The one that stands out above the rest?

[Tawmis]

What is the one Sierra (or Sierra related - i.e., Dynamix, Coktel Visions, Impressions) game that stood out above all the rest for you - and why?

And I just want ONE game! Don't be a wussy and say, "Well, it's tied between these two, because..."

None of that!

Just. ONE.

And not one from each division of Sierra! Count all the divisions of Sierra as ONE! So ONE game!

[Collector]

For many it will be the first game that captured their attention. Even though I had played a number of console and pre-PC computer games and I was aware of the introduction of KQ1, I never paid that much attention to computer games. I was more interested in reading books. I hadn't really played adventures until a friend got a multimedia upgrade kit for his 386. It came with a soundcard, CD-ROM drive and a number of CDs. One of the games included was KQ6CD. That one blew my socks off. Many rightfully cite the game as their favorite, given its rich graphics, fun puzzles, engaging narrative, fairly nonlinear multiple paths and great music. But for me it was also the first to really capture my attention.

I remember being obsessed with the few puzzles that stumped me. Remember that this was the days of the infancy of the internet. Looking up a walkthrough was not really an option, so I would occasionally mull over the puzzle stumping me when away from the computer. Imagine having your cherry taken by a game like KQ6.

[BBP]

GK3 knocked me on the floor - it was the first adventure game I played that had that kind of rich story, but even before that I was floored by the beautiful music, the camera interface, the backgrounds, and by getting the giggly fits from Tim Curry. I'm not a very good adventure gamer but fortunately Le Serpent Rouge I could solve, that is a nice power fix.

[AndreaDraco]

GK2, because, before playing it, I didn't know games could be such a powerful storytelling medium.

[Rath Darkblade]

QfG1 (or, to give it its proper title, HQ1).

Before this game, I'd played a few other games on my PC - Sokoban, a CGA "shoot a moving target" game - but they never captured my attention very much. I first saw a friend playing the dagger-throwing game against the chief thief, and assumed that - because of the better graphics, as well as the dialogue with the chief thief - that it was simply a more advanced version of "shoot the moving target" game.

Boy was I wrong...

I believe this was some time in 1992 or thereabouts. So, obviously, a freely-available internet (and the many walk-thrus therein) were only a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee's eye!

[DeadPoolX]

The ONE game (sounds like the older movie trailers: "one man...") that stands out for me wasn't the first Sierra or Sierra Family title I ever played, but it had the biggest impact on me.

That game was Red Baron. For clarity, that's the original Red Baron which was released in 1990, not Red Baron 2 or Red Baron 3D.

Why?

Well, first of all, I love flight simulators. Second, over 75% of the game's manual was dedicated to WWI aviation history.

My ten year-old self literally spent hours reading up about the WWI aces, their exploits, their victories, their deaths, and the changes that occurred between 1914 and 1918.

Beyond airplanes, the war started out with horseback cavalry still being used and ended with tanks and mechanized warfare.

WWI was also a turning point for western society, where many empires fell and more democratic governments sprang up in their place. Even in places where a monarchy still existed -- like the UK -- the overall power of that monarch had dropped considerably.

WWI gets passed over in favor of WWII, but without WWI, there wouldn't have been a WWII and not just because numbering it that way wouldn't have made sense. The actions taken during the war and after (specifically the punishments placed on Germany) led to an environment where the Nazis were able to take control.

So now that I've basically lectured about my interest in "The Great War," what does this really have to do with Dynamix's Red Baron? The game introduced this to me, and got me interested in military history, and history in general.

While the other Sierra or Sierra Family games were fun, they didn't alter my worldview or get me interested in anything beyond the immediate subject matter of that game when I was playing it.

Red Baron managed to do more, and even today I'm still highly interested in WWI, military history, and aviation.

To drive it home, the Red Baron manual (a thick tome that would boggle the minds of many modern gamers) was the only game document I specifically brought up with me to Canada. No other game or game series documentation -- not even the Wing Commander titles or Starsiege -- was brought up with me.

[Datadog]

King's Quest 6. It's the game my brain associates with the adventure genre. The VGA art, the music, the locations and the poetic dialogue really nail it as its own unique fantasy adventure. Then there's the puzzle design where all the scenarios are varied and the moon logic makes a lot of sense in retrospect. I think it has a very modern design for a game that carries all the game-breaking tropes of the early 90's.

[Rath Darkblade]

...Beyond airplanes, the war started out with horseback cavalry still being used and ended with tanks and mechanized warfare.

WWI was also a turning point for western society, where many empires fell and more democratic governments sprang up in their place. Even in places where a monarchy still existed -- like the UK -- the overall power of that monarch had dropped considerably.

WWI gets passed over in favor of WWII, but without WWI, there wouldn't have been a WWII and not just because numbering it that way wouldn't have made sense. The actions taken during the war and after (specifically the punishments placed on Germany) led to an environment where the Nazis were able to take control...

Absolutely! Spot on. World War I was unique in many ways, the military one being foremost. Militarily, it introduced aerial warfare, poison gas, barbed wire on a massive scale, defensive machine-gun based warfare, the Dreadnought-class battleships and battle-cruisers, and (as you pointed out) mechanized warfare and tanks. Furthermore, it also introduced the submarine as an effective weapon; although submarines were known for at least 60 years (since the ACW), they were first used effectively in WWI.

Culturally, WWI saw the rise of pacifism (particularly in Britain). The shocking and realistic poems written by front-line soldiers, most famously Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg and Siegfried Sassoon, proved a wake-up call for a sleeping Britain, still under the thrall of fiercely patriotic poetry (as exemplified by Rupert Brooke).

It was a strange war, terrible and whimsical, tragic and comic. If nothing else, what other war can claim that both sides broke the hostilities to play games of soccer, exchange Christmas presents and food and tobacco, and sing carols?