Quick comment on Space Quest 4
Russell J Kraemer
I bought SQ4 on Friday at 3pm. I got stuck early on, posted for a hint,
got the hint I needed by the time I logged off (and Thanks to to the
27! of you that responded! ) However I finished the game at 11 pm.
At ~50 bucks, thats 4 bucks an hour of entertainment. (no hint book BTW)
This, in my opinion is a bad deal. I had the same prob with leisure suit
larry 5, I solved it in about 12 hours. Does anyone else think that
seirra is starting to whimp out here? Oh, sure, the graphics were
incredible (esp the latex babes ;) ) but it was waaayyyy to short.
anyone care to comment?
I think therefore I.......shoot, was I saying something?
Mark Louis Engelberg
>Well, just wanted to toss this quick thought out.....
>
>I bought SQ4 on Friday at 3pm. I got stuck early on, posted for a hint,
>got the hint I needed by the time I logged off (and Thanks to to the
>27! of you that responded! ) However I finished the game at 11 pm.
>
>At ~50 bucks, thats 4 bucks an hour of entertainment. (no hint book BTW)
>This, in my opinion is a bad deal. I had the same prob with leisure suit
>larry 5, I solved it in about 12 hours. Does anyone else think that
>seirra is starting to whimp out here? Oh, sure, the graphics were
>incredible (esp the latex babes ;) ) but it was waaayyyy to short.
>
>anyone care to comment?
I have to agree with you 100%. Sierra games have gone way downhill.
It's as if they said, "Gee, as long as we have great graphics, do you
think that no one will notice that our games have little substance?"
More constructively, I suspect there are a few contributing factors:
1) Graphics take up a lot of space. SQ4 took up 8 megs. Just think
how much space it would have taken up if it also had some puzzles.
2) New interface. In any situation, there are only two things you can
do: use the eye to look, or the hand to DO. Not a whole lot of
complexity there. Oh, I almost forgot about the talking option.
At this point, Sierra games are like animated movies with a slight
amount of interaction. One basic thread, you just have to click the
mouse on the right things to get the movie to progress. And you're
right, a movie is faster-paced and a better value for your money.
I almost expect the next Sierra game to just be a movie on a disk.
Now I would like to pose a question to other Sierra players out there.
Does the new interface slow down the game play, or is it just that I
have a wimpy computer? I personally felt that out of the 12 hours I
spent on SQ4, over 4 hours were probably spent waiting for disk
access and slow graphics scenes. At least I got a better monetary
value (only $3 an hour:)).
But hey, at least the graphics were great.
--Mark Engelberg
(a die-hard "classic" adventurer)
Tom Tanida
>In article <1992Jun5.0...@news.iastate.edu> r...@iastate.edu (Russell J Kraemer) writes:
>>Well, just wanted to toss this quick thought out.....
>>
>>I bought SQ4 on Friday at 3pm. I got stuck early on, posted for a hint,
>>got the hint I needed by the time I logged off (and Thanks to to the
>>27! of you that responded! ) However I finished the game at 11 pm.
>>
>>At ~50 bucks, thats 4 bucks an hour of entertainment. (no hint book BTW)
>>This, in my opinion is a bad deal. I had the same prob with leisure suit
>>larry 5, I solved it in about 12 hours. Does anyone else think that
>>seirra is starting to whimp out here? Oh, sure, the graphics were
>>incredible (esp the latex babes ;) ) but it was waaayyyy to short.
>>
>>anyone care to comment?
>
>I have to agree with you 100%. Sierra games have gone way downhill.
>It's as if they said, "Gee, as long as we have great graphics, do you
>think that no one will notice that our games have little substance?"
>
>At this point, Sierra games are like animated movies with a slight
>amount of interaction. One basic thread, you just have to click the
>mouse on the right things to get the movie to progress. And you're
>right, a movie is faster-paced and a better value for your money.
>I almost expect the next Sierra game to just be a movie on a disk.
This is true. However, Sierra is changing the interface slightly
allow more interaction. There were a lot of complaints before, plus
the competition (e.g. Monkey Island 2). Roberta W. herself stated
in the most recent Interaction magazine that they don't want to just
be making animated movies (I think that if they do, they should
charge less- I can buy videos at Toys 'R' Us much cheaper than Sierra
games at CompUSA or Electronics Boutique :-) ).
The Dagger of Amon Ra (Laura Bow 2) is supposed to have the new
interface, including the "conversation tree". I plan to get
the VGA version of Quest For Glory 1 when it comes out and see how
much it's improved.
(I haven't bought a Sierra game since King's Quest 5, specifically
because the point and click interface turned me off, and there
haven't been that many new Sierra games lately anyway- although the
second half of this year looks to be busy.)
In King's Quest 5, the puzzles were either too obscure or too easy.
(What do you mean put the honey on the road and wait for a dwarf to come along and
get stuck in it? Does that make logical sense that I should expect
a dwarf to walk by because I put honey on some *particular* path?)
>Now I would like to pose a question to other Sierra players out there.
>Does the new interface slow down the game play, or is it just that I
>have a wimpy computer? I personally felt that out of the 12 hours I
>spent on SQ4, over 4 hours were probably spent waiting for disk
>access and slow graphics scenes. At least I got a better monetary
>value (only $3 an hour:)).
It is slower. I noticed this with KQ5. I think, however, that has to
do with the graphics more than the interface. Moving from EGA to VGA
and searching those gigantic resource.00? files- well, you get the idea.
>But hey, at least the graphics were great.
