Sierra re-releases it's classics

sparrowtm · Post by **sparrowtm** » 2006-02-27 05:36am

Classic adventure games from Sierra are set for rerelease for Windows XP; compilation packs will cost around $20.

Once upon a time, Sierra Entertainment, now a subsidiary of VU Games, was the leader in PC adventure games. Its most famous franchise was the King's Quest series, which originated in 1984, but the game's formula spread to space in Space Quest, the streets in Police Quest, and the hormonally charged libido of Leisure Suit Larry.

However, in order to give those games a whirl, today's gamers need a computer running on ancient operating systems.

That's about to change, thanks to some new rereleases from VU Games. A VUG representative confirmed to GameSpot that the publisher is preparing compilation packs of the above four series that will run on Windows XP.

Each set will contain multiple games in the series, but it is unknown exactly which ones will be included. The price of retro gaming won't be a king's ransom--the sets are priced at $20. No release dates have been announced, but product pages on online retailers' Web sites say the games will be available in late March. More information in expected in the upcoming weeks.

This is a (small) dream coming true. Oh the goody old times!

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-02-27 05:38am

Fuck yes. I have been far, far, far too long without the inimicable Larry. And Police Quest was pretty fun, too.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-02-27 06:12am

I'd prefer if someone released fucking Crusader: No Remorse and Crusader: No Regret for Windows XP.

Fucking Origin.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2006-02-27 06:22am

Hallelujah, now all I need is for Lucasarts to do the same.

Pity they won't make a little graphic upgrades, still I guess that that might risk die hard fans crying blasphemy in the case of a 512 pixel main character (Rather than the original 16

)

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-02-27 08:36am

There are third-party groups that update the graphics in older Sierra games.

sparrowtm · Post by **sparrowtm** » 2006-02-27 09:01am

DEATH wrote:Hallelujah, now all I need is for Lucasarts to do the same.

Most unlikely. The buggers even cancelled Sam and Max 2.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2006-02-27 09:29am

sparrowtm wrote:
DEATH wrote:Hallelujah, now all I need is for Lucasarts to do the same.
Most unlikely. The buggers even cancelled Sam and Max 2.

Which is still on schedule with another company

Link wrote:Sam & Max 2 Announced! Again!
September 15, 2005 Posted by Jake

Ha ha, yes! The emotional roller coaster that is Sam & Max sequel news is headed up yet another hill, care of an announcement made tonight by Telltale Games that they have secured the rights to develop a game based on the freelance police.

This is the third attempt to make a followup to 1993's Sam & Max Hit the Road, the first one being an Xbox-bound action/adventure title from now-defunct game studio Infinite Machine, and the second of course being LucasArts' ill-fated attempt at a sequel, Sam & Max Freelance Police. Both of those died before having a chance to live, but here's hoping third time's the charm! Telltale certainly has experience with the characters, as the studio was largely formed from members of the Sam & Max Freelance Police team, who left LucasArts shortly after their game was canned.

The sequel announcement was made at a press event held earlier this evening in San Francisco. The event was aimed mostly at potential investors, discussing Telltale's unique business model and position in the industry, so the Telltale guys and Steve Purcell (who was in attendance) had little to say specifically about the new Sam & Max game other than the fact that it will exist, but that didn't do much to dampen the excitement.

What I do know is that the game is not a continuation of the cancelled "Sam & Max: Freelance Police" sequel that the Telltale team was working on while at LucasArts - this Telltale Sam & Max game is all new, started from scratch. Whether or not we'll see a few familiar locations and characters from what little was released from Freelance Police, though, is yet to be seen. Telltale's Sam & Max game will be released in episodic form, downloadable from their site and other games portals (similar to the approach they're taking with Bone).

To answer a couple other questions up front: Whether or not Mike Stemmle is involved (and what level he is involved if he is involved at all) is not known as far as I can tell, and I forgot to ask whether or not the same voice actors from Sam & Max Hit the Road will be involved.

Official word from Telltale, hopefully including some juicy details, will be appearing in a week or two. Their first installment of their other adventure game, a promising title based on Jeff Smith's popular comic series Bone, is hitting the net in the next couple of days and Telltale wants to focus on that before letting loose the 6 foot canine and 3 foot rabbity thing.

They (Lucasarts) have frequently released the Monkey island games in a pack but without support, still if sales for these go well there is a tiny chance that they'll do it.
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Post by **RogueIce** » 2006-02-27 12:51pm

Hope Quest for Glory also comes out. I have the original anthology for I - IV but I never did get to play V.

I wonder if they'd fix any bugs the old games had?

