Sierra adventure games
I've recently replayed quite a few Sierra games.. and I've also finished some games I had not yet finished for some reason. And I have to say, Sierra made some fantastic adventure games!
So I'm wondering what the concensus around here is when it comes to Sierra games. I get the impression that a lot of people here are Lucasarts fans.. I myself am a big fan of the Lucasarts adventure games but I do think Sierra made adventure games that are just as good as the ones Lucasarts made. It's hard for me to pick a favourite here, I think both Sierra and Lucasarts were fantastic back when they were making adventure games.
Of course, there are some problems that reoccur in a lot of Sierra games that I hear people complain about quite often - deaths and dead ends. It's no secret that quite a few Sierra games have plenty of dead ends making it impossible to proceed since you've forgotten to do something at an earlier part of the game to where it's impossible to go back unless you load an earlier save. Personally I don't mind this much - I always keep a lot of saves and I find that in most cases it's not unfair as it's often pretty obvious that you should not proceed without figuring certain things out first.
And deaths I don't mind at all - I think it adds a sense of danger that some games benefit from.. and often deaths are pretty damn funny. I intentionally die in many games just to see the death sequence and/or the message I get after I die (lots of very dry jokes there!).
One good thing about Sierra - they made a lot more adventure games than Lucasarts ever did. Some might say "quality over quantity" but I think Sierra kept a consistant good quality in their adventure games. And they used some fantastic hand drawn backgrounds later on when they started using 256 colors (Kings Quest 5, their first 256 color game, still looks fantastic if you ask me!).
So personally, I like both companies equally.. they both created fantastic adventure games and they both screwed it all up later on.
If you're curious, the game I had waited too long to finish and finished for the first time just now is Kings Quest 6 - I was never too keen on the Kings Quest series in general but Kings Quest 6 is really awesome! Of couse, Jane Jensen helped write the story in this one which is most likely why it's better than the other Kings Quest games. It's a fantastic game.. the only fault I could find is that it might be a little too easy.. you never really get stuck anywhere in the game, it's always pretty obvious what you're supposed to do. But the storyline, the pacing, the locations, graphics, voice acting.. it's all great!
So do you like Sierra games? How do you think they compare to Lucasarts games? I know it's a pretty silly question but I hear it all the time - "I love Lucasarts adventure games but I never really got into the Sierra ones" which I find really weird.
So I'm wondering what the concensus around here is when it comes to Sierra games. I get the impression that a lot of people here are Lucasarts fans.. I myself am a big fan of the Lucasarts adventure games but I do think Sierra made adventure games that are just as good as the ones Lucasarts made. It's hard for me to pick a favourite here, I think both Sierra and Lucasarts were fantastic back when they were making adventure games.
Of course, there are some problems that reoccur in a lot of Sierra games that I hear people complain about quite often - deaths and dead ends. It's no secret that quite a few Sierra games have plenty of dead ends making it impossible to proceed since you've forgotten to do something at an earlier part of the game to where it's impossible to go back unless you load an earlier save. Personally I don't mind this much - I always keep a lot of saves and I find that in most cases it's not unfair as it's often pretty obvious that you should not proceed without figuring certain things out first.
And deaths I don't mind at all - I think it adds a sense of danger that some games benefit from.. and often deaths are pretty damn funny. I intentionally die in many games just to see the death sequence and/or the message I get after I die (lots of very dry jokes there!).
One good thing about Sierra - they made a lot more adventure games than Lucasarts ever did. Some might say "quality over quantity" but I think Sierra kept a consistant good quality in their adventure games. And they used some fantastic hand drawn backgrounds later on when they started using 256 colors (Kings Quest 5, their first 256 color game, still looks fantastic if you ask me!).
So personally, I like both companies equally.. they both created fantastic adventure games and they both screwed it all up later on.