Yep. And the sound has always been pretty good too. :-)
Richard M. Bennema
>In article <1992Jun5.0...@rice.edu>, mle@owlnet (Mark Louis Engelberg) writes:
>>In article <1992Jun5.0...@news.iastate.edu> r...@iastate.edu (Russell J Kraemer) writes:
>>>Well, just wanted to toss this quick thought out.....
>>>
>>>This, in my opinion is a bad deal. I had the same prob with leisure suit
>>>larry 5, I solved it in about 12 hours. Does anyone else think that
>>>seirra is starting to whimp out here? Oh, sure, the graphics were
>>>incredible (esp the latex babes ;) ) but it was waaayyyy to short.
>>>
>>>anyone care to comment?
>>
>>I have to agree with you 100%. Sierra games have gone way downhill.
>>It's as if they said, "Gee, as long as we have great graphics, do you
>>think that no one will notice that our games have little substance?"
>>
>(deleted text for brevity)
>
>The Dagger of Amon Ra (Laura Bow 2) is supposed to have the new
>interface, including the "conversation tree". I plan to get
>the VGA version of Quest For Glory 1 when it comes out and see how
>much it's improved.
>
realized that they made the games too easy when they first introduced the icon
interface so now they say that gives them a chance to make the puzzles more
involved. Whether or not they will be is yet to be seen. Somehow I get the
feeling that everybody is going to be waiting for someone else to buy SQV and
KQVI and give it a positive review before getting themselves. I hope that
sierra offers an upgrade trade for Quest for Glory 1 because I want the upgrade!
New story, new puns, new graphics, plus claymation! That sounds pretty good to
me. Also, it would be hard to make that game a 12 hr one with all the puzzle
solving, training, fighting, sleeping, etc you have to do.
>>But hey, at least the graphics were great.
>
>Yep. And the sound has always been pretty good too. :-)
>
I only have an internal speaker, but I agree that the graphics kick.
Richard M. Bennema
--
rmb...@david.wheaton.edu
Richard M. Bennema "The brain can be seen as a complex machine,
Computer Science/Math like a gooey computer."
Wheaton College -Robert C. Solomon
Mark Louis Engelberg
All Sierra followers (particularly those thinking about getting
CD-ROM) should glance at this post.
I wrote:
>
>>But hey, at least the graphics were great.
>
Tom wrote:
>Yep. And the sound has always been pretty good too. :-)
>
>-Tom
>tan...@esosun.css.gov
Well, you've just touched on another issue that made me madder than
hell at Sierra.
Way back when, I was an avid Sierra game fan. Their games were a truly
exciting form of entertainment. When they first decided to put music
soundtracks in their games, they appealed to customers to invest in
the new music card technology. They said that they would support 3
music cards: Roland MT-32, Ad Lib, and IBM Music Feature Card.
Excited by this, I rushed out and bought the expensive IBM Music Feature
Card. This card is every bit as good as the Roland and has great
sounds. I loved it, and the soundtracks to KQ5, PQ2, and especially
LSL3 made the games much more enjoyable.
Well, as you may know, the IMF (IBM Music Feature Card) didn't catch
on with the public because it wasn't MPU-401 compatible. At some
point, I noticed that Sierra wasn't putting as much care into the IMF
soundtracks as they used to. They tended to devote their efforts into
making Soundblaster (a technologically inferior card - although the
new ones are a little better) and MT-32 arrangments. Basically, you
could tell that they had composed it on another synthesizer, and tried
to pick sounds that matched up well on the IMF. They may have always
done this, but it began to be very noticable because they didn't do a
good job of porting. For example, Colonel's Bequest had decent music
and sound effects, but every once in a while, some of the music would
become blaringly loud and harsh and then get quiet again (apparently
volume wasn't an issue on their minds in the porting process).
Well, when I went out to buy Conquests of Camelot, I was shocked to
find that they no longer supported my music card AT ALL!! One of the
original three cards they recommended and promised full support, and
they had discontinued it due to lack of popularity. I was livid.
For months I argued with inept customer support people who said
they could not relay my complaints to anyone with the power to make
decisions on hardware support. Finally, Sierra acknowledged to me
that they had in some sense "promised" to support my music card. So
they renewed what they considered to be support.
This new form of support is what they like to call BBS support of
music cards. My card now falls into the "additional cards supported"
category that you see on the box. When a new game comes out by
Sierra, I can wait 3,4, or sometimes 5 months (depending upon what
other important projects are in the works) and eventually they will
post a IMF music driver patch to the Sierra BBS. Then I can spend
some extra long-distance money downloading the patch from them and rig
it up on my game.
But of course the most significant point is that the patches
completely suck. It's as if they don't even take the time to listen
to the music to see how it sounds. Someone probably just goes through
a list of IMF instruments and picks the one that has the same name as
what it is on the MT-32. The music is downright horrible. This is
how Sierra fulfilled its "promise" of support.
Moral of the story: Don't listen to Sierra when they urge to buy new
technology; they can't be trusted.
I was foolish enough because I loved Sierra games so much to buy what
they said, just so that I could have better game-playing
entertainment. They let me down. Sierra makes an attempt to be on
the "cutting-edge" of game-playing in some ways. The latest thing is
their plugging CD-ROMs. They want people to invest in new technology
to play their games with the hope that other companies will follow
suit and that even if they don't, Sierra will always be there for
them. I don't know exactly how things are going these days, but the
last time I researched CD-ROM technology, there was no accepted
standard in the industry. I seriously warn anyone from listening to
Sierra in making a hardware decision. If the market blows a different
way, Sierra will NOT be there for you.
Sierra's mistreatment of me as a customer plus their lousy new
interface (in my biased opinion) was enough to make me boycott
purchasing their games. I hope that all of you out there will at
least think about my warning before doing anything potentially
foolish.
--Mark Engelberg