Questions about Tierra

[Anonymous Coward]

I've known about this project for some time; I know Tom at Quest Studios, the person who is working with the "Anonymous Game Developers" at Tierra to produce the music for their remakes. Let me try to address some of the questions that people have asked.

1) Only the King's Quest I VGA remake has been posted; the team is currently working on three other projects, a King's Quest II-based project (more on that in a minute), a Quest for Glory II project, and a secret project. There are no plans to remake any other games at this time, just a lot of ideas floating around and only a few people doing all of the work.

2) Why King's Quest I? The team originally produced the VGA remake to hone their skills and spur interest in another (now-discontinued) project they called "Royal Quest I". KQ1VGA and RQ1 are not the same project, and never were. However, the original 3 AGDs (Anonymous Game Developers) had a disagreement over the path that Royal Quest I was going to take (the spoof was not going to be quite as "family-oriented" as the real King's Quest series) and Royal Quest I was cancelled. Another answer to the question is: King's Quest I may not be the best adventure game made, but it was one of the first of its kind on many platforms (from the Apple II through to the PCjr); it's historically significant, well known and remembered.

3) The KQ1 VGA remake has been available for download since last fall. Around the end of August/start of September, a speech pack was posted for the game, featuring dialog from Josh Mandel, the original voice of King Graham. The AGDs have also received help from sources they will not name to break the format of the Quest for Glory save-character file, so they can import QfG1 characters, and write out QfG2 characters for use in QfG3.

4) The above having been said, the current Sierra company has so not really said anything against the project. Even so, the AGDs continue to remain Anonymous, just in case. Strictly unofficially, Sierra seems uninterested in pursuing fan projects based on their games, but will of course still send out the typical legal boilerplate saying "No" if you bother to ask them if you can make a project using their intellectual property. Unfortunately, this approach suggests that it is only a matter of time before some of these fan projects become "too popular", in which case Sierra may HAVE to stop the projects in order to protect their rights, if they care about them. So far, this has not yet happened.

5) The games only run under Windows. I do not know of any plans for ports to other platforms, sorry.

6) The project is not related to the Hero6 project, nor is it related to the Space Quest: The Lost Chapter project (another good fan project in which Josh Mandel has gotten involved!).

7) A bit more history on King's Quest: The SCI remake of King's Quest I made by Sierra in 1990 was still 16 colors (EGA) and used a completely text-based parser interface, just like the original AGI version. The Tierra remake is in full 256 color VGA. Much of the artwork is recycled from the Sierra EGA SCI version, but you will find new artwork in various places, and a cleaned up score from Tom and of course the voice pack featuring Josh Mandel as Graham. The remake uses the icon interface introduced by Sierra in later games, and applies it to the classic game. No more frustration mistyping "push witch"; click the hand icon, click the witch. The only time you need to type is to answer the Gnome's question, where there is no time limit, or to name your saved game. (BTW - The other official Sierra remakes were Mixed-Up Mother Goose, Space Quest I, Quest for Glory I (aka "Hero's Quest", Leisure Suit Larry I, and Police Quest I. Yes, all of these were redone in VGA, with icon interfaces. Only the King's Quest I remake was in kept EGA with a parser interface.)

8) The King's Quest II project is NOT a remake. Officially, the project is called "KQ2+" and features new locations and an expanded plot, and an all-new soundtrack (by Tom, of course). The project is nearing completion and the AGDs expect to release it later this year. You can find two samples of the new KQ2 soundtrack on Tom's site on the "What's New" page. OK, that's everything I can tell you about it!

Re:Legal

[jwilcox154]

Yes, it could very well have Legal Repercussions.
Especially since Vivendi Universal Owns Blizzard
Entertainment, Knowledge Adventure And Sierra-Online.


http://www.vgf.com/news/0501/havas.htm


I Am Bill Gatus of Borg, You will be assimi...
.
.
.
General Protection Fault

Not All The Games...

[GreenHell]

Not all the games are on that list, I know as I own one that's not listed there.

Which one? Why the official 'improved graphics' King's Quest I of course. There was an improved graphics one, it used the same type of engine found in Space Quest 2 or 3 IIRC, but was still in good ol' 16 colour.

