Fronzel Neekburm

I prefer 1. A nice, nasty slice of apocalyptic 1980s no future dystopia. Also a role model for how to make a great action film on a tiny budget. #2 is pretty good too. That is one of the few films I can think of that uses CGI in a meaningful way (by using it for special effects that would be quite impossible to pull off with regular visual effects).

Well, at least you got a fun thread about something sucking alright. Best thing is how quickly a thread with "Stop the Hate" in the title escalated into a pointless shitstorm of butthurt this quickly. Hey SQ peeps, take the thread title to heart and stop the hatin‘, yo!

Welp, you‘re putting too much work into a rebuttal where none is really needed. As I said before, I consider it a non-issue. Prefer whatever you want for whatever reason. Holy shit, the weekend is saved! Before I bring out the popcorn, could somebody please clue me in: Is this another attempt at humor masquerading as stupidity or just plain stupidity? I‘m a fairly safe target to go after, considering I‘m the forum‘s resident contrarian. But I fail to see how antagonising Frede is supposed to accomplish anything.

Probably because I didn't. It's really, really hard for me to get offended, especially over a non-issue like which version of SQ1 is superior. Maybe I worded my reply a bit too strongly, maybe the following will help to clear things up: I didn't say it wasn't valid, I said that there must be more valid points to criticise a game. You know, stuff like "I don't like the visual style, the graphics are shit, the gameplay is clunky, the controls are horrible, the story is stupid, the jokes are lame, parsers suck, point&click has dumbed the game down" and so on and so forth. If Howard Hawks were still around and said "Carpenter's The Thing is an insult to everything that made the original great.", would people then go on and say "Hey, I love the Carpenter version, but this guy made the original, so I'll just take his word for it and, errm, like his version better, because he obviously knows best." That's sort of the vibe I get here. It just feels kind of silly to me. I liked the previous version of that sentence way better. That was some sound advice in any given situation right there! :D

Oh, you guys... There's got to be more valid criticism than "Scott Murphy doesn't like this!" is all I'm saying.

Say what you will about Phoenix, but at the very least they get shit done. While Jane Jensen is about to push her second release since her Kickstarter out the door, Tim Schafer is trying to come up with a way to magically let the funds for the second half of his game fall from the sky. Maybe their technical skillz aren't quite up to scratch, but at least they appear to have work ethos and seem to know what they're doing (instead of going for the "Let's make this shit up as we go along!" approach). Which comes in handy when working on a shoestring budget.

So, we can't judge the remake on its own merits but by how butthurt TGA were about it. Figures. I liked the design of the used spaceship salesman in the original better. Same goes for the design of the Deltaur. I preferred the humanoid looking Blues Brothers (and their chiptune rendition of I Can't Turn You Loose) to their blue-skinned counterparts in the remake. Also, the remake pulled that dumbass move of making the game speed dependant on CPU speed (all the VGA SQs are guilty of that though - Skate-O-Rama anyone? Cliffy rescue sequence?). Other than that, VGA version all the way.

Recently I've been on a mixed diet of games consisting of the following: Luftrausers, Moto Racer, Aliens VS Predator, Papo & Yo, Mark Of The Ninja, Race The Sun. I'm having great fun with each of those, which kind of prevented me from making a lot of progress in any of them. Luftrausers and Race The Sun are great arcadey fun. Moto Racer is an enjoyable retro racer. The beautifully designed Papo & Yo is definite proof that you CAN successfully marry important social issues to original gameplay without it resulting in a game that is either preachy, dumbed-down or both of these things. As a massive fan of the Thief-series, I was looking forward to Mark Of The Ninja, which uses Thief-like stealth in a 2D platformer. It looks great, but I'm having difficulty with the controls, which would probably work a lot better if I had a gamepad. I also went full tabletard and got Bridge Constructor from Humble. The HUGE "Share on facebook"-button kind of betrays what kind of audience this game is going for, but I'm afraid I must admit that I'm having fun.

Awesome! First the Colonel's Bequest map, now this. Great stuff! :)

Probably. Thing is, the remake will sell for €30. The screenshots they released weren't exactly jaw-dropping stuff, so I'm not sure how much of a market there will be for the remake, even if they had coupled it with the original. And I don't think the main problem is that people are unwilling to pay for old games, the problem is, as you said, that Gold Rush is relatively obscure. I mean, these days, Sierra games themselves are considered niche. And Gold Rush is a niche game within a niche. I can only repeat myself, they should try once more to get their game on GOG. It's the only place I'm aware of where you will find people who would even consider dropping money on an obscure backlog title that should be abandonware by now a forgotten classic.

So, first the price is slashed in half within a few weeks of release and now, about two months later, we have the obligatory Humble bargain bin release - and the damn thing is still Steam-exclusive! Collector, you seem to be in touch with these people, please try to talk some sense into them! It's like they're trying to go out of their way to not sell this game, to make their rerelease as unappealing as humanly possible. Pretty much the only group of gamers that would still get pissy about Steam would be teh oldskool gamerz who can still remember a time when you didn't need to get past Valve's virtual bouncer in order to play your legally-obtained games. A DRM-free installer should be a given for a game this old. And if they get it on GOG, hell, I might even be inclined to pay the full $5.99!

