Sierra Space Quest

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

What was your favorite Space Quest game?
Mine was SQ1VGA or SQ6 - it's a tough call. But SQ is probably my favorite video game series.

 

[Lady_Error]

SQ4 - I still remember when it came out the graphics blew everyone away.

 

[Lambonius]

SQ1 and SQ2 (AGI versions) are true classics in my eyes, and are probably my favorites. I also loved the Trek spoof SQ5, even though it was something of a departure for the series, it was just a great game in its own right. I know I SHOULD love SQ4, and I certainly love some things ABOUT SQ4, like the graphics and narrator, but there are other aspects that I always found annoying as hell. More than most other Sierra games, SQ4 is absolutely full of instant gotcha deaths, and some really obtuse sequences (for my money, avoiding the sequel police in the mall is one of the worst sequences in any classic adventure game.) SQ3 is pretty great, too, just not as good as the first two, in my mind.

 

[Pyke]

Space Quest 5 is my absolute favorite game in the series - and ties in first place for my favorite Adventure Game with The Dig.

Im a huge Star Trek fan, so commanding my own ship in the Space Quest universe was just amazing. Plus - Alien references.

For me it just hit the right notes with all of the things I was into at the time. I still remember building lego models of the ships interiors, and that awesome moment when you first sit in the captains chair...

 

[Crooked Bee]

It's been a really long time since I played these, but I loved the entire series basically, up to and including 5. I don't remember what my opinion on 6 was, actually; I should replay the series one of these days, perhaps when SpaceVenture is closer to release.

 

[LeStryfe79]

I really like SQ1 and 4 (the only ones I've played). Back in 1993, I had a good friend who went by Stickademus. He loaned me several Gold Box and Serria games, as well as Phantasie 3. I miss Stickademus. I know his real name was Toby and I still have the manual from Dark Queen of Krynn to remember him by.

 

[Taluntain]

SQ6, but since I played that one first and all the others later, that's not surprising. The narrator made it so worth clicking every single damn thing on the screen.

 

[Metro]

SQ6 was okay. But I'd say 4 and 3 were better. 5 is just... not quite Space Quest-y enough. Having Roger in command of a ship didn't feel right. Yes, it was a garbage scow but... meh. Also the 'enemy' was pretty terrible.

 

[SCO]

SQ5

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Yeah SQ5>all the rest, fuck the haters.

 

[SCO]

They're all broadly similar death fests of some kind or other. But i liked the luscious comic book graphics and satire vibe from that game the best. It ... harmonized with the characters.

 

[Animal]

I only played SQ1 fully. I'm thinking of doing a playthrough of the series starting at SQ2.

Question is, are the remakes worth it for a first time playthrough or should I stick to the originals?

 

[Great Deceiver]

SQ1 AGI is my favourite, and I actually loved SQ2 back when it came out, it was hard as fuck though and I never managed to finish it. SQ3 gets an honourable mention for having an amazing soundtrack.

 

[Metro]

Yeah SQ5>all the rest, fuck the haters.

I would put 5 behind... all of them but 2. And I'm not judging 2 on it's dated graphics it's just the plot was kind of shit and it was basically over as soon as you got some momentum going. Granted 1 wasn't that long, either, but... eh. 2 was unmemorable.

 

[Aeschylus]

4 is my personal favorite, even though the Skate-o-Rama sequence almost drove me mad as a kid. 1-3 were all very good relative to the other Sierra games at the time -- i.e. they blew the early King's Quest and LSL games out of the water -- but they did suffer from a lot of the same design flaws: a directionless design (maybe good for some people), and tons of dead ends beyond the funny death sequences. 3 was probably the best of the early ones in spite of having no actual plot.
5 and 6 were both good imo, 5 probably a bit better than 6 even though the tone changed a lot with Scott Murphy not involved.

 

[Jasede]

Not sure what you didn't like about 5, that one made me laugh constantly. I was younger then, sure, but I do remember it being pretty funny at the time and I really liked the variety the game offered.

 

[Metro]

I didn't necessarily hate 5 but if you're ranking them something is going to come in second to last. 5 felt like a step back from the humor and wackiness of 4 to me (especially with no Gary Owens narrator talkie version). And, as I mentioned, having Roger in command of a ship/crew just didn't feel very Space Quest like.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I started typing a long post here, then remembered that I had already done so before, so I hunted down the other post and am just gonna link to it instead.

 

[Desktop Commander]

Liked all of them a lot (SQ1 was the first adventure game I ever played), though SQ5 is probably my favourite.

I liked SQ4 a lot when I first played it but my opinion of it has declined somewhat over the years (+ that damn Skate-O-Rama sequence).

I was also pleasantly surprised by SQ6 - I had really low expectations but ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

I started typing a long post here, then remembered that I had already done so before, so I hunted down the other post and am just gonna link to it instead.

Wait, they subtitled the SQ2 remake "Vohaul Strikes Back"? That clashes with SQ4 (or, more accurately, with SQ XII: Vohaul's Revenge II). A rather unfortunate choice.

EDIT: Never mind, I confused VSB, a fan-sequel, with the VGA remake, so it's all good.

 

[Lambonius]

I feel so vindicated that other people hate that Skate-o-rama bit as much as I do.

 

[Metro]

Yeah the Skate-o-rama bit was annoying and unnecessary but the rest of the mall was great.

 

[Desktop Commander]

I only owned the CD version, which had all kinds of timer issues. I heard that the floppy release didn't have those but I never tried that one.

I also remember having problems escaping from the sequel police in the beginning and entering the time pod for the first time. The timing there was really strict but still doable. The Skate-O-Rama seemed impossible, though.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Desktop Commander Sounds to me that you may have been trying to run the game on too fast a system. The Sierra adventures at the time relied heavily on CPU cycles to time their events, but did not account for cycles getting faster as the processors got bigger and better. Try to play any of these games on state-of-the-art computers as early as 1996 and you'd run into problems. Space Quest 4 (along with Willy Beamish and Heart of China, just to name examples) would immediately fail these events and you'd need to dig up programs like MoSlo to compensate.

Fortunately DOSBox is here to the rescue, so the only problem now is finding the proper cycle time setting there.

But there are bigger differences in the floppy and CD versions of SQ4 than the added speech. The Radio Shock store at the mall had to be switched out for an Hertz So Good-outlet due to lawsuit threats, and several bits of text were omitted from the CD version that are present in the floppy version. One of the most memorable lines from SQ4, for example, is absent from the CD version.

As for Skate-O-Rama - I was fortunate enough to not have to experience that myself. I watched friends of mine struggle through that section via trial and error, memorized the sequence then performed it flawlessly myself.

 

[Desktop Commander]

That's exactly what happened. Back then I didn't know about all that, though, and thought that the mistake was on my part, which is why I eventually dropped the game after failing the Skate-O-Rama a million times.

On that note, Rising Sun made a fan fix for the CD release, so fiddling with cycles in Dosbox is no longer necessary. Can be found here, if anybody's curious.

EDIT: The curious thing about the timing issues is that, from what I've read elsewhere, they were independent of cpu clock speed and worked perfectly fine in the floppy version, but were changed to being cpu dependent for the CD release for seemingly no reason.

 

[Jackalope]

Desktop Commander
Fortunately DOSBox is here to the rescue, so the only problem now is finding the proper cycle time setting there.

DosBOX??? What?

Try ScummVM, it's made for old school adventure games and workss perfectly with most I've tried.