Rating SPACE QUEST

[Tawmis]

So - if you had to rate the games from best to worse - what order would you put them in?

Maybe say what you liked or disliked, to explain the order, to generate some conversation?

[JasefWisener]

6 is by and large my favorite, and I know I'm in the minority on that. I don't know what exactly made the game click as much as it did for me, but it's the game that helped shape a lot of my humor growing up.

5 is my second favorite, and a lot of it has to do with how straight of a parody of Star Trek and Star Wars it is.

The rest in order for me would be 4, 1, 3, 2. The only one that I don't particularly care for is 2.

[MusicallyInspired]

1) Space Quest IV - I love the Back To the Future approach to time travel and SQ4 does that quite well. Time travel in general gets me going, but revisiting SQ1 and SQ3 (optionally) just made it that much better. Loved the dark story (with an ironically hilarious premise...the whole trouble started from a rogue LSL game lol) and the return of Vohaul, the Time Ripper who saves you (who ends up being important), the music (God bless Ken Allen!) is the best in the entire series, as well as the art style. Everything is just nailed perfectly. Love the progression, love the difficulty, love it all. My favourite Space Quest. I grew up with the EGA version so I had a starburst time rip background rather than the rainbow colour-cycling effect in the VGA version and I remember seeing screenshots and wishing I had that version. We first played it on a Tandy 1000 that we had and when my dad upgraded to a 486 and bought a Voyetra sound card/CD-ROM kit we tried SQ4 first and spent most of the time splitting our sides at the introduction sequence on Magmetheus with all the crazy alien sounds in Adlib. Fond memories. Good times.

2) Space Quest I - I love both versions of this game but Mark's art from the AGI original is unparalleled. Love his approach to sci-fi design and clever colour use. Escaping from the Arcada was immensely tense (which is why I played SQ2 more as a kid, see below), but exploring Kerona and finding the underground passage just drew me right in. I also loved how the game approached controlling computers and buttons. You had to examine all the controls and punch things in in a precise order. I loved all of that procedural stuff. It was like I was discovering it and figuring out how spaceships worked all on my own! I miss the robot in other SQ games. The VGA version has a phenomenal soundtrack, but the art style went way off-base for me. 40's/50's/60's/whatever round and bubbly sci-fi art just doesn't work for Space Quest. I wished they would have instead gone with SQ4's style and emulated the original AGI art with it. I do like how many scenes are from different angles, though.

3) Space Quest II - This is the one I have the most memories from as a kid. I remember waking up my parents early saturday mornings consistently asking them how to spell "suit". A lot of memories of exploring Labion. Just loved exploring. And it being sci-fi on an alien jungle planet, that combination really appealed to me for some reason. Vohaul's Asteroid is a little boring, but I never got that far as a kid anyway. Those double-wide tall pixels of SQ2AGI are burned into my memory like a CRT monitor left on too long and will never fade.

4) Space Quest III - SQ2 is rated above this one because SQ3 seemed shorter by comparison. Plus the locations weren't THAT interesting to explore (besides the opening garbage freighter, which was AWESOME to explore and eventually escape from). I love Scott's approach of designing as you go or "by the seat of your pants" as he put it. Designing one area just because it's cool and then thinking up the next phase of the game as you go. It's linear, but I like that. SQ3 is less linear, but that's not a detriment. Has a fun soundtrack and great art style again. Getting the Mallard out of the trash and getting it up and running as your own personal spacecraft was a blast.