Oh wait, there's more! http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-07-23-double-fines-next-big-adventure-publishing

I'll just leave this here.

Doritos fired! Even more important would be that the Two Guys actually come up with something worth covering. Them getting their names out in a bigshot mainstream gaming rag like IGN all of the sudden could imply one of two things: they‘re either on the verge of finally releasing something worthwhile and try to drum up some hype, or they‘re hoping for Mr Moneybags (that being a potential publisher) to chuck some spare change their way. In other words: They wouldn't give this project the added exposure (and therefore put considerable extra pressure on themselves) if they didn't expect some sort of payoff. Colour me curious, not really in the interview itself (which consists of the usual mix of old news, "We've learned from past mistakes"-platitudes and anecdotal regurgitation), but in the fact that they're suddenly shining the spotlights on themselves.

Whoah, is it marketing blitzkrieg season, or what? Also, thumbs up for the gaming journ-lol-ist not even being capable of making it past the first question without inadvertently pointing out his glaring lack of knowledge on the subject he‘s reporting on. So competence! Such research! Wow! I rate 3/5 Mtn Dews! (*) Read: "I've never heard of a Space Quest game coming out on the 360"

Fixed. I do feel sorry for the devs behind Fester Mudd (which wasn't developed by Replay, they merely published it). People who played it seemed to genuinely like it, hopefully the devs will be able to move on to some greener pastures to continue working on new episodes. I dunno, as far as Larry goes, I always preferred #6 to #7. Love For Sail tried too damn hard at UI innovashun (they probably needed some selling points for the back cover), the worst offender being the re-introduction of the (mostly unresponsive, especially if you were playing a localised version) parser, which didn't serve any real purpose other than making the easter eggs harder to find. And don't even get me started on that strip dice minigame!

Replay doesn't own jackshit. They got a license from Codemasters to remake the first Larry game, nothing more. Codemasters owns LSL.

Quoted from: every Scott Murphy interview ever. Just to be fair: Not everything Josh Mandel has touched also turned to gold. Apparently he co-wrote a fairly awful Cowadoody-clone for Nfusion way back when. Still need to get my hands on that one, the combination of comedy writer and WWII-FPS (by the creators of "Larry Reloaded", no less) simply sounds too outlandish to pass up. The Old Man Murray article that tore Roberta Williams to shreds for that statement is a lot more fun to read than her games are fun to play.

Nobody really argued that they weren't technically innovative. Even Jimmy, whose post I was referring to, pointed that out: "The main "innovations" just came from the improvement in computers", which doesn't really contradict anything you said. Truth be told, I think the case could be made that by the mid-90s, they were starting to fall behind on the technical front. Compare, say, 1995's Phantasmagoria to something like 1994's Under a Killing Moon (which effortlessly combines FMV with an actual 3D environment), and it really feels like stone age stuff. But that's another discussion for another day. The main issue here is gameplay.

:o Oh no you di'int! I'm not entirely sure if it was the Roberta Williams Collection or the King's Quest Collection, but one of those (or both? :unsure: ) painstakingly chronicled every single technical or narrative innovation in the manual. I suggest you learn to recite those by heart before thou ever darest to to speak Sierra's name in vain again! Just kidding! I'm inclined to agree with you. Considering Sierra's output during that era consisted of churning out sequel after sequel to their handful of cash cow franchises (and before anybody takes offense at that word: the KQ series very nearly went into double-digits, mind you!) to a large degree, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that Sierra management liked to play it safe. That being said, personally, I don't mind them trying out new things. Optional multiplayer for example sounds interesting and it could really be a cool thing in a family oriented game. I was mostly surprised at the eagerness of the Activision rep to pretty much instantly cockblock whatever momentum The Odd Gentlemen had going as soon as the news were revealed.

Haha, wow! So the backlash about this was so massive that they had to redact the article while I was asleep. :lol: Can't really say I envy the Odd Gentlemen. They just got their first taste of having a rabid fanbase breathing down their necks.

This just in: Sierra's New King's Quest™ Won't Be A Point-And-Click Adventure Maybe they just meant that they'll go with a parser interface instead. :D edit: First comment on that article is comedy gold:

Serena posted somewhere on facebook that people like the Andromedans or Josh Mandel are completely out of the loop as far as the new Sierra is concerned. That and the fact that Activision apparently didn't approach indie devs like Blackthorne - you know, people who are held in high esteem among the community and who actually have a history of working on Sierra(-related) titles - doesn't bode too well.

So, they'll rerelease the old stuff? That's good news! I guess regular indie devs just don't cut it in this day and age. GOG or GTFO! Jane Jensen was apparently able to convince Activision to release GK20 there, and I sincerely hope that this will become their standard M.O. when it comes to releasing new titles under the Sierra brand. edit: Missed out on the press release Mop Jockey posted. Sounds intriguing, but all this industry buzztalk of "edgy", "contemporary reimaginings" is kind of odd. Still, way better news than I anticipated. My initial hope still stands that the Coles and TGA will get in touch with the people at NuSierra/Activision posthaste to work something out.