The main improvement in the graphics that I could tell was that Graham was taller and skinnier, and now sort of resembled a person instead of looking like a walking block. They were sold in a gold-coloured box, and had a nice sticker announcing that the graphics had been upgraded. The game itself came on both the 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" disks.

There's one other thing I don't like about that page, Quest for Glory I is listed under it's current name, rather than it's original Hero's Quest name. I think they should have at least included that in there, but then I'm picky about these things.

Re:Not All The Games...

[GreenHell]

And seeing from others, I see that it was actually 256 colours... Hmmmm, I can't say I ever noticed. Time to dig out the disks, fire up the 5 1/4" (I've lost the 3 1/2" disks) and check that out...

Can they update the command entries?

[truesaer]

I love these old games, but this is one thing I wish I could forget:

> Ask officer where the body is

Huh?

> Ask policeman where the body is

Huh?

>Ask cop where the victim is

Huh?

>Ask where the god damn fucking piece of shit body is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Your mother would be ashamed of that language!

> FUCK OFF!!

Your mother would be ashamed of that language!

Then, you pay 4 bucks to call the tipline and find it you need to type "ask the second class sergeant of the county sherriff's department where the body is" or something similar but strangely different from what you were trying.

Crap, now I'm getting lameness filtered....this is just random complaining to bring up my average length per line. My favorite games were police quest, personally, but I also liked space quest. I never really played kings quest, though I'm sure I would have liked it.

Re:Can they update the command entries?

[Misao]

*sigh*

"ask marie for help with hotel operation"

I don't think I'll ever forget that... I remember spending hours trying to get the wording right. It's funny.. sometimes the parser was very liberal with what it would take; other times, you had to be _so_ specific...

-mis

Star Control 2

[orz]

Star Control
http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/

Star Control: TimeWarp (fan sequel)
http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/ timewarp/

Code bloat alert!

[ghack]

These system requirements are INSANE!


System Requirements
*Pentium or higher processor, at least 233 Mhz
*SVGA display with VESA driver
*1 MB Video RAM required, 2 Mb recommended
*16 MB RAM
*MS-DOS 5.00 or higher, Windows 95/98/ME or Windows 2000
*Games made for Windows require DirectX 7 or higher
*About 50 Mb free disk space
*Sound card optional (supports Adlib, Sound Blaster and General MIDI for music; Sound Blaster and ESS Audiodrive for digital sound).


50 Megs of disk space! Why? Direct X 7! This is a 2D game! Why not the Allegro library, SDL, or DirectX 3? I cannot even run it on any of my machines, since they dont have Win 98, ME, 95 or something that supports that version of Direct X. This should be able to run on a 386 with a VGA card, instead they have done some TOTAL code bloat! How complex is this remake? More complex than even Quake or Doom II or TuxRacer? That is nuts!
I sure as hell wont d'l it. I have a PC gamer cd from a few years back that has kings quest 1[original] on it. If I want to download something that needs 50 megs, it wont be this!

Re:Sierra already did it themselves!

[terrymr]

Yes they did do a remake of LSL-1 I bought it for one.

Thexder?

[Veramocor]

Try Silpheed that was there best action game at the time.

Re:Thexder?

[nanoakron]

I just gotta say that when it came to transforming fighting planes, Wibarm rocked. I know it wasn't sierra but it was still damned cool.

-Nano.

Boy this brings me back...

[quantaman]

I'm getting nostalgia thinking about playing King's Quest again and thinking back to Leisure Suit Larry. I'm also reminiscing to my dial-up connection looking at my 0.8KB/sec download. Stop slashdotting the site and let me download!!

A BT remake?!?

[Skyshadow]

Bards Tale remake? Alright! Mangar is one dead muther. Again.

I can't believe how many hours I spent sitting in front of my 8088 playing that damned game. To this day, I could navigate the Catacombs with my freakin' eyes closed. I shudder to think how much of the useful storage in my brain is consumed with Bards Tale, and how many more useful things I could have been doing while I was obsessing about intoducing Mangar to DEST (amazing how that little bitch never could make a saving throw).

Sierra games on Dreamcast -- Sariendc

[mastagee]

SarienDC
Ganksoft has done a port of Sarien to the Dreamcast. Haven't tried it out yet because I don't have a Dreamcast keyboard or mouse.