5) Space Quest V - This game is sorely missing some Scott Murphy, but that's ok. It's hilarious. There are many moments when I laughed out loud impulsively. I love and prefer the dryer and more sarcastic the humour of SQ1-4, but this was a nice variation. I dislike StarCon. Not because it's based on Star Trek. I love Star Trek. I grew up on Star Trek. But I loved Roger's original uniform and insignia and changing all that (while probably necessary to keep things fresh?) felt off to me. The whole game is arranged nicely. You get to captain a whole ship and explore it and figure out how it works ahead of time (before you actually need to use some of those features by the end of the game). The idea of Roger bumbling around his new ship without a clue as to what to do and causing problems (like self destruct) is perfect to me. It's almost as fun as getting the Mallard up and running by yourself and exploring the galaxy with it. The story is well written (perhaps one of the better written games, just from a writing perspective. Not that the story itself is better, but the story is TOLD better). Quirk was a humourous and entertaining villain, and I liked the relationship bumps and problems between Roger and Beatrice before she finally warms up to him (literally! lol). Not my favourite simply because it's without Scott, but just because it's low on the list doesn't mean it's a bad game. Music is passable. There's a couple nice tracks I like to listen to, but it's mostly forgettable and lacks that Space Quest "oomph" feeling. I wish Ken Allen's original SQ5 soundtrack could have made it in the game. I hope we get to hear some of that someday.

6) Space Quest 6 - Last but not least. This is one of the funniest if not THE funniest SQ in the whole series. I love Josh Mandel's humour. The story itself, however, and many of the locations just aren't that interesting. The art style is LOADS better than KQ7 and was a nice logical progression into the world of hi-res SVGA graphics for Space Quest. Music was pretty atrocious and forgettable overall. And the whole game culminating with going inside Stellar's body to fight the villain as an infection was.....just stupid. I love Josh Mandel and his humour and design overall, but his plot for SQ6 was bad. Sorry, Josh. It doesn't help that he left mid-development and it couldn't be made to its fullest potential. At least Scott had some kind of hand in it. Gary Owens is at his best here. I love the arguments with Roger and his constant berating of his behaviour and insults to his intelligence. "While we await a fully formed thought from Roger..." that line was hilarious. Sharpei was boring and forgettable as a villain. I also didn't like Stellar at all. I was just like "What's this fangirl doing here? Where's Beatrice?? Love triangle? No thanks!" as a kid. I still don't like her but I'm just glad it didn't progress to anything beyond what it was. The voice acting was great in this game. I liked the actor for Roger, it's just that he sounded way too intelligent for his character. I enjoyed his performance immensely and it was pleasing to listen to, I just didn't buy or get that Roger was an imbecile. An interesting clash there. But regardless of all the things I liked, it is my least favourite. And it still has StarCon and not only that but retconned his original janitor position as being his "original post with StarCon fleet" so....blah. A kind of whimpering end to the series instead of ending on a high note, and I would have liked to have seen what Scott could have done with SQ7 before it was cancelled. But, oh well.

[Tawmis]

Space Quest III - This had everything I wanted in Space Quest. It is perfection.

Space Quest IV - Barely beneath Space Quest III - this game was incredibly fun - and I loved the going back in time into older Space Quest games.

Space Quest V - This was fun because of the Star Trek parody.

Space Quest I - Back to the original. This was a fun game because you take a janitor and make him a hero!

Space Quest II - Much like the first, but with more stuff. It didn't move the story too much further.

Space Quest VI - I can barely remember too much about this except the wonderful narrator - but the rest of the game falls flat.

[Rath Darkblade]

I can't comment on these because I never finished SQ5 or SQ6. I'm very close to finishing 5, but can't get past that ball-thing that shoots you dead. And as for 6, I can't get past the she-droid... that shoots you dead.

Oh well...

[Tawmis]

I can't comment on these because I never finished SQ5 or SQ6. I'm very close to finishing 5, but can't get past that ball-thing that shoots you dead. And as for 6, I can't get past the she-droid... that shoots you dead.

Oh well...

You should... Oh, I dunno... post on the SQ forums (here) and maybe ask for hints?

[Rath Darkblade]

Well, I did. I got some hints, but - alas - my little Roger keeps dying.

Perhaps my computer is too fast for Space Quest?

[Tawmis]

Well, I did. I got some hints, but - alas - my little Roger keeps dying.

Perhaps my computer is too fast for Space Quest?

If you're using DOSBox you can slow down the cycles.

[Collector]

Well, I did. I got some hints, but - alas - my little Roger keeps dying.

Perhaps my computer is too fast for Space Quest?

If you're using DOSBox you can slow down the cycles.

Or just use the new installer.