King's Quest VIII Mask of Eternity now compatible with Vista/7

edited October 2010 in General Chat
After you buy it from Good Old Games.

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/king%E2%80%99s_quest_7_8/

Comments

  • edited September 2010
    Who would want to buy this game?
    Edit: So they pack 1-3 in one package for 10$, 4-6 in another one for another 10$ and then they team up the actually good KQ7 with the piece of horse**** that is KQ8. for another 10$.

    That is 30$ for all the games in the KQ-collection that is 20$ on steam or even only 10€ in the european Steam-store. No thanks.
  • edited September 2010
    der_ketzer wrote: »
    Who would want to buy this game?

    I've heard bad things... is it really awful?
  • edited September 2010
    tabstis wrote: »
    I've heard bad things... is it really awful?

    watch the reviews at GOG yourself.
    I was sorely disappointed with the story, the graphics, the controls, everything that KQ8 "offered". I can understand completely why Sierra left it out of their original package of the first 7 games.

    While KQ6 remains my favorite in the series, KQ7 is a great game. It's got interesting and refreshing characters, great graphics and a fun story. KQ8 on the other hand is, well not very good. I honestly can't comment on the story too much because I don't remember it well and because I never finished the game. I do remember that it wasn't good enough to keep me playing with all the other flaws - bad graphics, and I don't mean fidelaty (i.e. polygon count), but rather the art direction, which was uninspired to say the least. Worst than that was just the bland boring gameplay. It was like a poor man's RPG or something - some weird mix of combat and adventure gameplay, that didn't work at all.
    The other, well... If the dark, muddy screenshots don't put you off, add to this a horrible control mechanism, and pointless, dull and reptitive combat on top of a mediocre 3D adventure game.
  • edited September 2010
    tabstis wrote: »
    I've heard bad things... is it really awful?

    Define awful. As an adventure game, yeah, it's pretty awful and I'm not surprised fans of the series despised it. But people have been known to enjoy it as more of an action RPG. Not a great one, but I've seen worse.

    I think there's an old demo for the game, try Google-ing that and check it out for yourself if you're curious.
  • edited October 2010
    I can understand completely why Sierra left it out of their original package of the first 7 games.

    The reason why it was left out was because the game was buggy, and wouldn't work in vista. It was very buggy even in XP (still had spots it could lock up). Unlike GOG, the last Vivendi Universal who released the 2006 pack didn't take the time to hex-edit the game to fix installation bugs. GOG on the other hand prides themselves in making games work, and patching things so they will work.

    Might still be buggy though.

    As for the game it outsold Grim Fandango back in the day, go figure. Not the best KQ game, but eh still have had my fun playing through it a few times. As for the story, actually had alot of potential. Probably has the most epic storyline of the series, after KQ6. Unfortunately the ending is so anti-climactic after all the build-up.

    As for that 2006 pack, I have other gripes about it... Lacked the original KQ1 (gog's release lacks the KQ1 remake, go figure). Lacked installer for KQ6 enhanced version (the windows version). It only had 16 bit windows version of KQ7, version 1.4, rather than the 2.0 dos version (so its more buggy, and won't work in windows 64bit versions). My copy also had some rather horrible graphic textbox glitches in KQ2 and KQ6 in the pack. It was just shoddy as hell.
  • edited October 2010
    1-7 I love... I remember really looking forward to 8 and reading any article I could find about it and then really being angry when I finally got to play it... I felt really betrayed.
  • edited October 2010
    PimPamPet wrote: »
    Define awful. As an adventure game, yeah, it's pretty awful and I'm not surprised fans of the series despised it. But people have been known to enjoy it as more of an action RPG. Not a great one, but I've seen worse.

    Not played it but it sounds to me like it was made similar to Quest for Glory. Am I close?
  • edited October 2010
    there was only 7 in the bundle
  • edited October 2010
    seibert999 wrote: »
    there was only 7 in the bundle

    Yes, they left out the Eighth one in the King's Quest Collection, most likely because you can't simply use DOSbox to emulate it.
  • edited October 2010
    Yes, they left out the Eighth one in the King's Quest Collection, most likely because you can't simply use DOSbox to emulate it.

    that was stupid of them to do that.
  • edited October 2010
    seibert999 wrote: »
    that was stupid of them to do that.

    Have you read the rest of this thread? KQ8 is the worst of the series.
  • edited October 2010
    Have you read the rest of this thread? KQ8 is the worst of the series.

    i read the rest
  • edited October 2010
    der_ketzer wrote: »
    Who would want to buy this game?
    Edit: So they pack 1-3 in one package for 10$, 4-6 in another one for another 10$ and then they team up the actually good KQ7 with the piece of horse**** that is KQ8. for another 10$.

    That is 30$ for all the games in the KQ-collection that is 20$ on steam or even only 10€ in the european Steam-store. No thanks.

    The GOG.com versions come without DRM. Not everyone finds that to be a worth-while consideration, but many people do.
  • edited October 2010
    KQ8 is a completely different game than the rest of the series. I wouldn't even classify it as an adventure game. And it is the worst in the series, KQ is an OK game to make an action-RPG out of, but Sierra just did a really poor job of it.

    If you want RPG then I recommend Elder Scrolls or Gothic.
  • edited October 2010
    caeska wrote: »
    If you want RPG then I recommend Elder Scrolls or Gothic.

    Not heard of Gothic, got a link?
  • edited October 2010
    figmentPez wrote: »
    The GOG.com versions come without DRM. Not everyone finds that to be a worth-while consideration, but many people do.

    who cares. You can play all the games in the other collection any time without DRM in ScummVM
  • edited October 2010
    Ashton wrote: »
    Not heard of Gothic, got a link?


