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Sierra vs. LucasArts

Anakin SkywalkerAnakin Skywalker
edited September 2012 in General Chat
Who do you feel was the better adventure game company, and the better game company overall in their respective heydays (80s-90s)?

Which made better games?
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Comments

  • Rather DashingRather Dashing
    edited July 2012
    Considering the vast majority of regulars who frequent the General Chat showed up here for either Sam and Max or Monkey Island, and the King's Quest game has had NOTHING in terms of new information since the bare-bones announcement that they're doing one, the skew here is going to be pretty bad. This will be somewhat exacerbated by the one-sided rivalry LucasArts fans seem to have with Sierra as a whole, and the misguided historical revisionism that some LucasArts fans(rather than Adventure Game fans who also like LucasArts games) use to treat Sierra like some anachronistic dinosaur that never knew what it was doing, that "earned" its demise through practices that extended throughout its history.
  • FarlanderFarlander
    edited July 2012
    LucasArts, hands down. Sorry, Sierra. I adore Sierra (and Quest for Glory is, like, one of my favourite game series of all time), but in terms of overall quality, LucasArts wins. Sierra spewed a lot of adventure games (much more than LA did), but not all of them were that good.
  • JohroJohro
    edited July 2012
    Sierra did have Police Quest though... and those were full of awesome. What other game made you search a man's underwear?
  • VainamoinenVainamoinen Moderator
    edited July 2012
    Johro wrote: »
    Sierra did have Police Quest though... and those were full of awesome. What other game made you search a man's underwear?

    Monkey Island 2.
  • JohroJohro
    edited July 2012
    eh wasn't the same though. I still loved that game(PQ3).
  • RAnthonyMahanRAnthonyMahan
    edited July 2012
    Given Telltale's roots, I think you'll find very few people on Sierra's side here. :p

    I do love Sierra's games, though, even if they haven't aged too well.
  • kikyouchanxkikyouchanx
    edited July 2012
    Sierra On-Line was pretty good IMO.
  • JenniferJennifer Moderator
    edited July 2012
    I was a LucasArts fan when I was younger simply because I couldn't complete many Sierra games (although I always got Sierra games too because I really liked Sierra's art style), but that's changed as I've gotten older and have been able to finally play through Sierra's games. I voted Sierra as the better adventure company because they always pushed the envelope for what an adventure game was. They were the first to have static graphics in 1979, then they had parserless control from a drop down menu (which LucasArts used later for Labyrinth) before they brought in a controllable character with King's Quest making the first parser/controllable character hybrid, an RPG/adventure hybrid with Hero's Quest/Quest for Glory, etc. They did bring in stuff their competitors were doing to stay up with the competition (pure point-and-click interface, then 3D before stopping adventures), but for the most part, they were pretty innovative.

    LucasArts games were great, but after Maniac Mansion (which was definitely innovative), they just took a formula and stuck with it (although they improved it slightly over time, removing extra verbs, adding inventory icons, etc.) (with the exception of Grim Fandango which was innovative). Not that formulaic is bad (I really enjoyed the LucasArts games), but I applaud Sierra for trying new things (and having those things work out well for the most part).
  • HaggisHaggis
    edited July 2012
    LucasArts made Grim Fandango. That alone is worth my vote. And in terms of player-centred design, LucasArts win again.

    I do give props to Sierra for innovation in the graphic adventure genre, but I was introduced to the genre through LucasArts, and I never looked back.

    On the other hand, Sierra is probably the better overall game company. LucasArts will always be the Star Wars company, while Sierra actually made some pretty good stuff outside of adventure games. SWAT 4 for instance. I love(d) that game.
  • IrishmileIrishmile
    edited July 2012
    I love both so dearly.. but if I had to choose .. I would go with the LA games.
  • FarlanderFarlander
    edited July 2012
    Haggis wrote: »
    On the other hand, Sierra is probably the better overall game company. LucasArts will always be the Star Wars company, while Sierra actually made some pretty good stuff outside of adventure games. SWAT 4 for instance. I love(d) that game.

