Cosmic Castaway

The voice acting in Space Quest 4 ranges from good to completely and utterly stilted, almost as if the actors were told to ham it up, but not on which lines to do so. That said, it suffers from a problem than many older adventure games have, and that is the incredibly unnatural pacing of the dialog. Thanks to the speed at which lines are played, there's an uncomfortable pause between just about every segment of a conversation. That, to me, is far more jarring than some of the awkward deliveries. Space Quest 6 is no exception, though it's been improved upon slightly. Note that I say that older titles suffer from this only because I couldn't tell you what the last "modern" adventure game I've played was, or whether they suffer from the same problem.

Let's face it: Space Quest as a series doesn't hold up to critical analysis. If you're going in and trying to pick apart which game is "darker" or which one is more original, you're missing the point of these games. Honestly, the longer I look back on my time playing Space Quest, the more parts stand out to me as being poorly written/designed/etc. Out of the entire series, Space Quest 5 is the one which makes the most sense plot-wise and gameplay wise. Roger doesn't seem like a complete moron, and the antagonist is someone a little more interesting than "Darth Vader spoof". For the sake of argument however, I'd say that Space Quest 6 is the "darkest" of the series, and Space Quest 5 is a close second. None of the others ever struck me as being too dark or serious.

It's a fangame. Not official canon. If you don't like it, ignore it, simple as that.

Yep, did it pretty frequently when I was a kid. See, I was a kid who had zero fine motor skills (a la that "warning" at the start of the Monolith Burger sequence in SQ4) which made it next to impossible for me to play Astro Chicken. It's entirely possible to beat the game without even looking at the Astro Chicken cabinet, and yes, it does make you quite aware that you're playing a game.

That's actually a very interesting interpretation of Roger. It actually makes him seem more human, and while he's hardly a deep character, it's certainly nice to think of him as just an average Joe stuck in an unforgiving universe and trying to do the right thing.

I agree with Olzen. If you consider yourself a Space Quest fan, you owe it to yourself to purchase the games.

Your usage of the word "fanaticism" is part of the whole problem. We did have fanaticism for Space Quest, back when the community was young and there were still corporate rumblings regarding Space Quest 7. But the fact of the matter is that we've grown up. We can't continue to be fanatics, living Space Quest-obsessed lives. The fact that there are SQ fan games in the works with the very real potential to be released makes me happy and glad to still be a member of this community. But at the same time, I temper my enthusiasm with a healthy dose of realism. When I have those games on my hard drive, and their pixels glowing before my eyes, then I can let the fanboy out. Until then, I've used up all the excitement I had for Space Quest. Without anything new rocking our SQ worlds, without new people coming in and sharing new SQ experiences with us, we simply do not have anything to be fanatical about.

Sledgy: I've been a member of this community for longer than I'd care to remember. I've done my fair share of stupid activities, as well did. We were young and stupid back then. I'd appreciate it if you didn't use my name in your jokes, capiche? Neither of us have a fan project in the works. It's time to get a new hobby, this isn't healthy for you.

Aye, I'd say that's the issue here. Colin and the SQ7 team can't release their work, because to do so would place them in legal hot water. Now, I don't know the specifics, but I seem to recall Colin saying that he currently works in the video game industry. Aside from risking getting his pants sued off if he released SQ7, he'd also be placing his job in jeopardy. What sort of developer would employ someone who's in legal trouble with the biggest publisher in the world? We'd all like to play Space Quest 7, but there are bigger fish to fry. No one wants the SQ7 team to face legal trouble, and as much as I'd like to play a new Space Quest, it's just not worth the amount of trouble a release would cause.

Not to mention that the manual was one of the best parts of Freddy! The sheer number of jokes in it made for great reading material, and half the time I went searching for the solutions, I wound up getting distracted by the three or four other humorous medications on the page!

I really have to replay the series, I can't remember any dead Sariens in SQ1 VGA.

I just realized I don't recognize that last one. Looks like Roger got pancaked by an anvil.

Nice. A shame the place is so dead or it'd be perfect for this board.

Aww, but the pharmacy puzzles of Freddy were beautiful!

This is really good news, if only because Al Lowe is involved. I've never played LSL, but I'm glad that Al's being included in this. It's his baby, and he has a right to be involved. Hell, if they does well maybe they'll remake Freddy! If they give it the Monkey Island treatment where you can switch back and forth between original and new art that'd be amazing!

Weird, I've never heard anything about it.

Interesting, I'd never heard of these being packaged with any of the SQ games. Do you remember which games had them?

Wow, I never knew about this! I'll have to give it a whirl. Thanks for posting about this!

Hey, nice job! Good to see people still keeping these games alive! 8)

Vohaul's Asteroid, SQ2.

Did I miss something? Because the Supercomputer building is hardly volcanic. But you are right, it's the large red dome in the Sequel Police dispatch.

No no, he carried his entire consciousness between bodies with the Force! Obviously! ;) Or...Or it was the Animus! Yes, they took that clone body and made him relive all his past memories! Precisely! And thus, another nail in the coffin of cloning: boring, unoriginal, unscientifc.

Nope, you're getting warmer with the mention of Vohaul.

Close. Where exactly on Xenon?

>;)