What's wrong with Sierra adventure games?

[Nostalgeek]

Hey guys!

I read in the "overrated" thread posts from some people complaining about Sierra adventure games being, if not bad, at least overrated. As a huge Sierra adventure games fan, I just want to get more detailed opinions about it as I'm really curious, if you want to answer my poll and tell me a little more about what you think

First of all, I don't want to get into a LucasArts vs Sierra war, as I'm also a Lucas fan! I did all their games as well, and both Sierra and Lucas made awesome games in my opinion.

But still, I began with Sierra adventure games. They're taking much room in my heart, because I used to play them with my dad and brother when I was a kid, they are a wonderful memory of my childhood, and I think I can safely say that if I got that interested in the English language, it's mainly thanks to them. I played them over and over again - still today - and know most of them by heart now

I need to say that I played them on PC, and I think I recall from PC mags at the time that Amiga conversions were not really good, so this may be a reason people don't really like them around here?

Here's my opinion anyways:




- Space Quest series: you can't beat Space Quest. Fun, fun, fun. My favorite of them all, as a huge SciFi fan. Texts/dialogues are great, scenarios are crazy, lot of references to the SciFi blockbusters, I just dig SQ!




- Leisure Suit Larry series: didn't play them when I was too young (my dad wouldn't let me ), but then, playing a total loser in a desperate quest for score was awesome.




- King's Quest series: maybe too naive and...."girly" in some way for some people, but still, as a child/pre-adolescent they were great games to play. Fantasy world, kings & princesses, evil witches, unicorns and stuff...was magical at the time!




- Police Quest series: hard to play and a little bit boring for European people as it was too much about American police procedures and stuff, but still had a good time playing them when I was old enough to understand everything.




- Gold Rush: one of the latest games with the old Sierra AGI engine and therefore the most detailed and nice looking tho. Actually a very nice game in my opinion, that was underrated because it came out late with the old engine and looked less good than the new SCI (SQ3, LSL2, PQ2, KQ3) engine. But a deep game, with different paths to complete it, an all-time favorite.




- Manhunter I & II: very nice games that weren't the same style of the others, with a nice scenario - very much of an Orwell's "1980" feeling, very enjoyable to play in my opinion.





Well, I must admit there were also cons about these games...here's what I would point out:




- Some stupid arcade sequences that would sometimes spoil the fun and get you stuck for hours. It's an adventure game for god's sake, it's for people that do not want to play arcade! (mostly talking for my dad there, as he's totally awkward and could probably not avoid a snail coming into him he was happy to have two sons to help him out there lol )




- The input interpreter (before point & click games) was sometimes really bad and could get you stuck when you had the exact idea of what you had to do. Anyone remembers the end sequence of Larry 2 where you had to make a molotov cocktail out of a hair fertilizer bottle and a plane vomit bag, before throwing it in the volcano's lift? if you didn't have the very exact sentence to prepare the molotov cocktail, the game wouldn't compute it and send you a totally uninformative error message. Actually spent several WEEKS the very first time before we could complete the game, by reading the solution in a PC mag.




- Unlike LucasArts games, they were too many ways to fail and die in Sierra's games. How frustrating to die stupidly and get to the "Restore / Restart / Quit" screen too often...





But still, these games were huge, and I will remember them forever that's for sure

Thanks for your inputs guys! Lovers or haters

[Shoonay]

I chose "Wouldn't say they were really bad games, but not my cup of tea.", despite the fact that Sierra did everything to make the Amiga version as worse as possible...
Didn't play many adventures, didn't finish any by my own, but from all those adventure games I did play - Sierra games were at the bottom of my list.
In some there was 50% walking around, 40% typing and 10% of story, but they all lack this thing other had... call it what you want... potential, playability, the feeling when you get caught into the story... nope, not my cup of tea... gimme Universe, Goblins, Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky, Innocent Until Caught anytime.

[MazinKaesar]

Simply I don't like point-&-click adventures, that's all

[AmigaFriend]

Never liked this type of adventures from Sierra. Only played Monkey's Island, Beneath a Steel Sky and Indiana Jones Series.

