DOS

Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist

If you are a true Sierra fan you should not miss this game, and if you are not, you should not miss it either. It's simply a good, funny and entertaining game. (or as the Computer Gaming World called it: "The Blazing Saddles of computer games").

There is no question that Sierra On-Line has excelled to become the leading developer of computer adventure games in the 1980’s and 1990’s. A good deal of this success can be attributed to Al Lowe, most notably for his Leisure Suit Larry series. Casual fans of Lowe, however, may have missed another gem of his creation from Sierra On-Line along the way. That gem is Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist.

Det bästa av allt är atmosfären i spelet. Persongalleriet är fullständigt lysande och dialogen är till den grad packad med slapstick att man förmodligen kan lira spelet ett par gånger utan att upptäcka alla skämt.

To those familiar with Sierra's adventure game lineup in 1993, the release of Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist can be remembered as something of a pleasant surprise. Known for its enormously successful Quest franchises, the Sierra of 1993 was still counting profits from the success of King’s Quest VI one year earlier. Fortunately for adventure gamers of all ages, this windfall allowed Sierra to experiment with original projects and the first became the hilarious game known in full as Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist. As a graphic adventure it succeeds on a number of levels, due much in part to the wit of the game’s co-designers, Al Lowe and Josh Mandel (Lowe created the popular Leisure Suit Larry series and Mandel was a lead writer on many different Sierra titles).

It's not the big revolution. The puzzles are mostly ok (even the copy protection has been included into the gameplay very nicely), but a few typical, totally obscure breaks in logic which no human being can understand are present, too. The humor isn't quite as dull as Larry's (which is especially surprising, because the usual Sierra suspects are responsible for Freddy, too), but it also isn't more than smile-once-and-forget.

Freddy Pharkas hace honor a las aventuras clásicas Sierra, y es muy posible que no deje indiferentes entre quienes lo jueguen. O se odía o se adora, pero nadie dirá que es una aventura del montón.