Old Sierra Games

edited July 2009 in General Chat
Now that telltale is reviving old favorites, it seems like time to cash in on some of the old Sierra gold we all loved as children. I, personally, remember many long hours spent working through the puzzles of Quest for Glory, King's Quest (yes, I was one of those gamers), Space Quest, and various other titles that strangely seemed to lack the word "quest" in their title. I mean, it was the golden age of gaming.

After Mist hit the market everyone scrapped plot and character development for ridiculously difficult puzzle sequences, which, oddly enough, seem to have been replaced by those sad, underdeveloped search for hidden object type games. Since telltale is one of the few companies (still around) that actually takes the time to create well plotted, character rich games, it seems they would be a good match for the old sierra games. (Actually, to tell the truth, I really just miss the "questy" type games that seem so sparse these days. I would settle for something really and truely questy. Apparently I'm a sucker for high adventure and improbable romance.)

While I admit that titles like King's Quest probably (and by that I mean definitely) had too many games created, I probably played KQ VI like fifty times because I loved the plot. (I still wish I could marry Prince Alexander sometimes). Don't get me wrong-- I LOVE Telltale's humor, but I also love adventure gaming in the old school sense. Is it just me, or do other people feel the same way? And what old games do you think Telltale could do well?

(And I still want Sam and Max Season 3 to come out.)

Comments

  • edited July 2009
    It would also be the first time for many people like me who got into adventure games with LucasArts (aka Lucas Film Games) and never had the opportunity to play Sierra games. I've only played the VGA remake of the 1st one and boy is it hard!
  • edited July 2009
    Check for the kq remakes they have created 1,2 and 3 and its free in the net...
    The KQ2 remake was realy great.

    I lerened adventures by Sierra and then i passed in Lucas for more fun remakes id love to see are:
    KQ series
    Monkey island2!!!!
    The DIG with full HD Videos and graphics...
    Indy and The fate of atlantis.....

    They are titles in my heart
  • edited July 2009
    I love old Sierra games as much as any adventure games veteran, but I hardly see new revival of the old titles. Sierra has been shut down and current owner of the intellectual property don't seem to have any intention to create new adventure games.

    Besides Roberta, Al, Two Guys From Andromeda and other old Sierra game designers have retired from the gaming industry. It's hard to imagine new King's Quest without Roberta Williams and new Larry games (which Al Lowe hates and which aren't even adventures) are abominations. Only active designer is Jane Jensen, who created extremely good Gabriel Knight series, and she is designing new adventure game called Gray Matter (which has had a lot of trouble in development).
  • edited July 2009
    have you seen that:

    http://www.sarien.net/

    quite in the beginning, but looks promising for the future
  • edited July 2009
    Gabriel Knight 2 the beast within me and my mum used to be addicted to this years ago.
  • edited July 2009
    They already released the games on DVD...but the original makers weren't even remotely involved.
  • edited July 2009
    Gabriel Knight 1 is one of the godliest, greatest, more engaging adventure games i have ever played. The sequels removed all the *take,close,look,talk,gossip,etc* actions you could permorm, and as well lost all the charm of the original.

    To answer the TC question, i think TellTale has the talent to do everything well, but they seem more interested in cartoony comedic stuff ( nothing wrong with that ). So i don't know , i'm quite happy hoping for Sam and Max season 3. All else is a surprise :)
  • edited July 2009
    I wish Gabriel Knight 4 would get made somehow. :(
  • edited July 2009
    Gold Rush was such a fun game!
  • edited July 2009
    Wow, I am really happy to find remakes of my old favorites. And the Sarien thing is pretty cool, too. Its especially fortuitous to find out about this considering I have nothing else to do while I wait on pins and needles for Monkey Island to come out.