[Photon]

Why use polls to find out what is wrong with Sierra adventures? Not only does it give a limited number of responses, of which 0 may fit the opinion of the one answering, but the choices you made really has nothing to do with exactly what someone thinks specifically turned them off to the games.

Anyway... I'm sure you'll get the whys and whynots in the replies.

Me, I loved LSL on PC at school when I was 16. We'd take turns playing and be 4 or so giving the player advice on the only PC with color screen in the back room of the CAD class But nowadays this type of adventure offers scant reward for the HOOUUUURRRSS of time you put in. When you were a teenager things were different.

SQ seems to be the game with the most variation and fun in puzzles. The major flaw of the series, for me, is that it's just annoyingly slow (and also takes way too long to figure out the puzzles with all that running back and forth with items). Especially if the solution is "give spacebra to poodle".

But they are good examples of easy-to-play (ie. good controls and easy to get the hang of) games, and is time well spent if you have it. But I prefer a quickie with the joystick nowadays, 15-30 mins max.

[Nostalgeek]

Thanks for the replies so far

Photon- purpose of the poll is to have a rough general tendency, with the hope of having people develop their answers more as a reply!

[TCD]

The later Sierra games that were more 'GUIsh' and didn't require all that typing were better than the first ones. I liked the Leisure Suit Larry and Space Quest series (even with the typing ). So I go with the 'cool games' option. Still would vote for LucasFilm/Arts games if asked

[Nostalgeek]

Well, TCD, 5h00n4y and xpect, what is sure is that all games you mentioned were top notch adventure games I enjoyed - and still enjoy! - A LOT!

BASS is huge (again, I'm a SciFi fan ;D) and Gibbons' work is absolutely great.

IUC was a real good game, better than it's sequel Guilty imo, but I wouldn't put it on top of other games. It was good, without being absolutely unforgettable.

Goblins is a classic crazy game.

And all Lucas games I've enjoyed. Every single one of them. Indy 3 & 4 are amongst my all-time favorites, DOTT...who could have missed DOTT? (Was it ever released on Amiga btw???) Loom was too short, but was unique with a very fantastic atmosphere, Sam n' Max, I've probably never laughed that much playing an adventure game (same question as DOTT, was it released on Amiga??), even The Dig was fabulous in my opinion (but probably the hardest puzzles I've seen in an adventure game despite a very basic interface!).

I'm probably forgetting a lot of games, but let's keep in mind that early Sierra classics were from another computer age They did set a standard for future productions.

And I guess there's one thing we may all agree on: adventure is a genre that really died with modern computers...what a shame I'm really missing the genre.

[Nostalgeek]

Oh, just thought about something...I gotta take it back for The Dig having the hardest puzzles. Zak McCracken, despite being a great game, got to a point in the story where it began to be like....REALLY HARD lol. So many places, so many objects, and such a weird scenario that you could easily get lost.

Anybody finished Zak from A to Z without any single bit of external hint? This should deserve a medal of honor.

[Shoonay]

Oh, yes, The Dig has a magnificent story by the master himself
I don't quite get those who hate it, it's got a great atmosphere that you can feel with the characters you're controlling.

About Sierra games again... what I find a bit irritating is... uhmmm... this "humor".
I dunno how to describe it, but I always felt Sierra didn't have the guts to make some of the situations funny in a way some older/mature business man PC users wouldn't find funny... Yes, I'm trying to say that, for me - Amiga games were always for those who enjoyed a good laugh, while PC game's for those who get back home from a boring job and want to spent it's boring life with their boring PC playing some boring game just to kill some boring time.
But hey, don't blame me, always was a PC hater until I finally got that ugly machine back in december of 1998.

[Nostalgeek]

I dunno how to describe it, but I always felt Sierra didn't have the guts to make some of the situations funny in a way some older/mature business man PC users wouldn't find funny...

Very good point I probably wouldn't have thought about myself!