If you're curious, the game I had waited too long to finish and finished for the first time just now is Kings Quest 6 - I was never too keen on the Kings Quest series in general but Kings Quest 6 is really awesome! Of couse, Jane Jensen helped write the story in this one which is most likely why it's better than the other Kings Quest games. It's a fantastic game.. the only fault I could find is that it might be a little too easy.. you never really get stuck anywhere in the game, it's always pretty obvious what you're supposed to do. But the storyline, the pacing, the locations, graphics, voice acting.. it's all great!
So do you like Sierra games? How do you think they compare to Lucasarts games? I know it's a pretty silly question but I hear it all the time - "I love Lucasarts adventure games but I never really got into the Sierra ones" which I find really weird.
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Personally, I didn't like Sierra so much, I've always been for LucasArts.
The only games I liked by Sierra were Freddy Pharkas and the Larry series (5-6-7). I've always thought the Sierra humour pales, in comparison to the good old LucaArts'. And the fact that you could die anytime was annoying, boring, sometimes even stupid. Hundreds of sequels clones of the previous games, a poor user interface, obscure puzzles and the use of a SCUMM-like system that came a bit too late. Sierra's just not my cup of tea, but I definitely appreciate some of its games.
I can quote Guybrush, reading a book about "The majesty of the Sierras" inside the Phatt library: "Sierra? Majestic? I think not."
And I think it's a good thing they made many sequels!
Of course, humour is highly subjective so that can't be argued.. but I think Sierra did have some pretty funny games
Gabriel Knight 1 looks pretty good. I might try and get my hands on it. I miss the classic AG 2-D style, so I wouldn't mind searching out a few classic games.
The only non-lucas arts game I ever played back in the day was Rex Nubular. I remember thinking it was really weird when I was a kid, but I managed to get pretty far.
Gabriel Knight 3 is unfortunately 3D.. but for a 3D adventure game, it has good controls and the storyline is really good.
I never quite managed to get into King's Quest or any of the other games by Sierra, though...
Oh I love Sierra's stories, it's just in my opinion the Lucasarts stories were more in depth and well developed.
If you were to ask me what my favorite adventure game series was, I'd tell you Space Quest, but I love Monkey Island to, and I think Monkey Island has more of a future if given a chance.
I like games from both companies.
My picks from LA: Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max: Hit the road,
and from Sierra: Gabriel Knight series, Larry series
It all depends on which game are you talking about, to me Gabriel Knight 1 beats any other game storywise, both in depth and development.
Sierra-
Most games had tons and tons of logic puzzles with practical solutions
Most were more serious and educational than funny LSL not included. :P
Games started off without point n click.. and I LOVED that. DIG FOR CLAMS.. TAKE CLAMS.. got me into typing and got me thinking. This was just a blown up text adventure I said!
Games felt more like novels than lucasarts
Sierras games had alot of dying which I loved.. prolly my fav thing about sierra was dying esp in space quest.
Lucasarts-
Much more playful games... alot more light hearted..
Most puzzles had insane or idiotic never to be thought of solutions.. which I found awesome and irritating at the same time :P
Constant comedy from lucasarts made them in the end win me over
Point and click made things easier yet almost to easy? But in the end typing had to go.. we cant have out kids learning typing! Nooo
Summary...
Sierra while having a great sense of humor maintained an almost educational aptitude, lucasarts kept a straight line of humor and zainyness* if such a word exists.
Lucasarts also seemed to top the graphics mark and ease of use which lead point and click and to the downfall of typing in games and the end of all real though in gaming which I found and still find offensive but understand the need for.
I favor(favour for uk fans lol) sierra even though I wasnt happy with how they ended...Also lets not go into the politics of lucasarts we all know how that ended.. im in some of the better parts forums XD I do love both companies old games though and between the two companies and a few authors they defined who I am today... Thanks all!
That was a game that really did the death thing up right. It encouraged you to save often, because part of solving the puzzles was dying over and over in different ways.
Heck, sometimes if I got past a puzzle on the first try, I'd load a save just to see what would happen if I failed!
Space Quest and King's Quest are the games that come to mind immediately when I think of Sierra.