    As for Gabriel Knight, I never had the chance to play those, although I always wanted to. Considering the incompatability of old games with new software, does anyone out there know how to be able to play that series with, say, Vista?
  • edited July 2009
    Sierra made pretty good games back in the day.
    Games that would kill you whenever possible. :D

    @Nimeni: I think there's at least an patch for playing GK under Windows XP.
  • edited July 2009
    Eh, I just realized I could probably run it through dosbox. Unfortunately, I no longer have XP. I was forced to "upgrade" to Vista 64, which is, apparently, incompatable with the universe. Or quite nearly everything in it. Except dosbox, luckily.
  • edited July 2009
    Hehe, I can just remember Leisure Suit Larry, it was a funny game. :) Yeah you can try it with dosbox, it might work, if it doesn't, try installing virtual machine and installing the actual dos, it should work, but you might have to control the frame rate perhaps for some games (not quite sure about all the games) =\
  • edited July 2009
    I never played Gabriel Knight to be honest. Though Ron Gilbert once linked to this article which accused Gabriel Knight 3 of basically killing Adventure Games :P (well not *just* that, but games like it too)

    I have to admit, I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of that puzzle.

    P.S. - Nimeni, regarding your question, I think SCUMMVM supports almost everything these days including Sierra stuff. (edit: apparently not Gabriel Knight though :P)
  • edited July 2009
    There's no reason why they shouldn't work in DOSBox. I've got them all working.
  • edited July 2009
    You can get a great fan-made Windows XP installer for the first GK game here. It makes it run like a dream without having to tweak any settings like in DOSbox. They also have an installer for GK2 that puts the whole game on your hard drive or a DVD (so no disc-swapping), but I haven't tried it yet.
  • edited July 2009
    kksmith wrote: »
    I never played Gabriel Knight to be honest. Though Ron Gilbert once linked to this article which accused Gabriel Knight 3 of basically killing Adventure Games :P (well not *just* that, but games like it too)

    I have to admit, I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of that puzzle.

    P.S. - Nimeni, regarding your question, I think SCUMMVM supports almost everything these days including Sierra stuff. (edit: apparently not Gabriel Knight though :P)

    You should try it, because while there are one or two bit weird puzzles, in general Gabriel Knight 3 is one of the best adventure games ever made. It has good set of characters and interesting story. Puzzles aren't too easy or too difficult (especially La Serpent Rouge puzzle is great). One of the best things is that while there are only certain amount of things which are necessary for completing the game, there's a lot of additional stuff which thorough player can find, so it actually has replayability value if you want to find everything there is in the story. And it's one of the longest adventure games I have ever played.
  • edited July 2009
    Nimeni wrote: »
    Now that telltale is reviving old favorites, it seems like time to cash in on some of the old Sierra gold we all loved as children. I, personally, remember many long hours spent working through the puzzles of Quest for Glory, King's Quest (yes, I was one of those gamers), Space Quest, and various other titles that strangely seemed to lack the word "quest" in their title. I mean, it was the golden age of gaming.

    Question, with Sierra being a defunct brand name, will the money grabbing Vivendi/Activision Blizzard be even remotely interested in cashing in the minute amount of money, in compare to their ridiculously big money maker?

    Also, without the brains of Sierra working with the company that holds the license, who is going to take on such project?
    After Mist hit the market everyone scrapped plot and character development for ridiculously difficult puzzle sequences, which, oddly enough, seem to have been replaced by those sad, underdeveloped search for hidden object type games. Since telltale is one of the few companies (still around) that actually takes the time to create well plotted, character rich games, it seems they would be a good match for the old sierra games. (Actually, to tell the truth, I really just miss the "questy" type games that seem so sparse these days. I would settle for something really and truely questy. Apparently I'm a sucker for high adventure and improbable romance.)

    Myst did not kill adventure games in anyway. Myst was a monument and a yardstick at 1993 as the product that left other games miles behind in graphical gameplay. It attracted much delight from gamers all over, but since day 1, people have been arguing whether games of Myst nature is adventure gaming.

    Did everyone stop developing plot and character development after Myst? Definitely not. A lot of adventure game classics came after 1994 and not before. And if you move on to the RPG gaming genre, which starting booming at about the same time, you get games that are more concerned with variable storylines and strong character development design.
Sign in to comment in this discussion.