Lunatic Fringe

[theEdgeSMAK]

Whatever happened to lunatic fringe??? It was an
after dark screensaver / game and it was perty darn
cool.. they were even supposed to be releasing a
retail version of it. It seems to have faded away
somewhere... not even abandonware. Hmmmmm If only
I didn't use all my floppies as ninja stars.

edge

Redundant, but needs to be said again and again!

[gnovos]

These games were incredible. I have yet to play a game that really is able to draw me in and fascinate me as much as these old sierra games. Sure the FF games are beautiful and interesting, sure Metal Gear Solid 2 was fantastic, breathtaking even, sure Quake 3 makes my heart pound, The Sims leave me feeling happily frustrated, and Never Winter Nights will no doubt provide me with a lifetime of entertainment... But still, there is something missing...

Only the sierra games of yore were really able to bring my imagination to life. I could play those games for hours, find myself stuck, and spend the next few days puzzing over the answer. And, amazingly, the answers were never the "try random things until it works" variety, nor were they the Riven-style "huge leaps in hyperbolic logic and transdimensional linguistics to recreate the language of a forgotton species to translate the secret message that must them be decoded using the phases of the moon and the atomic weight of Rivenium". They were creative, funny, intriuging, disturbing, silly, and most importantly FUN.

If you are a game designer, do youself a favor... Go find those ancient rotting 5.25" disks from your attic and play those old sierra games, every one of them.

Solar Wind?

[Jeffv323]

What was that game from a long time ago where you could fly really fast on a seemingly endless path and have to jump over gaps and avoid other things while out somewhere in the universe with colorful backgrounds of stars and planets? I remember it being really fun but now I can't find it :-( Any help??

Re:Solar Wind?

[blinx_]

Can't remember the name, just that I too spend endless hours on some demo/trial of it - it really was great fun, wouldn't mind playing it again.

Re:Solar Wind?

[vidarh]

You might be thinking about Trailblazer, but there were quite a few others that fit the description as well.

Re:Solar Wind?

[sumerik]

Actually, I think your thinking of a game called SkyRoads, a game by Bluemoon. I don't know how many lunch hours I lost at school playing this game when we first got it.... Weirdly addictive.

Heres a link to it at classic-trash.com:
http://www.classic-trash.com/g ameinfo.php?id=344

Hope this helps!

Just enjoy it.

[Kris_J]

The last games CD (actually GD) that entered my house was ChuChu Rocket. The games CD before that was a compilation of text mode games. I collect games from almost one end of the time line to the other. Trust me when I say that you can get just as much quick mindless fun out of Rogue as you can out of Crazy Taxi. Original, simple, gameplay beats cute graphics any day. It's only when you've got two original ideas competing that the eye candy starts to matter. Even then, a good game of Gauntlet beats a 3D adventure with a crap camera algorithm.

Meanwhile, for a nice mix of new and old visit my homepage for Star Wars Episode 1 and Pokemon data sets for text-mode (DOS) Monopoly.

Re:Hero6 is *not* a sequel...

[skotte]

hiya brassfire :)
thanks fFor the clarification. yeah, it's not a sequel, as such. sorry.

We want leisure suit larry !

[blakestah]

Yo. Waddsa paddwoid ?

Re:We want leisure suit larry !

[xTK-421x]

Ken Sent Me.. Now where's that remote?

Re:boss key

[DaCool42]

Ahh yes, back in the day almost all games had boss keys. That absolutely ruled. Of course, the boss screens were usually crappy looking spreadsheet imitations or some sort of "technical looking" screen. But provided your boss is ignorant, it would work just fine. Of course, once people were able to actually run a REAL spreadsheet program at the same time, this idea died. Too bad, it was awesome.

Wouldn't it be better if...

[Jason1729]

instead of rewritting the same old games, they continued the series with new stories?

Jason

Of all the kingsquest games...

