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(So how DO you like KQ2?) Hey Ken!
I was wondering – I just played the KQ2 VGA remake again at a friend’s (it won’t run on my grafics card unfortunately!) and remembered reading about it here and that neither you nor Roberta played it (in the very interesting interview you posted), which, I think, is a pity.
I know there’s more important things in life than adventure games (like travelling or staying up to date with what really goes on in the real world, not an illusionary one, or discussing politics on a mature level ;o), but yours and Roberta’s career in the gaming industry actually fleshed out adventure games from the plain-text adventures that started the computer game’s role as a gate into virtual worlds and led the way to where computer games were going: from Ascii or no graphics at all where a lot was left to imagination to extremely convincing real-life simulations.
I think that the fascination for Half-Life-like games (a good example because of the cinematic atmosphere the game creates) has the same origin as that for the adventure games your company created: The fascination of a virtual world that you can believe in and get absorbed by – for a certain time – much like reading a good book or, lately rather, like watching a good movie.
But there’s more to it: These worlds actually exist, people visit them, they get to know the people living there, like or dislike them and even extend these worlds to a level that their original creators probably never imagined – these worlds have become alive in the minds and hearts of many people!
The fact that people put such a high effort in a fan game as has been done with KQ2 without the slightest financial expectations (except going commerical later with their own scenarios after having gathered some experience) should (and surely does) honor Roberta and you. Looking at this game, the beautiful intro scene alone, and playing it should bring tears to your eyes like the KQ4 intro brought them to the eyes of adventure game players of these days.
So check out Tierra’s page already and get the games! After all, they were done out of the same sentiments because of which you are running this site:
Dwelling in memories of a past when Sierra On-Line gave computer gamers around the world the chance to play a part in an interactive movie and really made us believe in these interactice worlds they created and even made us create our own worlds. It’s not Tolkien, alright. But it sure was fun. ;o)Simon.
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(re: So how DO you like KQ2?)
I’ve never really been interested in the fanmade remakes. I don’t know why. Graphics and sound are not as important to me as the actual story and everything else. So the originals always come off as better to me….maybe it’s just me but thats how I feel. I don’t even use the soundblaster tool for older sierra games….I’d rather hear the internal speaker for games that were made to use it.
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(AGI Sound) I know I’m wisecracking a bit here, but the original AGI games’ sound wasn’t intended to be played on the PC Speaker but on the IBM Junior PC’s three voice sound chip. There just weren’t sound cards available like today for regular PCs in these days, that’s why, naturally, there was no support for them in the PC versions. The games, however DID have three voices – what you’re hearing when you play a patched AGI game is thus not too different from what one could hear on computers that had better sound capabilities, e.g. the Amiga 500. If the three-voice-music wasn’t already in the games, programming a soundblaster or Midi patch wouldn’t make too much sense, except enabling you to change the volume. Compare this to the Nintendo Gameboy that didn’t support colors at first – the games, however, did. Put an old game in a Gameboy Color or a Super Gameboy (adapter for playing Gameboy Games on the SNES) and it’s in color. Impossible, if the colors wouldn’t have been there all the time, only the Hardware of the original Gameboy didn’t support displaying them.
How you enjoy the old games, however, is your decision, of course. But it just isn’t true that the old AGI games were meant to play the bad excuse for music the PC Speaker was capable of.
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(Fanmade Games) The neat thing about fan games is that some fit very well in the original series’ story. “Space Quest 0 – Replicated” is a very good example for an excellent fanmade game, and so are the Tierra KQ1 and KQ2 remakes. “Space Quest – The Lost Chapter” is also a must-play for every SQ Fan although I only give it a B (it’s not bad, it’s really enjoyable and I was overjoyed when the first demo was released – it was the first finished Space Quest game since Space Quest 6 after all and I’d played them all. It’s just too big. That would be alright if the size wouldn’t often seem ‘blown-up’, more quantity than quality. Too many screens without a function and too much verbosity at times. It’s hilarious none the less and has many good puzzles.)
They’re not the originals alright. But when you’ve seen all the originals, playing a fan game can be a lot of fun and even improve the experience on the fan-games’ commercial predecessors. It is also very nice to see that there are people around who care so much about these games that they take upon themselves the trouble to work very hard for no money (yet an immortal reputation among fans if they succeed.)
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