The Sierra Background Art Tournament: Final Round!

[Datadog]

The final round begins! This time around, the VGA titans battle for VGA supremacy and then, just for kicks, we're going to hold a battle royale for the overall top spot!

Title Match: Best in VGA

• King's Quest 5 vs. Gabriel Knight 1

Ultimate Battle Royale Match: Best in Show!

• Gold Rush! vs
  The Colonel's Bequest vs.
  Leisure Suit Larry 7 vs.
  Shivers vs.
  Your VGA Choice!

Also, complete the following sentence:

• "The next Sierra tournament should be Best ________!"

And to play this tournament out, here's a rather nice screen-cap from "The Dark Crystal". Until next time!

[Tawmis]

[quote="Datadog"]The final round begins! This time around, the VGA titans battle for VGA supremacy and then, just for kicks, we're going to hold a battle royale for the overall top spot!
Title Match: Best in VGA

• King's Quest 5 vs. Gabriel Knight 1

- Gabriel Knight 1. KQ5 has beautiful backgrounds, but GK1 ties them all together. And having been to New Orleans, I can see how much detail went into it.

Ultimate Battle Royale Match: Best in Show!

• Gold Rush! vs
  The Colonel's Bequest vs.
  Leisure Suit Larry 7 vs.
  Shivers vs.
  Your VGA Choice!

- This one is tough, because of them - I'd debate between CB and GoldRush!
- But... I am giving it to GoldRush!

Also, complete the following sentence:

• "The next Sierra tournament should be Best ________!"

- Main Character of a game. (IE, Larry Laffer from LSL1, LS2, etc, Gabriel Knight, King Graham KQ1, 2, etc, Rosella KQ4, etc etc) for games that have specific main characters. So we could even grab some of the more obscure games, like Heart of China and such.

[AndreaDraco]

Title Match: Best in VGA
Gabriel Knight 1

Ultimate Battle Royale Match: Best in Show!
Gabriel Knight 1

(Gold Rush would be a very close second.)

Also, complete the following sentence:
The next Sierra tournament should be Best Puzzle, Best Music or Best Plot Twist.

[El Ravager]

Title Match: Best in VGA
Gabriel Knight 1. Extremely difficult choice to make. Both games have absolutely breathtaking background art, but ultimately I've gotta go with GK1.

Ultimate Battle Royale Match: Best in Show!
Gabriel Knight 1. Again, very difficult choice to make, but GK1 is tough to beat in any category, background art included.

[Collector]

Best in VGA: Gabriel Knight 1

Best in Show: The Colonel's Bequest - The pinnacle of EGA graphics.

Best puzzle is not a bad choice.

[BBP]

Best In VGA: Gabriel Knight 1. Voodoo museum... (gasp)

Best In Show:
Hardly an easy comparison between such different games: the sunny atmosphere and sight gags of LSL7, the colours and inconceivable murals of Shivers, the pretty Amazon of Gold Rush... Ultimately I'd like to go for originality, since GK1 does borrow quite a bit of existing N.O. landscape and both Gold Rush and, to a (much) lesser extent The Colonel's Bequest owe a bit to reality. As beautiful as Shivers is, at times it looks disturbingly unrealistic, when the combined "jump-to-new-location" and lack of depth in background make it very hard to "stay in" the environment. Also the colours and shading feels a bit unnatural. I'll settle for LSL7 which has colours that are easier on the eye, the many, many sight gags you just can't un-see once you spotted them (I'm looking at you, Proud Little Seaman Lounge!).


And The Next Should Be...
Plot twist sounds cool, but I know that'd go to Freddy Pharkas... how about Love Interest?

[Datadog]

Title Match: Best in VGA
Really? No votes for KQ5? I must play the devil's advocate yet again. It has so much location variety, sharp perspectives, and vibrant. Not to mention it actually takes up the full screen. My general complaint about GK1 is that almost all the scenes are drawn from the same angle each time. The only real great background I can think of from that one is the bookshop, otherwise it's too dark and cramped fro me.

Ultimate Battle Royale Match: Best in Show!
Leisure Suit Larry 7 - possibly the most creative when it comes to background design. It's not even the resolution, it's just how much imagination went into building this cruise ship. My personal pick for VGA for be KQ6, but I'd still vote this one over it. Gold Rush would be my third choice.

Also, complete the following sentence:
"The next Sierra tournament should be Best (so far, it seems to be Puzzle!)"

(Although if GK gets through Round 1 on that one, I'm skipping ahead and ending the tournament right there.)

[stuntology]

Sorry for not posting last time, guys. I've been away for work, but now I'm back!

Title match in VGA: A tough one, but I'll vote for King's Quest 5. While Gabriel Knight seems to capture the mood and tone of the game better, King's Quest 5 seems (to me) to do a wonderful job of introducing a variety of different moods, all of them effective.

Best in Show: Man, this is a hard decision, but I pick Gold Rush! I feel that it was much better than any of the others at pushing the engine to its maximum capacity, and does the best job of looking like much better art than it probably was.

And... The next contest should be the best music! (probably best to do it in a similar fashion, dividing by era).

[Tawmis]

Sorry for not posting last time, guys. I've been away for work, but now I'm back!

Glad to have ye back!

[Datadog]

THE RESULTS ARE IN

Best in VGA goes to...




And the incredible Best in Show was a tricky one. Gold Rush, Gabriel Knight and Leisure Suit Larry all tied, so here's where being an art critic pays off for every one. Anyone who took the time to name runner-up choices lent additional half-points to the final tally, and one specific game kept appearing on the tips of people's tongues, meaning the best of show goes to...

And that's the Sierra Background Tournament! Our complete list of winners are:

Best in AGI/Best in Show: Gold Rush
Best in SCI 16-Color: The Colonel's Bequest
Best in VGA: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father
Best in Non-Photoreal SVGA: Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail
Best in Photoreal SVGA: Shivers


And then we have our next tournament! Going down the suggestions, I'm seeing some support for Best Puzzle and Best Music. We'll probably do best music at some point, but for now, I'm really liking the idea of a Best Puzzle tournament. I'll be posting up the suggestion thread shortly so you can nominate all your favorites.

[AndreaDraco]

I'm happy about these results. GK1 graphics are outstanding for the period and Gold Rush has some really inventive and gorgeous backgrounds.