[DaCool42]

my favorite was definately KQ6. That game was totally awesome. Had a great storyline, awesome puzzles....ahh those were the days. In KQ7 they totally screwed it up though. They switched from the usual mouse cursors to having only ONE! And worst of all, it went sparkly whenever it was moved ontop of something that did something important. Plus it automatically saved your game for you and you could never get yourself into a place where you needed to restore an old game. Basically, a 2 year old could have beaten that game. The graphics were all disney looking too.

But KQ6, ahh that was awesome...

Re:This is for DOS/Windows

[DaCool42]

There's no way it would work in dosemu, seeing as it uses directx. Wine might work though.

Ultima? try Ultimuh. It's way better.

[east_bay_pete]

Download at GamesDomain

Ultimuh; The ultimate role-playing game includes scanned in digitized actors, emotion tearing sound track, and dramatic sequences! This is the best example of role-playing ever made in the history of man-kind. 8 Levels of digitally scanned in graphics... Each one more complicated than the one before. Can you make it.......?

This one beats the pants off anything in the Ultima series.

Nostalgia

[tangent3]

I immediately walked right into the moat and got eaten by alligators when I started the game! Just like the old times! Damn I miss this game :)

Second thing which happened was pushing the rock from the wrong side... ouch!

More forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I know that not bothering to log in means that noone is going to read this but...

I've seen this tread alot, and aslong as people don't try to profit from these actions then they are unlikly to be foxed, in this case by Activison who I think owns the intellectual Property to serria. Altough, I also thought that about mod's

Anyway the point I whated to make was, I hope that the people who untake these projects spend some time insuring that these games remain timeless, or rather they still look good and play reasonably well five years down the track. Somthing that the orginal creators of the game often overlooked.

For example, insure that an internal clock is used making sure that the game still plays well on ever faster processors,

Use vector graphics, so that the game looks good at higher resolutions,

Perhaps, write the thing in java, since the java vm, will still be around 5 years down the track. or in a API which is still going to be around in the future.

ETCETC,

Anymore surrgestions??

No!!!! Not ISOMETRIC Ultima 4...

[netsrek]

Oh shit... I hated the Ultima series (well 7 was pretty damn good anyway) once they went all isometric... They should never have messed with perfection.... :(

Ultima 4 was an amazing game... I've still got all those maps/towels somewhere.... and a silver ankh I believe... :)

I thought Sierra was doing this?

[Self-Important]

I could have sworn that I (let's just say) "reviewed" a newer, VGA version of Leisure Suit Larry I only a few years back.

Does anyone have any information about the Sierra VGA re-releases?

Useful info if you're running Sierra games for DOS

[NinjaGaidenIIIcuts]

Taken from Mo'Slo website. Hopefully the remakes will run under DirectX :-)

Sierra support technicians have suggested Mo'Slo for slowing too-fast character movement in Space Quest 1-5, stopping 'error 47' in Space Quest 6, stopping a lock-up at Bert's Park in Police Quest 1, slowing an uncontrollably-fast car in Police Quest 3, and correcting runway overruns during take-off in A-10 Tank Killer when DOS versions of these games are played on fast systems. Also, a user reports that Mo'Slo solves a problem with events (such as dying of thirst) happening too quickly in the VGA version of Space Quest 1 when running at 233MHz. In our own tests, Mo'Slo stops events (such as being zapped by the cyborg) from happening too quickly in the DOS version of Space Quest IV. A user of the 16-color Red Baron flight sim reports that Mo'Slo is needed for realistic play on fast systems (slow the game until the demos run at the right speed -- about 15% on a PII-233MHz). We have found that (!broken link!) Mo'Slo 4BIZ , using the alternate slowdown method, gives more predictable slowdown of Space Quest games on CPUs faster than 200MHz.

awesome

[Inferno666]

That's awesome, i tried to play through King's Quest 1 when i came out on that PC Gamer disc, but after about an hour of playing i started to feel sick cause of the grfx and had to stop playing. But with this i shouldbe able to get through the game without throwing up.

Re:and this is moded 'troll' why?

[NinjaGaidenIIIcuts]

[sarcasm]Maybe because it was the first post anyway[/sarcasm]

Everybody have nostalgia with old games, thus why even trolls show some sign of respect.

I played several Sierra games for years, although I prefer Hunter Hunted, which is more recent. Sierra was one of the first game developers that have built very smart enemies and full-blown resource management into games.