    Gothic 2
    Gothic 3

    I haven't played the first one, but 2 and 3 are on steam at least.
    I urge you to look at some playthrough clips on youtube though, and see if you like it.
  • edited October 2010
    caeska wrote: »
    Gothic 2
    Gothic 3

    I haven't played the first one, but 2 and 3 are on steam at least.
    I urge you to look at some playthrough clips on youtube though, and see if you like it.

    whoa... that looks awesome. I'll definitely look into it, Thanks!
  • edited October 2010
    please don't buy othic 3 though. The first 2 were masterpeces but Gothic 3 just looks nice.
  • edited October 2010
    der_ketzer wrote: »
    please don't buy othic 3 though. The first 2 were masterpeces but Gothic 3 just looks nice.

    This is the truth. Gothic 2 is probably one of the top-5 best pc RPGs ever made, in spite of brutal difficulty (once you install the expansion at least) and a poorly designed control scheme.

    Gothic 3 is actually not so terrible, but only after you apply the community patch that makes it playable. It's still not as good as the first two though. I would skip it and play Risen instead if you enjoy Gothic 2.

    On the topic of MOE, I am probably in a pretty small minority, but I actually enjoyed the game. You have to take it for what it is though, and it's not really an adventure game, nor is it a proper King's Quest game. Sadly it was made during the era of painfully ugly 3d graphics, so it has not aged well.
  • edited October 2010
    KuroShiro wrote: »
    This is the truth. Gothic 2 is probably one of the top-5 best pc RPGs ever made, in spite of brutal difficulty (once you install the expansion at least) and a poorly designed control scheme.

    Gothic 3 is actually not so terrible, but only after you apply the community patch that makes it playable. It's still not as good as the first two though. I would skip it and play Risen instead if you enjoy Gothic 2.

    I agree, Gothic 2 is a fantastic game but don't be discouraged by the hard difficulty at the start. The game is designed to be hard at low levels and fighting becomes much easier the more you advance and gear up.
    Gothic 3 is not a bad game, it has amazing graphics and a good story to it, but I hated the way you have to liberate towns. There's no way to avoid taking on 50 orcs at once in some cities and it's a damn tedious way considering you gain very little by liberating cities.
  • edited October 2010
    Yes, they left out the Eighth one in the King's Quest Collection, most likely because you can't simply use DOSbox to emulate it.
    That pack also left out the Dos vesion of KQ7, instead had the buggier windows 95, version 1.4 version. It will not work in XP 64, or Vista 64. It doesn't work too well in Vista 32 either. GOG has the dos version of KQ7, so is much more reliable.

    As for MOE (non-gog version), it will work in Windows XP, but there are some things that have to be done to make it work. In some cases the videos would cause the game to crash to desktop (so you had to edit the files to disable the videos). There were some parts that would hang up, and require switching between graphic modes to get past them.

    It simply will not work in Vista and Windows 7, trying the load the game causes a crash to desktop.

    GoG's version is the only one that will work in Vista and Windows 7. They were only able to make it work after hex editing the executable. However, Gog's version isn't perfect, there is a bug in the title screen for example, where the title doesn't show up, or appears like garbled text. Everthing else seems to be fine.
    KQ8 is a completely different game than the rest of the series. I wouldn't even classify it as an adventure game. And it is the worst in the series, KQ is an OK game to make an action-RPG out of, but Sierra just did a really poor job of it.
    Well its a hybrid of several genres and game styles.

    It kept the inventory and single cursor system from KQ7 for interaction(no "look", "hand", "walk", etc cursors from KQV and KQ6). So yes it still had adventure style puzzle system. There were plenty of classic style inventory based puzzles like in the earlier games. Like previous games in the series (and all adventure games) you still had to find items, that you could then use to solve puzzles. Of these types of puzzles (and inventory items), the game has about the same amount as in KQV (probably not as many as in KQ6 and 7 which had more alternative solutions).


    MOE added some 'physics' based puzzles (not found in previous KQ games), such as cutting down a tree to block a river turning a mill wheel, to turn off a grinding stone. or in another example rolling a stone ball and dropping down an incline to break through a blocked passage. This was a type of puzzles not really found in previous games in the series.

    It has platforming and a few puzzles similar to Tomb Raider.

    It added combat action, not found in previous kq games (except in simplistic examples like the final battle in KQ6). It has a battle system somewhere between Quest for Glory V, and Diablo's cursor clicking. If ypu play on easiest mode, the combat is largely ignorable (enemies will do little damage, and will die within a couple of hits), on difficult you will go through lots of health regenerative items.

    There are box puzzles in the vein of Ocarina of Time.

    It has exploration system similar to Gabriel Knight 3 (first person or third person view), although enemy encounters gives it a completely different atmosphere.

    QFGV in comparison has fewer examples of classic adventure style inventory puzzle solutions (a good portion of the game was purely hack and slash to solve the game's missions). For example most of the game involved going to islands where you were forced to combat all the enemies on the island to solve the mission.

    In MOE, you still have to combat enemies, but in between the combat you do solve adventure game style inventory puzzles. So ya I would say that as far as how the game feels, MOE has more in common with the first four games in Quest for Glory series as far as puzzle to rpg elements ratio, than QFGV was to previous games in the series (which was imo much of a departure from previous games in that series). The hybrid nature of MOE also makes it a departure from previos games in the KQ series, but it also retains plenty of nods back to previous games in the series as well (including references to elements from fairy tales, mythology, religion/Milton and arthurian legend).
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