Confession: I never played any Space Quest games. Can I start anywhere?
 

I never played a Space Quest game despite my love for adventure titles (and heck, even love for sci-fi).

I have all of them, however, and want to play them. Should I start at the beginning or could I start anywhere? My point is, will I miss out on any jokes/plot stuff if I just play them in random order or are the games independent of each other?

Thanks :)

I'm "guilty" as well, and it goes as far as 90% ignoring all the sierra classics excluding Gabriel Knights. ;)

Start a #1 and work your way up to #6. Like it was ment to be played. ;)

You could probably skip #1 and 2. I've never cared for them, and they're definitely very dated gameplay-wise.

Another opinion: start with the #1 remake, which is actually quite easy, and jump directly to #5. #2 is maybe the worst, #3 is funnier but dated, #4 is beautiful but full of quick deaths and timed sequences, and #6 is a bit of a mess.

SQ4 is my favourite and its perfectly fine if you use the emulation or the New Rising Sun patches. And why people disown SQ2, it had many great moment.

And I this is the wrong forum to be talking about the classic as having dated gameplay, sure its not HL2 but its not unplayable.

But none of you have answered the real quoestion here. :D

So, if one does not play them in order, will he miss anything from the plot he's supposed to catch from prequel/s? Like I know I would've not enjoyed Monkey Island 2 even nearly as much if I hadn't played the first one. Or if I hadn't played Gabriel Knights 1 & 2 before 3rd, I would've missed a lot. And Broken Swords et cetera, and ESPECIALLY on Dreamfall you'd be lost if you never played The Longest Journey. You get my point. :)

I haven't played any SQ's either, but judging from the answers I would guess not. I'm guessing it's sort of like the LSL series, they share some common traits but as far as the story goes it's not necessary to play them in order, or play all of them for all that matters.

I will eventually play SQ. At least #1 remake and #5 which I believe is considered the best. But if I'm not mistaken they're quite dead-end-plagued, aren't they? Which is not the case for the LSL series, Tower of Power, which I heartily recommend to you :)

The order in which you play them doesn't really matter, senario-wise.

My advice would be similar to Risingson's:

Play SQ1 remake, then SQ4, then SQ5. The best is SQ5, I'd say, but 1 is ok, and 4 is great despite the aformentioned timed sequences.
SQ2 and 3 are too old, and plain ugly, not to mention thez fact that they use a text parser.

I haven't played SQ6 yet.

I played LSL 1, I just was too young ( LOL I mean in manner of understanding the language, and of course I didn't understand all that "adult stuff" ;) ) and then the remake of first which I liked too. I just never got my hands of other ones in series.

Also, if they're not remakes I'm not gonna bother. I always hated the whole consept of typing commands and dialogues etc in Sierra Classics, which probably made me dislike old sierra games without giving them much try. And eventhough graphics aren't everything to me in adventure games... ... ... those are a bit outdated now ( not speaking of remakes :) )

Not quite plagued, but yes, there are too many dead-ends.

I'm not a fan of LSL, but the seventh one was a lot of fun. It's pretty, funny, without dead-ends or death or anything.

I don't mind dated graphics. I'm playing through Martian Memorandum right now.

I appreciate the answers.

One question, Dasilva, you mentioned playing SQ4 through "emulation or the New Rising Sun patches". Can you explain what those are (I know what emulation is, I mean in regards to SQ4) or point me in the right direction? Thanks!

SQ2 and SQ3 have graphics that are much older that Martian Memorandum's (EGA), and you need to type your commands.

Well, then the problem would only be with LSL3. Because LSL1 has the beautiful VGA remake with the SCI1 interface (you know, the one that started with KQ5 if I'm not mistaken), LSL2 has a fan "remake" (it only remakes the interface-- completely mouse-driven), but LSL3 is SCI0 so you have to type in orders (not ALL of them like on the really old Sierra games).

Although now that I think about it I don't know that much about LSL3 (it's the one I didn't play). Can't remember exactly the amount of actions to be written.

You people have just become lazy, nothing beats the parser, way more flexability, use a walkthrough if your going to moan about it.

XP friendly patches here, work like crazy:
http://www.geocities.com/belzorash/


You need to ask yourself if you can handle a game with EGA & SCI graphics like SQ1-3 and handle being able to actual type words rather than clicking all over the place. :P Every Space Quest game is fun and perfectly playable, you should experience the whole saga because there are references in ALL the SQ games about previous games and you WILL miss out on gags if you dont know all the background details.

Thanks Dasilva! I'll start from #1!

I don't mind text parsers and old graphics. There are several Infocom games in my backlog :)

Well, I started playing AGs back when Indy Atlantis, so I only got to see the parser adventures when I started getting into adventure gaming forums and the kind (much later), so I guess you can understand it's something that to some people is extremely awkward and difficult to use and something that's become archaic. You know, like writing in stone when you're used to typing on a computer (a little drastic, I know, but you get the point :))

And also the new SQ collection just released has all 6 complete games so its well worth the 20$/£12. Its the only collection worth getting out of the PQ, KQ & LSL.

I played 1 (VGA remake) and 4 first (maybe in that order, or maybe swapped, I don't remember), and then 5 years later. I didn't find that I really felt I was missing anything, even though I never played 2 or 3.