I think this did hurt me less for the reason that I played them in the 80's and early 90's, when I was a kid....but then, growing up, I had a need for a more mature humor and stuff that I did find in other games, you're perfectly right about that! Sierra always looked like being an ultra-politically-correct company, probably even too much.

I think I remember reading a pretty old Roberta Williams' interview (designer of the KQ series and - correct me if I'm wrong - co-founder of Sierra with her husband Ken Williams?) and she appeared to me like a christian extremist :P well that's probably a bit extreme of myself to say it that way and I'm really not trying to diss anybody's beliefs, but that was just too much about delivering "good and pure values" and that she was totally against Sierra going another way. So long for sarcasm, cynism, dark humor and 3rd degree enthusiasts as I am

[TCD]

For me DOTT is the best LA adventure (and one of the best adventures of all times too ). Search for 'Day of the Tentacle' in the thread titles here on the board Nostalgeek if you want the Amiga version

[Ironclaw]

Originally Posted by Nostalgeek

Oh, just thought about something...I gotta take it back for The Dig having the hardest puzzles. Zak McCracken, despite being a great game, got to a point in the story where it began to be like....REALLY HARD lol. So many places, so many objects, and such a weird scenario that you could easily get lost.

Anybody finished Zak from A to Z without any single bit of external hint? This should deserve a medal of honor.

Well, how could you have suggested that in the first place anyway?. Doesn't Dig only have like ONE puzzle?... the turtle....

For me, right on top of my head, OnEscapee had several puzzles, all somewhat annoying imo.

[Nostalgeek]

Well, different persons means different experiences, but I think taking in account the amount of adventure games I've completed, I'm decent at them, and The Dig was much of a challenge from what I recall. And actually, makes me want to play it again

Never heard about OnEscape, gonna check the glorious HoL

Hehe TCD, DOTT was (and still is) absolutely superb. Seeing my dad laughing that much playing a game is an unforgettable memory. Thanks for the info, gonna check the Amiga version!

Edit: wow, OnEscapee actually looks good with a bit of an another world feeling GFX-wise from what I see on screenshots, I may give it a try just for cultural sake!

[Nostalgeek]

For me DOTT is the best LA adventure (and one of the best adventures of all times too ). Search for 'Day of the Tentacle' in the thread titles here on the board Nostalgeek if you want the Amiga version

Hehe ok so basically it's not a real Amiga release, only works through ScummVM right?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Nostalgeek

Hehe ok so basically it's not a real Amiga release, only works through ScummVM right?

I think there is also a 'stand alone' version of it too. Will have a look later when I'm back home and upload it to the zone for you

[Shoonay]

Originally Posted by Nostalgeek

I remember reading a pretty old Roberta Williams' interview and she appeared to me like a christian extremist :P

Nice, got a linky?
Was that before or after her first soft adventure game?

[Nostalgeek]

Soft was Al Lowe's first game, not Roberta William's Al Lowe is the twisted guy that then did Leisure Suit Larry I gotta check if Soft was edited by Sierra by the way, I'm really not sure. But anyways, taking Larry into account, I guess my mind twisted reality a little bit. She was probably not talking about all Sierra games, would be a non-sense as Larry exists. Only her personal inclination toward games that delivered good values.

Poor woman, I guess she was pretty shocked with the evolution of computer games... (KingPin, Soldier of Fortune, GTA series anyone? )

[Shoonay]

Oh right, but wasn't she on the cover, almost naked?

[Nostalgeek]

HAHA omg I'm shocked!

- Actually, it was not by Al Lowe, but it did set the stone for Leisure Suit Larry.
- It was released by On-Line Systems, predecessor of Sierra, already owned by Ken and Roberta Williams
- Take a look on the game cover below:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/softpo...CoverId,57123/

Guess who's the chick on the right. ROBERTA WILLIAMS

What's wrong with the interview I told about then??? I really swear she was telling about the pure values and stuff. Was probably closely linked to King's Quest. Ah, what a kinky little b**** holding a secret lol

But sorry shoonay, no idea where it was nor how to find this again probably in one of my hundreds of computer magazines...


EDIT: hehe, nice one mate!!!