    Only SWAT 4 wasn't Sierra, it was Irrational (a.k.a. developers of BioShock). SWAT 3 was developed by Sierra, and it too was really awesome.
  • der_ketzerder_ketzer
    edited July 2012
    I didn't even play any Sierra adventures in my childhood. I found out about them about 2-3 years ago and I love all of them.
  • Rather DashingRather Dashing
    edited July 2012
    Jennifer wrote: »
    an RPG/adventure hybrid with Hero's Quest/Quest for Glory
    Since you have this in a list of innovations, I'd like to note that Infocom combined RPG elements(including a rudimentary morality system) with Adventure games in Beyond Zork, released in 1987. That game was designed by Brian Moriarty, who LucasArts and graphic adventure fans may better know as the guy behind Loom.
  • Secret FawfulSecret Fawful
    edited July 2012
    This is a no-win topic. These guys aren't really a lot alike, and the only reason they get compared so often is because there has barely ever been anyone else to compare them to.
  • HaggisHaggis
    edited July 2012
    Farlander wrote: »
    Only SWAT 4 wasn't Sierra, it was Irrational (a.k.a. developers of BioShock). SWAT 3 was developed by Sierra, and it too was really awesome.
    Ah yes, I always get publishers and developers mixed up... I never actually played SWAT 3 though, but I did play SWAT 2, which was in fact made by Sierra, if I'm not much mistaken. A completely different game, but still quite fun. I loved assembling teams in that game... not that it helped in winning missions though.
  • JohroJohro
    edited July 2012
    der_ketzer wrote: »
    I didn't even play any Sierra adventures in my childhood. I found out about them about 2-3 years ago and I love all of them.

    I was the opposite. Sierra was far more interested in distribution here than LA. While LA games were very hard to come by, Sierra was everywhere. I played a whole lot of those games back in the day. I've had to import almost all the LA games I own, which meant waiting til the internet evolved into what it is today.
  • flannelflannel
    edited July 2012
    I honestly can't answer this poll because I don't know. I grew up playing both quite a bit. The first 3 games I ever played was Red Baron, Space Quest 1 and Police Quest 2. Not to mention the hours spent on just about every game they released after that including the Kings Quest series up to 7th Guest. So I have a lot of love for Sierra. But I also grew up loving Maniac Manson, Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island Series, Full Throttle and of course Grimm Fandago...

    I really can't choose one.
  • FrankTFrankT
    edited July 2012
    Gihk! Don't make me choose!!!!!
  • Darth MarsdenDarth Marsden
    edited July 2012
    LucasArts.

    I have long said that being able to die in an adventure game is a massive no-no, and LucasArts understood that (after Maniac Mansion, anyway). Hell, they even poke fun of it in MI. I can't get to grips with any of the Sierra games because they require a very different play style - one that punishes you for taking too long to explore a screen or overlooking basic things. I've never liked that, and it's why I've never really liked Sierra games.
  • Secret FawfulSecret Fawful
    edited July 2012
    I've never really been like "Gasp. I can die in a vidya game?"
  • FarlanderFarlander
    edited July 2012
    I never was against dying in adventure games. But I was against dead ends, especially the kind 'don't pick up an item at the beginning from an area you can't get back to and get stuck at the very end of the game!'
  • MusicallyInspiredMusicallyInspired
    edited July 2012
    Sierra. They were far more interesting. And I'm not saying that because I could beat them as a kid, because I couldn't. But I thought the games were fantastic and had great atmosphere. Certainly with more depth than LA games (as far as gameplay is concerned). While LucasArts focused on story and presentation. But not too much as LucasArts did have some really great large worlds to explore with great puzzles. Sierra was definitely the innovator, though, which in my eyes makes them more creative. Not only story-wise but gameplay-wise. That's two points against LA's one. They were both fantastic, however.

    The reason these two are compared so much is because they were the two best adventure developers out there. Period. But my heart will always belong to Sierra first.

    I don't like dying, but I appreciate it. Of course nobody LIKES dying, but that doesn't mean it's bad game design. No way. Neither are dead ends. But it was a different time. With a different community of gamers.
  • DAISHIDAISHI
    edited July 2012
    Sierra made my single favorite adventure game of all time, The Black Cauldron. DyIng is fine, just thought dead ends were cheap.
  • StarEyeStarEye
    edited July 2012
    LucasArts had a gamedesign philosophy that were, in many cases, innovative and redefined the adventure game genre. They basically invented how the modern adventure game should be designed. That said, I'm not opposed to dying in adventure games. It's just that it shouldn't be quite as random as they are in Sierra's quest games. They punished exploration, which is a very important element for me in adventure games. Back in the days, these things were even more annoying that they would be today, because saving and loading were much less streamlined. Especially if you didn't have the full game installed on a harddrive, like most Amiga gamers. This could lead to diskswapping every time you died, and if you kept doing one thing the wrong way, you kept dying, and that lead to a lot of time wasted on diskswapping and loading.

