Space Quest V: The Next Mutation

aka: Roger Beamish, SQ5, Space Quest 5: Die nächste Mutation, Space Quest 5: La Mutation Suivante, Space Quest 5: La Siguiente Mutación
Moby ID: 144

Description official descriptions

After travelling back and forth through time in the previous game, Roger Wilco is back in the Starfleet Academy, serving as both a cadet and a janitor. Cheating his way through the Starfleet Aptitude Test, Roger is finally given the rank of captain, his own ship (a garbage scow) and a mission: to explore strange new worlds (which no man in his right mind would explore), to seek out new life and new civilizations (which grew out of the massive amounts of trash Roger will collect on his way), to boldly go where no man has gone before. Step by step Roger will have to unveil a galaxy-wide biohazardous material dumping scheme, solve the mystery of the disappearance of a fellow Starfleet captain and his ship, and confront an agent of an old nemesis.

Space Quest V: The Next Mutation is an adventure game in the Space Quest series. Like its brethren, it is characterized by humorous writing and situations, as well as plenty of opportunities for the hero to die horribly. The game is entirely mouse-controlled: the player interacts with the world by clicking on locations, people and objects on the screen, cycling between various actions (walking, looking, touching or taking, talking, etc.), by clicking the right mouse button or using the icon bar. The latter also contains icons that allow the player to access Roger's inventory, quit the game or change the settings.

Commands for smelling and tasting have been removed, but a special icon for giving orders has been added. It can be used on any object or character in the game, but its actual purpose is to issue specific commands to the crew members: Roger's garbage scow, the Eureka, has a crew over which he presides. The game is plot-driven and contains cutscenes done in a comic book-like style. Plot development is linear, but each planet the protagonist visits usually consists of several screens and contains its own objectives and puzzles. There are also hazardous situations that may occur on the spaceship itself and must be dealt with.

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Credits (DOS version)

56 People (54 developers, 2 thanks) · View all

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 16 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 85 ratings with 6 reviews)

The weakest Space Quest tries to be an all-out Trek spoof.

The Good
Um. Not much. Some of the graphics were pretty. And the space monkey bit was funny.

The Bad
Besides the fact it generally sucked? The humor was all but gone in this one, or at least the sarcastic one-liners which, for me, was the heart of Space Quest. It's left as a rather lame parody of Trek, trying to illicit chuckles with characters like the villianous "Captain Quirk." Har Har. Seeing Rog do the "Picard Tug" once when getting out of his seat is funny. Seeing him do it EVERY TIME he stands up gets old. Gameplay was equally shallow and uninvolving, broken up by some inane pseudo-arcade sequences that are just there to pad out the game. (the worst being one where you have an extremely limited amount of time to pick up a crewman stranded in space)

The Bottom Line
It should tell you something when this was one of the few Sierra games of its time for which they didn't shell out the money to do a talkie CD. Definately the low point in the series, and best skipped by all but the most die-hard Wilcoids.

DOS · by WizardX (116) · 2000

too short and too few puzzles.. finished it in probably two hours

The Good
There were some funny parody bits, and I liked the back-story (referring back to #2)

The Bad
The puzzles were too easy, and obvious. You knew exactly what to do in practically every scene because you had maybe 3 objects in your possession that could actually do anything. And the hard puzzles weren't really puzzles, they were just stupid trial and error things. The tunnels is similar to the catacombs in King's Quest 5 and 6 which were stupid and serve no purpose except to make the game longer. And that panel with the cloaking device? What was that? I can't even consider that a puzzle.

The Bottom Line
It's basically like half a game, a demo of a real Space Quest game. I, II, III, and IV were all wittier, longer, and more fun to play. I'd rather play Astro Chicken or Mrs. Astro Chicken or even that game where you duke it out in 3 a million times more than the stupid Battleship game they had in this one. There is basically no replay value here, although most adventure games don't have any.

DOS · by bertrandom (3) · 2001

Had its moments, but the series starts its decline with this game.

The Good
The plot was mildly interesting in this game (despite being a Trek spoof), and there were a number of funny moments. Most of the puzzles made sense. But other than that...

The Bad
Unfortunatly, the graphics were horrid - they seemed to be drawn sloppily, and there were a number of problems with scaling (when Roger walks to the front or rear of the screen, his size changes a bit too drastically, and he becomes a pixelated mess in either case). Looking at the blurry, somewhat messy landscapes was disappointing, after the previous game in the series.

And while the plot itself had its funny moments, it quickly became dull, uninteresting, and somehow, not very Space Quest-like.

The Bottom Line
In my opinion, Sierra should have stopped with SQ4. But they knocked out this game, seemingly half-heartedly. I wouldn't recommend it, except for the die-hard Sierra/Space Quest fan. Even then, it's only fairly enjoyable.

Stick a fork in the series; it's done now.

DOS · by Dave Schenet (134) · 2001

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Trivia

Space Quest 5 is the second Sierra adventure game to feature product placement by the US-American telephone company Sprint. The first game was Leisure Suit Larry 5. Instead of text messages like in Larry 5, this time Sprint paid for graphic advertisement. The Sprint logo would end any communication transmissions, as well as appear on a billboard in the Space bar. See the screenshot section for examples.

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  • MobyGames ID: 144
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Andy Roark.

Additional contributors: Tomer Gabel, -Chris, Benoit Lambert, Jeanne, Jayson Firestorm, Pseudo_Intellectual, General Error, 6â…ž of Nine.

Game added May 29, 1999. Last modified January 20, 2024.