Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Well posting here is a good start, since it is moderated and read by the man himself, Ken Williams. But do not be offended if you do not get a response. That is a chapter of her life that she may be too busy to discuss, what with her taking up writing and all. I hope you get in touch with her someday though!
I agree, The Colonel’s Bequest was a masterful gmae!
my friend and i were talking about the best game we had ever played on the PC… and i said that the greatest game for me and still is had to be, Colonels Bequest!
i was hoping that there would be a remake, same game story but using todays graphics!! would be out of this world!! even use the same music score, cos it was great. loved the music in the intro as the guy on the raft took lillian and laura to the house!! sorry if i have gone on a bit. but a remake should be on the cardsHey there,
HH runs fine on XP. I have the game, and basically you just run the Sierra file. If you’tre still visiting here email me at alistairg@(nospamfilter)dodo.com.au (delete the bracket bit).
– Alistair
Different problems for each, besides, the Windows version from KQ7 v.2.0 already runs on XP and getting earlier versions to run was just a matter of switching executables that the shortcut was mapped to.
I thought Of something. Why couldnt Vivendi do what ever they did to get windows version of kq7 running under xp to the windows version of kq5 and kq6 to work instead of using dosbox even though it a sacrafice to play in full screen mode. and do the same thing to sq6 and PQ4.
And what an excellent essay it was. It’s never boring to read about the love we had for Sierra 😉 .
‘I remember that whenever a major Sierra sequel came out, an upgrade was needed for your computer starting with soundcards, video cards (CGA>EGA>VGA>SVGA), and then memory. In those days, Sierra drove the industry and now it seems the industry has sort of plateaud. I’ve had the same computer since 2001 and I’m still able to play today’s games. It was an age of innovation, everything was new and uncharted.’
That’s exactly right. When video games started out in the 80s they were completely uncharted territory; the rulebook hadn’t been writen yet, in fact it was being written by pioneers like Ken and Roberta. I suppose you could compare it to the period when cinema first started out and people were making all kinds of crazy experiments with this new art form (and when you look at it from that angle it’s no surprise that the 1920s were probably the most adventurous period cinema ever went through, ranging from the Russian montage experiments to German expressionist films like Caligari). The same thing more or less happened with video games, where the most innovative and daring titles came out in the 80s. Sierra were at the forefront of course, but I also remember many other games of note which pushed the envelope – Elite, Starglider II, Alter Ego, Little Computer People (preceding the Sims by a whole two decades), you name it.I don’t think I’m exagerating when I say this, but years from now, when people will look at the history of gaming, Ken and Roberta will rightly be seen as pioneers of this art form, just the same way Eisenstein or Murnau are seen as pioneers of cinema. What especially commendable about Sierra’s output is the vastly educational value of many of these games. Take Goldrush, which was a wonderful lesson in a specific part of American history. Or King’s Quest, with all its references to folklore and fairytales. Police Quest, a rudimentary but informative lesson in policing. Leisuresuit Larry, a lesson in how NOT to pick up women. 😉 That aside, to me, personally, Sierra had another personal education value, as I was a wee young ‘un growing up in Germany with a VERY limited knowledge of the English language. Seeing as games weren’t localised in those days (we’re talking 1987 to 1990 here), I really needed to learn English and learn it quick in order to beat those games. I now live in Britain and can speak English fluently without problems, and it’s debatable whether I ever would have had the motivation to learn this language at a young age had it not been for Sierra.I remember sending Ken an e-mail of thanks a few years ago, and I thought it was telling that he responded in kind. There was always a human element to the Sierra games, because, ultimately, they were being created by people who are kind and thoughtful individuals first and foremost, and that’s why these games still matter to so many people. That’s, ultimately, where the crux lies, and why Sierra meant so much for so many people, and still does. You can be as innovative as they come, but if there’s a lack of humanity to what you create then it will not touch people in the same way that Ken- and Roberta’s games did.I think that’s also why I think it’s no joke to describe video games as an art form, since art is basically an individual expressing the way they experience the world alongside their own innermost thoughts and feelings through a medium; whether that medium is theatre, literature, cinema, or indeed video games, is beside the point, and it would be wrong to belittle video games (or, to use its more contemporary but rather dubious title of ‘home entertainment’).There are still great games being made, of course. The Final Fantasy series or Silent Hill have immersive storylines, exceedingly great gameplay, and dare i say if Ken and Roberta were starting out today, these would probably be the sorts of games they’d be making. But the difference to Now and Then is that the rulebook has been established. the possibilities are not as wide open as they were in the 80s, and that games have now fallen prey to the market forces with budgets spiralling out of control. While that does not necessarily have to be a Bad Thing in and of itself (games like the Metal Gear Solid series have clearly benefitted from their galactic budgets, and I would actually describe Hideo Kojima as one of the few people working in the industry who still befits the title of ‘pioneer’), the playing field has definitely decreased in size, and the days when someone can create an immersive and brilliant game solely from home, the way Ken and Roberta did with Mystery House, are well and truly gone.But blimey. What intended to be a brief commentary on what Aaron had said has turned into a full-on essay. In any case, Many thanks to Ken and Roberta and all the best for the future. Thank you for all the work you have done.I was thinking about purchasing the new collections but after reading several negative and positive reviews, I’ve decided to stick with my old compilations. Most most games run perfectly on DOSBOX and the games that don’t I can run on my “old” AMD XP 1600+ with my trusty Soundblaster AWE32
.IF Vivendi decides to release other compilations, like a mystery bundle with Phantasmagoria I&II and Shivers I&II I that work properly in XP then I will buy it. As for these classics, I’ll stick with my original games…
A few weeks ago another member announced selling their collection on ebay so you should be fine. No one will slap your wrists. 😉
I hope your financial situation will clear up soon.