Would be good if they remake games Civilization-like with even more complex management but inject more battle action into KQ-like games.

Finally!

[miffo.swe]

I have been thinking of getting my PC4i up and running again just to be able to play KingsQuest 1. It runs in machine mode right from boot, no dos there to meddle with. I never did finish the game. Kings Quest was my first encounter with the foreign language english and i learned much by trial and error. "put lard in bowl" "jump tree" "hump watermelon" My english teacher newer liked my strange arrangement of english words, i wonder why?

The webmaster who made www.hero6.com rocks!!!

[NinjaGaidenIIIcuts]

I praise him. The site has a dawn good feel.

In the past had who guessed that a website may look better than top-notch pc game menu screens?

Re:Silpheed

[Kris_J]

I had Silpheed, but I could never beat the last ship. Never. Personally, I preferred Xenon 2 for the Amiga.

I know Sierra was *very* strong on Adventure games

[NinjaGaidenIIIcuts]

But and about their revolutionary strategy games like Outpost and gems like Caesar. Don't you mind remaking games based on those olders?

For a matter of curiosity.

Re:and this is moded 'troll' why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally believe the Quest-series was good because of lack of fighting and braindead action. Instead the creators thought up creative ways of solving problems, which can be more fun.

Re:and this is moded 'troll' why?

[NinjaGaidenIIIcuts]

The Quest series were much older than some of the great Sierra strategy games as Outpost. Isn't that hard and costly to make the KQ engine up and running, even with some modifications.

Actually I remember that at every release of KQ I guessed what mods had been made for KQ.

Anyone knows where I could find vgatrek.exe

[CaptnMArk]

One of the most addictive trek games.

This could be a really cool game to reverse engineer.

Re:Anyone knows where I could find vgatrek.exe

[interstellar_donkey]

Might start here:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=vgatrek

Re:Anyone knows where I could find vgatrek.exe

[CaptnMArk]

Found it:

Google search for "vtrek game" finds:

http://www.gamesdomain.com/directd/2052.html

Not a remake - a parody

[WyldOne]

There was only one re-make of Leisure Suit Larry, and that was the first only. (Lnad of the Lounge Lizards.' Since then they have not done any thing regarding the old quest series. (Kings, Space or Police)

This is a Parody of the Kings quest series. I for one would like to see this genre come back. I had them all.

Re:ScummVM (bochs too boys)

[gl4ss]

GREAT! now i don't have to use bochs to play these! (btw, old title players should check bochs out too http://bochs.sourceforge.net/ , x86 cpu & system emulator, good enough to run old games too, and runs on non x86 systems..)

heres a direct download

[Anonymous Coward]

ftp://ftp.megagames.com/pub/freegames/KQ1VGA.exe

i was getting 120k from it.

Re:heres a direct download

[ambientboy]

Thanks, I really needed that. The download page had too many users.

Re:heres a direct download

[xTK-421x]

Thanks for the mirror... now if only we could find one for the speech pack and MP3 audio track..

LSL Wish

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine LSL as a first person? :)

I hope..

[skilef]

..the enhanced Leisure Suit Larry 1 will support the FU-FME protocol..

Why redo the graphics?

[192939495969798999]

IMHO, Those games were better with the blocky graphics.
Sir_haxalot

At least it's not Sierra itself

[billcopc]

I'm quite glad the games are being redone by a separate entity. Sierra is now little more than a corporate whore, releasing incomplete titles, then dropping support within a year. They're the MTV of gaming.

Full solutions of king quest.

[Anonymous Coward]

(1) get magic mirror
Go west 2 screen. Push the rock and get the dagger. Go to the well and use the dagger on the bucket. Climb down the well and dive into the water. You'll see an underground cave. Swim to the underground cave and get out, then fill the bucket with water. Walk west and you'll see a dragon guarding the magic mirror. Pour the bucket of water on the dragon, when the dragon leave, get the magic mirror and exit.

(2) get magic chest
Get carrot from the carrot garden, use carrot on goat so that it follows you. Bring the goat to the bridge guarded by the troll, the goat will kill the troll. Walk over the bridge, guess that little guy name (nikstlitselpmur). He'll give you beanstalk. Walk east 2 screen to plant the beanstalk and climb up the beanstalk. Here you'll find the giant, walk around the tree, the giant is slow so he cannot catch you. Soon he'll fall asleep, get the magic chest.