    Even worse were the dead ends, especially those that you didn't run into until late in the game because you forgot to do something or pick up something a lot earlier in the game.

    Today, Sierra's design philosophy (or lack thereof) would work better, due to autosave, quicksave and the much more streamlined saving. But it's still a mess, and it felt like there were no rules to the designing of puzzles in their games. The puzzles were often illogical as well, and due to the strict text-parser interface made more frustrating than they should.

    Still, despite these bad design philosophies throughout their games, Leisure Suit Larry and Police Quest are still among my favourite adventure games ever. I'm really curious about how the new LSL remake will turn out, if they will follow the old fashioned, nonsensical design philosophy, or if they will follow a more modern, LucasArts-esque philosophy. I know there will be deaths, but will there be dead ends?
  • gamer247gamer247
    edited July 2012
    I can't really say as I'm not too familiar with Sierra's games, which I think is because I was born after their peak in popularity. I'm pretty sure the only reason I'm familiar with the LucasArts games is because my dad would let me play some of them with him when I was little, namely Curse of Monkey Island when we got a computer powerful enough to play it.
  • MusicallyInspiredMusicallyInspired
    edited July 2012
    LucasArts definitely redefined adventures. But I don't like "modern adventures". And I consider it the fault of LucasArts and Myst clones for watering them down to nothing. Now they're all the same. And there's no excitement. Say what you want, nothing gets your blood and heart pounding in an LA game like setting the Format Countdown and then going to fight Vohaul in SQ4, all the while knowing that if the countdown hits zero the game is over. Nothing in LA games ever had that level of excitement. Or chasing down Alhazred in the final scenes of KQ6 and then getting into a swordfight with him. One wrong move and it's over! You had to be careful! The closest LA ever got to this was the ending sequences of Full Throttle, but even then you knew you couldn't fail and could just try again. So there's it's not the same.

    Sorry, I know this is not a debate thread.
  • ScnewScnew
    edited July 2012
    As much as I love LA's games, nothing can beat Quest for Glory.
  • FarlanderFarlander
    edited July 2012
    Say what you want, nothing gets your blood and heart pounding in an LA game like setting the Format Countdown and then going to fight Vohaul in SQ4, all the while knowing that if the countdown hits zero the game is over. Nothing in LA games ever had that level of excitement. Or chasing down Alhazred in the final scenes of KQ6 and then getting into a swordfight with him. One wrong move and it's over!

    And nothing beats the excitement of starting the game from scratch because at the very beginning you forgot to check a locker and now when you're so close to the end you can't continue without the item from it! Oh, wait, everything does :p

    Just so you know, I'm just being sarcastic. I actually agree with you, but you're talking about the 'best of' Sierra moments, so to speak. But StarEye is also right, because for a longest time Sierra didn't have any design philosophy whatsoever (which is understandable, seeing as they were among the big first and there was not much to base the philosophy on), but that actually started to change somewhere in the second-half of SCI era, when they actively started to keep their core style but fix the mistakes they've done in the past. If the fiasco of 1998 hadn't happened (was it 1998?), we could as well see two main 'adventure game styles' going on right now.

    PS. Just so you know, and I've already mentioned that but it's worth repeating, Quest for Glory is one of my favourite game series EVER (as well as Space Quest), so I'm not anti-Sierra.
  • JenniferJennifer Moderator
    edited July 2012
    Rather Dashing wrote: »
    Since you have this in a list of innovations, I'd like to note that Infocom combined RPG elements(including a rudimentary morality system) with Adventure games in Beyond Zork, released in 1987. That game was designed by Brian Moriarty, who LucasArts and graphic adventure fans may better know as the guy behind Loom.
    Hey, nice. I've just started playing the Zork games. Now I can't wait until I get to Beyond Zork. :D
  • RMJ1984RMJ1984
    edited July 2012
    It isnt even up for discussion imo.