Of course I am a Sierra fan since the PCjr days, and I was dearly looking forward to these compilations for the simple aspect of them playing nice with Windows XP. I heard rumors of them just throwing in DosBox in there for use and that had me somewhat dismayed.
I want to clarify for everyone like me, that even though, yes, it does use DOSBox, it’s not that simple. I have used DOSBox off and on and, while I know that it’s probably my idiocy, I have always had some trouble with DosBox. Thusly, I still use my old 486 System.
BUT, with these releases, after you install the games, there is a simple ‘King’s Quest Launcher’ where you can simply click on a game and it starts, at least in my case, with no crap involved. I tried out every game one by one, and they all worked great!
I am glad to see these back into the stores, and to be totally honest, I was suprised they were actually in a BOX, albiet a light one 🙂 Very cool.
I will admit I would still prefer the Roberta Williams version with all the other games in there, but hey, we gotta take what we can get!Its a pretty decent set of collections. With any luck Vivendi will continue this and pick up a few of the lost and missing series and games from the late 80s, early 90s.
What I wouldn’t give for an exhaustive Sierra collection on DVD with a really nice, detailed manual done in this type of manner…..
I think it is great that Sierra is finally putting these games in boxes and putting them into the hands of consumers again.
I got King’s Quest 7 as a present one year shortly after it came out, but never had any luck running it in XP (I think it might have been a Windows version? I got endless errors). For about $20 I am now able to play that in XP, plus the rest of the series.I can now retire the old win98 box I have in the basement.I do hope that there is enough success in these that some of the other collections are released. I’m a big Quest for Glory fan.If it’s playing the old games through DosBox emulation, you could play the games in a window and have the PDF open in Acrobat. Or maybe they will be nice and disable copy protection.
That link with the review confirmed everything I suspected. I felt like a jerk making all of these assumptions and being pessimistic about the releases before they were even out, but I hate to say I was right. I could think of at least a dozen things I would’ve done to add something more to the releases. Actually it’s even worse than I thought. They don’t include the original EGA games if there was a remake?
Are any of the issues available? I’d be interested in the scanned versions. Also are there any plans to host these online? I currently use a hosting service that gives 400 gigs/month download (http://www.lunarpages.com/) I find this works well for the Sierra Vids and catalogs I’ve been posting, and I still have plenty of bandwidth to spare.
I’m one of those people who do not have every game or had the chance to play all the Space Quest games. Does this mean that the file formats are the same? If King’s Quest V asked for the spell character to push the boat out to see would I have had to have the .pdf printed out?
To be honest most games now are pacaged this way with a disk in a hollow box. I might wait for them to go down to $10 a game like all the other games I buy. If I buy old games at Goodwill for $4 a game this is not that bad of a deal.i wonder why they pushed the release back so much if all they did was include dosbox. testing maybe, i don’t know. what a dissapointment.
There is an extensive thread about the collections and what they include (and don’t include) here.
Looks like Vivendi did the bare minimum on these. I’m not really surprised, but still disappointed.
-Emily
Yes, please tell us what’s in the package! I’ve heard that the game manuals were on PDF and that the games were made XP compatible by using DOSBOX. I’m so curious… 😛
I hope they’ve put in some really cool extra’s!
Ciao to all !
Compilations have been shipped today to me from Amazon.I’m a long long time Sierra-fan ( still in love with the amazingly great times I spent especially with old AGI games, especially SQ2, LSLLLL, KQ3, PQ and Gold Rush) and, despite my having all of them already, I decided to order the compilations. In fact, I’m eager to have a safe copy, working with XP and new, versus the aging media of my old copies.
I’m curious to see which ( if any ) special features Vivendi may have inserted ( making of,…), even if unfortunately I learnt not to trust them at all ( after what they did of old Sierra !).
I should receive them by this week-end. I will let you know the exact contents.
With continuing, huge gratitude to Ken and Roberta,
GiovanniHas there been any attempt to remake the Laura Bow series? Because of the year 1926 of the 2nd LB and the fact that she worked for the Tribune, where there any plans to do a LB about Charles Limberg’s 1927 flight? My understanding is that the Tribune had exclusive rights to the Limberg story.
In addition, is there any documentation on the file format for SCI. I have seen a good breakdown of the file format for AGI but not SCI. SCI uses 256 colors and supports movies but thats all I know.
I had Dagger of Amon Ra at one time but I have not come accross a copy of it at Goodwill yet. I am almost sure I had BeQuest in the Roberta Williams Anthology. I don’t think I got very far in the game before dying.Can any one get me a copy of lsl7 and/or shivers? Thanks in advance Than@pot.com
Quote:
…Xuereb, Ivan, 2006-09-17 06:33:25VU can’t open source the games, even if they wanted to. The old source code was lost years ago.
…Has this been confirmed, I’ve heard the statement many times, but I’ve never from someone that worked at Sierra or VU