AHEM!
But seriously Space Quest will always hold a special place in my heartI love Monkey Island, and I think it more likely that that series will make a comeback, but I would love to see Space Quest 7.
There really isn't an exe file either which might be the problem. The sierra.exe kind of loads the game, but right away it says my sound driver had an error or something.
They need to make dosbox Quick+Easy
I'm also gonna give Still Life a try too. It looks fantastic
PS... last I read sq7 is still in production.. urmm that was pretty recent too :P
xCrhi5x - you did select soundblaster sound in the setup for the game? Try regular soundblaster if you didn't do that last time.
For me, the DOS hi-res version worked better than the windows version.
Yeah last thing I read was an e-mail I got personally from Mark Crowe, which was so long ago it's been lost to the ages, he said that when he left Sierra they were planning an FPS, and he was working on SPace Quest for the Xbox, not really a sequal but a new game set in the same universe with a new main character. Both games were cancelled.
Yeah that's a fan project Linky apart from rumblings within the fan community I haven't heard much of any official speak for some time now.
I especially like the GFG games since the storyline and gameplay in my opinion, is really good
In my opinion, I felt that the Lucas Arts adventures games were superior to most of the Sierra ones in terms of story and humor; not sure if I am in the minority, but I thought King's Quest was quite overrated. King's Quest is fun, but after playing the series for years, I felt that the storyling in all the games were unintentionally cheesy as in the game tries to be serious, but ends up being corny.
However, with that said, I really like Quest for Glory, Space, and Leisure Suit Larry and thought that they were as good as the Lucas Arts games.
And a good thing too. A group of people are working on SQ7, which is not sierra. Unfortunately there is no idea when it will actually be complete.
I'm better off with the LucasArts adventure games, the games they make in my mind are fun. But that is because I actually own them and play them once in a while when I can.
It helps that it's whole lot easier to get an old LA game to run (ScummVM) than it is to get an old Sierra game to run, if only some one could make something like ScummVM for SCI.
P.S. Can someone point me in the right direction for getting LSL 5-6 to run onmy computer.
Lsl-5-6 dont remember having problems running. Ill find the discs and reinstall and let you know asap. Which version of 6 you got windows or dos?
Both ran under dosbox for me ! 100%.. a few glitches are noted but even in the original on a real dos machine you still get these.. true game bugs.
You should use dosbox since that usually eliminates the issues one has installing a sierra game.
I wonder if the sq fangame will do justice to the series. Usually, fangames seems to be a lower quality to the official canon games in terms of storyline.That KQ2 remake by AGD interactive(no offense since I realize that they have a game up at the Telltale games store) was quiet not what I expected. The revised script read like a goth fanfic that heavily focused on the big bad wolf in Red Riding hood's house and Dracula. *shivers*
There is always that KQ9 fangame that Vivindi officially gave permission to the fangroup after getting support from KQ fans. Hopefully, the storyline isn't cheesey.
I don't know what version it is actually, looking at the install screen I'd say dos, I found them in my brothers room a few days ago, when he was playing them I was too young and my parents wouldn't let me, man I wish I still had a DOS machine.
No need for real hardware anymore as you can even use something like VPC and fool it to thinking you have old hardware.. like turtle beach rio! and rage 3d! Wooohooo I have a glide card! Whats glide.. yeaaa.. grr im old.
Doomsaber hisss! I agree on most of the fanmade games being bad in dialog but most are made in haste. I keep speaking of akril.. cant say enough good about her. She worked on the original story for the new kings quest before well.. stuff happened.
To see her writing style she made part of the script into an interactive webpage.. pretty cool considering. But in terms of writing.. hello dolly.
http://kq9.sq7.org/
notice again she uses sq7.org as her site :P muahaha
Read if you want! I did! Great storyline... esp for those that know the characters well.. not just the games.
edit: How can i forget the police quest games? I played most of them even when they did the swat thing.
BEJABBERS!