I recently discovered that Sierra have recently re-released a number of their old adventure games in Windows-friendly ‘Classic Collection’ packs. UK gamers can now get all of the Space, Police or King’s Quest games in one handy (and legal) collection for the reasonable(ish) sum of £10.
This is the kind of thing that should happen more often. Even though I’m not the greatest fan of the Sierra adventures, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to snap up a couple of these packs when I saw them. LucasArts have been doing something similar, if a little less wallet-friendly, with some of their old adventures for a little while now, and seeing old adventure games back in the shops again is good news as far as I’m concerned.
As ever, there are a few niggles. Sierra purists might baulk at the inclusion of some remakes in place of the original releases, and they might have a point: why can’t we have BOTH the original and the remake included? Also, later releases in each series are excluded – so there’s no Mask of Eternity in the KQ Collection, for example – which is also a bit of a shame. I don’t want to complain too much, but it would be nice if we could have gotten a more comprehensive selection. I shelled out a tenner about eight years ago for a PQ collection that included original releases, remakes and PQ: SWAT (okay, so that was a bit crap, but still…) so for things to have been removed for this latest release seems like a bit of a con.
It’s also worth mentioning as a side-note that these Sierra collections make use of a version of DOSBox. It’s not the first time I’ve seen something like this (the latest Broken Sword re-issues use ScummVM) but it still struck me as slightly unusual. While it’s great for those who want to play the oldies but don’t want to fart around with DOSBox itself, hardened nerds might be frustrated by the fact that some options, such as screen and video capture, are disabled.
Anyway, it’s good that they’re back out there. Some may be slightly irked at the fact that Sierra have just humped some of their oldies onto a CD with a cut-down version of an independently-developed piece of software freely available on the internet, but at the end of the day, they still own the games, and we should pay if we still want to play ’em.
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I’ve been pleased with the KQ collection as much as I have played it. As I understand it, the later "talkie" releases (like Larry 7) are absent because they would have cost too much to include and required an extra CD. Indeed, all you get in the box is one disc (or two for KQ) and a little quick-start slip. That’s it. Would have like to have seen a collection of manuals instead of PDFs on the disc, or a scrapbook like from the "Big Damn Larry Collection" or whatever the last compilation was. So pretty clearly a budget-minded release.
I copy the folders into my own version of DosBox for tweaked settings, and all works fine. But for those not familiar with DB, it does indeed work straight out of the box. If that increases the range of people who play these games, then I’m all for it.
Overall, I can’t complain. A mega release with feelies and fanfare probably can’t be expected this late after release, and I think they did cheap out by not including the later (bigger) releases, but any one of the packs is a good stack of game for the price.
Does this mean more Sierra Quest reviews here in the future?
July 4, 2007 @ 12:18 am
I keep meaning to look at Kings Quest 6. Although I can’t summon a huge amount of enthusiasm for its slightly twee fairytale nature.
Anyway, it’s good that sierra (or Vivendi or whoever actually owns the rights these days) has released these compilations. I only wish other publishers would follow suit. As mentioned, Lucasarts have re-released some of their oldies, but only a few at a time. They could probably fit several, talkie versions and all, onto a single DVD. I’d happily pay, say, £20 for that.
Also how about some of the old favourites from Microprose? Or bullfrog? Or everything by Blizzard up to a certain year? etc etc.
July 4, 2007 @ 9:06 am
Or some kind of digital distribution like Steam has done with Terror From the Deep. Releasing a pack of games that way is as simple as the will to do it. They may have to incur support costs, but the game is already bought, paid for, and just sitting in a folder waiting to be uploaded.
July 4, 2007 @ 4:38 pm
A big-value budget pack always appeals even if you’re not a big fan of the games in question. LucasArts take the piss slightly by re-releasing single adventure games for £10-15 with no extras save for Windows support, but I’d still argue that’s better than them not being in the shops at all.
I’d say we have a reasonable spread of adventure games (from the 90s at least) on here, but there’s certainly a big gap when it comes to Sierra titles. Ironically, the only one I’ve actually played in recent years is PQ1 (original and remake) but Stoo’s already covered that one. While I enjoyed it, the desire to play through more police-procedure scenarios wasn’t really there.
Hopefully we can add more Sierra titles to our Adventure section soon. The temptation is to buy a collection and think, ‘I know, I’ll play through these one after the other and then we’ll have covered ALL OF THEM!!! OUAHAHAHA!’, when the chances of you doing this in reality are actually pretty slim. Oh well, at least I’ve got them now.
July 4, 2007 @ 10:26 pm