Summary
Excellent remake regardless of speed issues
The Good
Just in case you haven't been up-to-date with games from the early nineties, Sierra decided that it would be best to update their old games to SCI as part of their 10th anniversary - games that use Sierra's old AGI-style interface like
Police Quest,
Leisure Suit Larry,
King's Quest, and
Hero's Quest. This meant getting rid of the text parser interface and replacing it with the new point-and-click interface and adding mouse support. Another game that got the uplift was
Space Quest, the first in a series of games starring Roger Wilco, everyone's favorite guy.
If you haven't played the original AGI version of the game, you're not missing much when it comes to the storyline. Roger is a janitor working on the spaceship Arcada when a race, known as the Sariens, decided to dock their ship, get on board, and steal the Star Generator, the machine that provided the only chance of restoring the galaxy to its normal state. The Sariens would use it to blow up the galaxy. Furthermore, they have killed everyone on board, and by taking the Star Generator, they initiated the self-destruct sequence. Roger has ten minutes to escape the Arcada or he and the ship will go KABOOM!
Both the AGI and SCI versions of
Space Quest have the same obstacles. When you crash land on Kerona then explore the planet, for example, chances are that a spider droid will make his way down to the surface to chase you, and the only way to kill it is to lure it to a beast on the same planet; and you still have to figure out how to get past the monster in the grate when you take the elevator underground.
Before you reach Ulence Flats, you still have the arcade sequence where you have to dodge rocks to get there, but unlike the AGI version, you have the opportunity to play the sequence or skip it. There are other little differences between these two versions. For instance, if you press the wrong button when you're in a pod in the SCI version, you will travel to a scene in
Robin Hood: Conquests of the Longbow, instead of
King's Quest, where you'll go in the AGI version.
There's also a lot of humor than the original has. For instance, if you walk through the laser barrier, Roger will fall on the ground in pieces and you'll see the "Two Guys from Andromeda" presenting you with an instant replay. The same can be said if you dip your hand into the pool of acid. The instant replay shows you how stupid these two actions accomplished. Also, if you stick your face in a hole on Kerona once you killed the spider droid, something in there will eat Roger's flesh. Finally, if you happen to purchase the wrong droid in Ulence Flats, the droid will explode in your face.
The graphics are the best in the game, with over 100 hand-painted scenes, so detailed that when I first looked at the game's graphics back when I owned a 486, they almost took my breath away. The sound effects are great too with Sierra including SoundBlaster support, and the music is spectacular. My favorite tunes are the Space Quest theme song, the music you'll hear when you're in the bar in Ulence Flats, and when you are purchasing a droid from Droids-B-Us. In fact, everything in this game is great. Sierra did a good job giving
Space Quest such an uplift.
The Bad
It would be more great if you don't have to worry about speed issues. All throughout the game, my brand-spanking new P4 had problems with some sequences running way too fast. When you're explore the deserts of Kerona, you die of thirst immediately before you had the chance to take a swig of dehydrated water. Whereas the arcade sequence where you have to dodge the rocks on the surface, took about 1 minute to complete on my 486, it took only 10 seconds to complete on my P4. The solution was to use the Turbo slowdown utility found here. Due to thr speed issues, I am forced to deduct half a star.
When I used Sound Blaster with the game if I run it under Windows, I get nothing but static and the game ends up suffering from instability.
The Bottom Line
Truely, a great game. If you haven't played the AGI version yet, then get this game anyway, even if you feel that you're going to encounter those speed issues that I've been talking about. ****½
