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The One Thing That Stuck Out For Me About Codename: Iceman...

All of Sierra's "main" games were very different in themes, and as a result - the way the game played, interacted, etc.

If you had to pick out ONE thing (good, or bad) - about the game, that left a lasting impression (and feel free to go into detail) - what would it be?

And I'd like it to be just ONE thing (because on some of our favorites, it's too easy to list all the things we enjoyed).

I want to focus on what made EACH game of the different titles (GK, LSL, PQ, KQ, etc) different than one another?

This one is still fresh in my mind. The thing that got me about Codename: Iceman is how easy - and how frequently - you could dead end yourself in the game. It made the game unusually brutal, and nearly impossible to beat without assistance.

The poker game. Notably, the moment when the game caught me save-scumming and kicked me out.

Datadog wrote:The poker game. Notably, the moment when the game caught me save-scumming and kicked me out.

A mechanic, I never understood. This game, seriously made every attempt to stop the player from succeeding...

Tawmis wrote:

Datadog wrote:The poker game. Notably, the moment when the game caught me save-scumming and kicked me out.

A mechanic, I never understood. This game, seriously made every attempt to stop the player from succeeding...

Collector wrote:

Tawmis wrote:

Datadog wrote:The poker game. Notably, the moment when the game caught me save-scumming and kicked me out.

A mechanic, I never understood. This game, seriously made every attempt to stop the player from succeeding...

I wonder if Sierra, at the time, was like, "We need money. Let's make a game that's virtually impossible to beat! They'll need to dial in or buy hintbooks!"

The "use the right word or else" parser. This is still fresh in my mind after my playthrough last year. I don't know how many times I was stalled because it wanted the word "orders" instead of "envelope" or "papers" or some other nonsense.

notbobsmith wrote:The "use the right word or else" parser. This is still fresh in my mind after my playthrough last year. I don't know how many times I was stalled because it wanted the word "orders" instead of "envelope" or "papers" or some other nonsense.

That too. It's like there was no "dictionary" as I call it, to have one word equal something else that's similar, in a game.

An obvious point to make, but the mandatory sub simulation scenes really ruin the game for me. I wish there were a way to bypass them, because I feel like most folks never get a chance to play what would otherwise be a really intersting game: a Jim Walls-designed, non-police themed, late SCI0 adventure. OK, there are still flaws (linear motion through the scenes, kind of the opposite of the open world of KQIV)... but overall this game is mostly ignored due to the sub scenes.

pl212 wrote:An obvious point to make, but the mandatory sub simulation scenes really ruin the game for me. I wish there were a way to bypass them, because I feel like most folks never get a chance to play what would otherwise be a really intersting game: a Jim Walls-designed, non-police themed, late SCI0 adventure. OK, there are still flaws (linear motion through the scenes, kind of the opposite of the open world of KQIV)... but overall this game is mostly ignored due to the sub scenes.

Agreed. A "Control X" - with a Pop Up - "Would you like to bypass the submarine sequence?" would have been nice (and you automatically miss out on any points that might have been gained during the sequence).

I remember the opening up until the copy protection screen. At some point I got past that and remember wandering around the beach, and dancing, and fireworks,....never got any further.

MusicallyInspired wrote:I remember the opening up until the copy protection screen. At some point I got past that and remember wandering around the beach, and dancing, and fireworks,....never got any further.

Well. Despite it's VERY painful bumps in the game... I would still recommend it. It's a pretty beautifully done game (graphic wise), for it's time. And once you pass the sub sequence and the bottle game, it's actually no different in difficulty than Police Quest. I also made a TON of saves during the game (using multiple directories to save in) - so if you want to just PASS the sub sequence and the bottle game, I have saves past those. You can find those in my Codename: Iceman - Return to my Bane thread on here, and I think Collector also made them available for download on the Codename: Iceman portion of the SHP pages. EDIT: Confirmed. See this post. I also made a walk through that will allow you to pass the sub sequence pretty easily - but unfortunately the bottle game (though not required) is completely random. See this post for my walk thru.

The sub sequences are pretty annoying. In theory, you should be able to avoid combat, but the game never makes it clear if you are accomplishing anything. I never was able to get it to work.

I actually didn't have that much problem with the dice game. The last time I played I was actually able to make it through all the way without restoring on my first try. At first I was having trouble and my mistake was thinking of the game like poker. For example let's say the first roll gives you this:

YOU: 3,3,3,x,x
HIM: 4,4,y,y,y

You have the better hand which makes you the BOSS. You can choose to continue (COME UP) and re-roll the dice you don't want or start the round over again (both sides re-roll their dice). In poker, this seems obvious: three-of-a-kind is much better than a pair. But to win, all the other player has to do is get another 4. Each die has a 1 in 6 chance of getting another 4, and three opportunities to do so. You have a 50% chance of losing this round, so you are better off starting the round again in this case. By paying attention to the odds and recognizing situations like this, I lost fewer rounds and got through without too much trouble.

Actually playing the opening of the game made it seem very interesting to me. I was just turned off and shied away from all the hate it got. I figured I was better off leaving it until sometime in the future. I had thought the whole experience was a disastrous mess like the sub controls and that that was basically the whole game. But I'm getting the vibe now that it's only certain parts? Similar to how people dislike KQ5's few moments of dead ends?

MusicallyInspired wrote:Actually playing the opening of the game made it seem very interesting to me. I was just turned off and shied away from all the hate it got. I figured I was better off leaving it until sometime in the future. I had thought the whole experience was a disastrous mess like the sub controls and that that was basically the whole game. But I'm getting the vibe now that it's only certain parts? Similar to how people dislike KQ5's few moments of dead ends?

There are... if I remember - two sub sequences.
The potential for "dead ends" are plenty. So make multiple saves and multiple directories if you do play.