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-02-27 01:00pm

Er... slightly off-topic question, but it just now occured to me. Now, I know this is really vague, but it's all I can remember:

There was this adventure/action game, much like the Sierra and LucasArts classics. It was high fantasy, and you picked either Fighter, Thief, or Mage. It was the usual pixel-hunting, totally rad SVGA DOS app (though it may have been Win95 compatible), but it also had some combat in it, where you had to move around and attack or block, sort of like a primitive fighting game. Beyond that, I don't remember much. You started locked in a cave, and you had to light a torch to get out, using either flint and steel, or if you were the mage you could cast some fire on it. The graphical style was "realistic" for lack of a better word, like The Dig or Police Quest.

My question is, does anyone know what that game was? My nostalgia levels for that thing are through the roof.

Post by **RogueIce** » 2006-02-27 01:19pm

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Er... slightly off-topic question, but it just now occured to me. Now, I know this is really vague, but it's all I can remember:

There was this adventure/action game, much like the Sierra and LucasArts classics. It was high fantasy, and you picked either Fighter, Thief, or Mage. It was the usual pixel-hunting, totally rad SVGA DOS app (though it may have been Win95 compatible), but it also had some combat in it, where you had to move around and attack or block, sort of like a primitive fighting game. Beyond that, I don't remember much. You started locked in a cave, and you had to light a torch to get out, using either flint and steel, or if you were the mage you could cast some fire on it. The graphical style was "realistic" for lack of a better word, like The Dig or Police Quest.

My question is, does anyone know what that game was? My nostalgia levels for that thing are through the roof.

And I just talked about it in the post above yours.

You're thinking of Quest For Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness from Sierra.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-02-27 01:21pm

Those are pretty sweet packages. Let's hope it starts a trend or something.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-02-27 01:31pm

RogueIce wrote:And I just talked about it in the post above yours.

You're thinking of Quest For Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness from Sierra.

That's probably what tipped my retarded memory. My thanks sir.

Faqa · Post by **Faqa** » 2006-02-27 01:53pm

Lucifer politely sends his query as to where the fuck all this snow suddenly came from....

Sweet!

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2006-02-27 03:00pm

I wish more game companies would do this. I'd easily pay to enjoy the original "Civilization" or "Master of Magic," again.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2006-02-27 03:30pm

Master of Ossus wrote:I wish more game companies would do this. I'd easily pay to enjoy the original "Civilization" or "Master of Magic," again.

By a small miracle, I got a copy of MoM onto my computer, but it won't run. Which is sad; it was an amazingly addictive game.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2006-02-27 03:38pm

dosbox: x86 emulator for the x86 architechiture.

If your program won't run, try using that.

Post by **Edi** » 2006-02-27 03:47pm

A couple of years ago I bought my mom a compilation pack of the games made by Roberta Williams, who authored most of the King's Quest series and some others, but it requires pretty ancient hardware to run. Would probably run on my machine on the Win98 HD with enough tweaking, but on my parents' new comp, no chance.

I was just a kid when the first three King's Qyuests came out, and we played those and the three first Space Quests and Police Quest 1 through several times. I was all of 10 or 11 when we got them first, mom brought them from a trip to England. I learned quite a bit of English from them as well. Some of the puzzles were pretty damned hard in the KQs. The SQs were much easier.

Edi

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-02-27 07:53pm

IIRC Tierra or some other variation of that name (hehe get it?) made fantastic remakes of the first few King's Quest games- they even got the voice actor who did Graham in King's Quest V for it, so it was even more authentic.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-02-27 08:03pm

SirNitram wrote:By a small miracle, I got a copy of MoM onto my computer, but it won't run. Which is sad; it was an amazingly addictive game.

I've still got MoM too, lying around in the 'legacy' section of my fileserver. It works (sound and all) with Dosbox. If only more games of that era (like MoO1, which I prefer to MoO2) were remade with less clunky interfaces they'd be super-neat.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2006-02-27 08:43pm

Beowulf wrote:dosbox: x86 emulator for the x86 architechiture.

If your program won't run, try using that.

Amusingly, it will now.. Run the install shell. When I try to run the game, it tells me to run the install again. Ah, I love my computer...

Meest · Post by **Meest** » 2006-02-27 08:44pm

Those old games are still playable on XP systems you just need 3rd party programs to slow down your computer(also avoids game timer issues) and support old sound cards, I have all the old sierra classics and they work fine. Even the CD games like Space Quest 6 etc still work with abit of tweaking.

Try VDMsound and Scummsoft for Lucasarts games. As far as I know they aren't illegal they work with original copies.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2006-02-27 09:00pm

I wonder if this will include their horror/puzzel classics....
(fantasmagoria, fatasmagoria II, Puzzel in the Flesh)

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-02-27 09:12pm

I'm still waiting on the first Master of Orion to be rereleased.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2006-02-27 10:07pm

Vympel wrote:I'd prefer if someone released fucking Crusader: No Remorse and Crusader: No Regret for Windows XP.

Fucking Origin.

you can use defender and dosbox to run the Crusader games. I managed to have it run on XP.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2006-02-27 11:50pm

...Can we get some Lucasarts rereleases please?