NOTE: walk south then east of the giant to get the slingshot to earn extra 2 points

(3) get magic shield
Get the bowl, look at the bowl, use the bowl on yourself to fill the bowl with stew. Then give the bowl full of stew to the woodcutter. He'll offer you his fiddle, get the fiddle. Go to the witch house and open the cabinet, then get the cheese. Go to the cave entrance (south, east of the witch house). Grab the condor, the condor will drop you near a hole. Don't jump into the hole first, go west to get the mushroom. No go east and jump down the hole.

Give cheese to rat. Play fiddle by using fiddle on those guards. Get magic mirror. Walk west and eat mushroom. Exit and return to castle to end the game.

NOTE: In the witch house, you can kill the witch to earn 7 extra points, get the note in the witch house to earn 1 extra point, read the note to earn 2 extra point.

NOTE: Near the magic shield is a sceptre, get it to earn 6 extra points.

(4) EXTRA POINTS
- golden egg
Go west 2 times and north one time, you'll see a big tree. Climb the tree and get the golden egg.

- golden walnut
Find the place where there is a squirrel running. Get the walnut on the ground. Use the walnut on yourself.

- pebble
Go west 3 times and get the pebble to earn extra 1 point.

- invisible ring
Talk to the elf to get invisible ring, the elf is north of the carrot garden.

- pouch of diamonds
Go east 4 times, look at the tree, you'll find a pouch. Get the pouch and use the pouch on yourself.

- clover
Go east 2 times and north 2 times, get clover to earn 2 extra points.

(5) easter egg
Sometime when you read the note (from witch house) you'll get the message "all your base are belong to us".

by 31337 h4x0r

Sierra already released VGA Versions

[mongoola]

While the original Sierra games were all low-res games they redid a bunch of them (including King's Quest and Quest for Glory) a few years back in 256 color VGA mode. These guys said they made their version in 320X200 so people would have the feeling of playing the old games, but since Sierra already did that I really don't see the point, other than doing it as an excercise.

"Interlude"

[hawk]

THere was another of that era, maybe a year or two early. "Interlude" promised to improve your love life, and gave you and that special person a quiz before giving you instructions or some such.

The ad had a buxom beauty in her underwear striking a pose (in bed?), and ran in full color in mainstream computer magazines. THe caption was something like, "How's your love life?"

At one point, Jerry Pournelle ran a review. All I recall is that he and Mrs. Pournelle set out to try it "in the interests of science," were unimpressed,and that it ended asking if anyone had a use for a "sheepskin rug with jam stains" or some such . . .

hawk

Re:"Interlude"

[Tackhead]

> THere was another of that era, maybe a year or two early. "Interlude" promised to improve your love life, and gave you and that special person a quiz before giving you instructions or some such.

ROFLMAO. Damn, I remember getting a copy of that. And someone else has already mentioned Strip Poker with Suzi and Melissa.

Anyone know if Interlude's mirrored anywhere?

ObRetrogaming: Bilestoad on the Apple ][. Gawd, how I loved that game, nice chunky chop-chop sounds... mmm... Marc Goodman, thank you!

One of the ironys...

[RobL3]

of the "New Apple" is that I have to run Virtual PC running an Apple][ emulator in order to run some of my favorite old games (Wizardry, Ultima, Bards Tale, Etc.)

Re:One of the ironys...

[Takeel]

Using extra layers of emulation is silly.

Go here.

Re:One of the ironys...

[RobL3]

Hmm, yes, emulation.net IS a great resource, but there are no Apple ][ emulators for OS X. This was sort of my point here...

Re:One of the ironys...

[Takeel]

Hmm, yes, emulation.net IS a great resource, but there are no Apple ][ emulators for OS X. This was sort of my point here...

OS X's Classic layer will run basically any pre-OS X application.

Craftsmanship.