    Back then Lucas Arts was pretty much legendary, nobody could touch them in terms of Adventure games, and tbh, nobody still cant, im pretty sure the new fan funded Adventure game will be amazing from Double fine, but i dont think even thats gonna be able to touch those.

    Lucas Arts had something like Pixar have today, they just know how to make something amazing, quality, fun, interesting, perfect humor, voice actors, everything just fit so damn amazing together it blows the mind.

    Pixar is very good for reference, because they do the same thing in animation nobody cant touch them nobody.

    It was the same back then with Lucas Arts. Today most adventures are boring, static, realistic and so forth.

    Full Throttle had a nice serious approach, but it wasnt super serious or realistic, same with Grim Fandango.

    Someday maybe someone, wont be afraid to go back and continue the legacy, and say what can we learn and how can we use it going forward, without just dumbing down games.
  • Secret FawfulSecret Fawful
    edited July 2012
    Infocom were pretty much perfection in terms of developers and innovators, but nobody thinks of them because Lucasart's adventure games were "puuuuurty".
  • der_ketzerder_ketzer
    edited July 2012
    Farlander wrote: »
    And nothing beats the excitement of starting the game from scratch because at the very beginning you forgot to check a locker and now when you're so close to the end you can't continue without the item from it! Oh, wait, everything does :p

    I like that model. Space Quest <3.
  • DAISHIDAISHI
    edited July 2012
    Dead ends were definitely the reason that I would put Sierra beneath Lucas Arts. I just found that to be a product of lack of imagination.
  • PimPamPetPimPamPet
    edited July 2012
    I love both, my first adventure games were Monkey Island 1 on the Amiga and King's Quest 5 on the PC. Can't really pick a favorite.

    edit: Just remembered, I also played Leisure Suit Larry 1 on the Amiga. But I was too young and my grasp of English wasn't good enough to get very far into the game. Probably a good thing. :-)
  • JenniferJennifer Moderator
    edited September 2012
    MusicallyInspired wrote: »
    Say what you want, nothing gets your blood and heart pounding in an LA game like setting the Format Countdown and then going to fight Vohaul in SQ4, all the while knowing that if the countdown hits zero the game is over. Nothing in LA games ever had that level of excitement.
    Maniac Mansion did. Once you entered Dr. Fred's secret lab, the self destruct timer started and if you didn't figure out how to get in the security room and get rid of the meteor the self destruct went off and the game ended. You couldn't save your game when you were in the lab, so it was game over if you failed.
  • MusicallyInspiredMusicallyInspired
    edited September 2012
    Jennifer wrote: »
    Maniac Mansion did. Once you entered Dr. Fred's secret lab, the self destruct timer started and if you didn't figure out how to get in the security room and get rid of the meteor the self destruct went off and the game ended. You couldn't save your game when you were in the lab, so it was game over if you failed.

    And yet LucasArts abandoned that form of game design immediately after their first game (unless it crops up in Zak too), while Sierra continued to pursue it in many of their games again and again.
  • hangingwithmonkeyshangingwithmonkeys
    edited September 2012
    The best Sierra game I ever played was Gabriel Knight. It's the only one I ever played all the way through.
  • Chyron8472Chyron8472
    edited September 2012
    hangingwithmonkeys wrote: »
    The best Sierra game I ever played was Gabriel Knight. It's the only one I ever played all the way through.

    Did you only bother to finish because it's better, or do you think it's better because it's the only one you bothered to finish?
  • hangingwithmonkeyshangingwithmonkeys
    edited September 2012
    Chyron8472 wrote: »
    Did you only bother to finish because it's better, or do you think it's better because it's the only one you bothered to finish?

    :D It's a lot easier than something like King's Quest . But I enjoyed it alot more than I did other titles. I've only tried about 3 titles by Sierra so far.
  • Darth MarsdenDarth Marsden
    edited September 2012
    IIRC, it's quite possible to die in Gabriel Knight 1 because you didn't pick something up earlier in the game.
    Can someone confirm that for me? I'm pretty sure that's the case.

    EDIT: Here's the Let's Play. Every one of the Number.whatever entries is about dying, and many of them explain that you need items (or people!) to survive the game.
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