[Droog]

I think the idea that there was a "golden age" in the 80's where games had great stories and great gameplay really ignores the great games of the 90's. Here are 5 games that had fantastic writing and/or craftsmanship that were released after 1995:
Fallout
Planescape:Torment
Baldur's Gate 2
StarCraft
Half-Life

If nothing else, the games of today have much better potential because there is more potential for improving the stability/gameplay through patches and mods and games also have less annoying copy protection than those classics of old. (I know I'm not the only one who hated looking up things on a codewheel or rifling through a manual to find the unlocking code on page 46, not to mention some of those Infocom classics that because of their copy protection would lock up occasionally on my Apple 2 -- despite that everything else worked fine on that disk drive...)

Has Anyone Ever Thought

[zentigger]

That it would be a cool idea to remake some of the Sierra Classics using a FPS engine?

Take the same great old story and build it into the engine. You could end up with the best of both world. A really cool game and yummy, shiny eye candy!

Re:The C64 owned the PCjr

[Piper82]

Oh I know. I had one of those too. The difference with the PCjr was that with it's (higher rez) colour monitor, KQ1 was beautiful and crisp vs the C64 on then 20 year old B&W Sears tv. :-) No doubt the C64 had way more games, but it's KQ1 that did it for me. The PCjr was of course a PC in a day where 90% of PC's lacked graphics period. Most were stuck with a monochrome hercules card and if you're (un)lucky, CGA. It even had a great wireless keyboard (later models)!

Game reviewers...

[Pac]

So you claim to be a game reviewer and at the same time proves that you can't really tell a great game from an "outstanding computer graphics achievement".

I am not blaming you. You are probably a perfect instance of the sad state of game reviewing today, people who can't understand what a game is about, who probably never played a good TEXT adventure and if presented to one would keep moving the mouse frantically, trying to make that blinking cursor move.

Under your line of thought, movies like "Citizen Kane" suck, because we all know black and white "sucked". "2001" sucks also, because we all know pre-computer special effects "sucked".

You should learn more about what games are about before saying you are a game reviewer. You are embarassing yourself and your employer.

My Fondest Sierra Memory

[nat5an]

The coolest thing from my childhood that I remember was actually going to California on vacation and visiting the Sierra Headquarters. My family was cool like that. At that time they were giving us, as a tour group, a preview of Space Quest 4, with its (oh my God) VGA graphics and fully voiced dialogue! I was blown away. Then the presenter went on to show us all the various creative ways you could die in the first few screens of the game.

I kinda doubt that I'd have the same experience going to visit id Software headquarters so they could show us their incredibly cool graphics engine and wax poetic about the GeForce 4.

Hint

[tingalingusob]

Push the rock to find the dagger.

I am

[DrCode]

I'm playing Gabriel Knight (1) at the moment. Great story, gameplay, and sound, with voice-acting by Tim Curry and Mark Hamill. Other games I've played recently are Privateer (1), Wing Commander 3, and Ultima7/Serpent Isle. Sure, many games from the 80's, like KQ1, are fairly primitive and lacking in plot; but once 486's and CD's became common, the games became quite entertaining.

Its not nostalgia

[CrazyJim0]

Many new games simply lack depth, but have stunning graphics.

EA sports games have come a long way, but your standard adventure game just turned into point and click since Myst.

Doom and Dune2 were just new genre cutters... But everything since seems like Street Fighter 2 turbo galactic ass monkey version alpha.

Its not nostalgia, there were more possibilities for fun to choose from back in the day when corporations weren't needed to do the art overhead. Its sad, and you won't see me with a job either even though I'm one of the most die hard video game designers.

www.ebayrp.bizland.com
www.contrib.andrew.cmu/~ sager

Sierra Games Rule!

[sethadam1]

For whatever it's worth, when I moved a few months ago, I found an old copy of Space Quest III. I got it up and running with no problem on a K6 II 450. I might be the only one around who still thinks that Sierra's Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry games were the best games invented because they used imagination to wow you, not graphics.

Hmm...

[giveuptheghost]

Hmm; I don't think that was really Al Lowe's website...

"This account has been disabled.. To have the account restored, contact Customer Service."

Do they need any more help?

[Art Tatum]

I'm a musician with a good bit of experience with electronic music (including MIDI) and I remember playing a LOT of those old Sierra games as a kid. If they need any extra help, let me know.