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Luhr28 - 07 April 2021 10:48 AM

I’m *very* much looking forward to Blubba’s KQ8 playthrough. Should be very entertaining Smile

Thanks man, but I had no plans for it.  My memories of VIII are limited to seeing the very first screenshots in the back of an issue of Interaction Magazine. The game was reported to be years away from completion, but there were a few paragraphs gushing over how phenomenal it was going to be. The screenshot I remember is of Connor standing in front of a well. I remember drinking all the Kool-Ade and gaga-ing over the textures in the stones and the wood and the thatch on top of the well. The game eventually came out, and I remember seeing it on the shelves at Wal Mart like it just happened yesterday. Right next to QFG V. I don’t know why, but my family never purchased either game. They were either A) too expensive (we mostly bought the jewel case only $9.99 games and bargain bin finds of games both great and awful that were a few years old), or B) we kids or our parents had seen the reviews and knew it was crap. In any case, we knew it was *not* a pure adventure game, and since mom was the resident KQ VII addict who *would have* bought the next installment for us, there was no way she was going to shell out for an action game like this.
The answer is probably a combination of A, B, and In Any Case.

So yeah, that’s all the nostalgia I have for KQ VIII, which means that it’s very unlikely I will ever play it. I can suffer a lousy game—with pleasure!—if it’s basted in gobs of nostalgia, but otherwise, nah.

I just finished KQ VI today, and will be writing about that soon. My computer wouldn’t play my disc version of VII, so I’ll have to get it from GOG before moving on.

In other news, still playing Anna’s Quest, and it’s really good!

     

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Baron_Blubba - 07 April 2021 05:19 PM
Luhr28 - 07 April 2021 10:48 AM

I’m *very* much looking forward to Blubba’s KQ8 playthrough. Should be very entertaining Smile

Thanks man, but I had no plans for it.  My memories of VIII are limited to seeing the very first screenshots in the back of an issue of Interaction Magazine. The game was reported to be years away from completion, but there were a few paragraphs gushing over how phenomenal it was going to be. The screenshot I remember is of Connor standing in front of a well. I remember drinking all the Kool-Ade and gaga-ing over the textures in the stones and the wood and the thatch on top of the well. The game eventually came out, and I remember seeing it on the shelves at Wal Mart like it just happened yesterday. Right next to QFG V. I don’t know why, but my family never purchased either game. They were either A) too expensive (we mostly bought the jewel case only $9.99 games and bargain bin finds of games both great and awful that were a few years old), or B) we kids or our parents had seen the reviews and knew it was crap. In any case, we knew it was *not* a pure adventure game, and since mom was the resident KQ VII addict who *would have* bought the next installment for us, there was no way she was going to shell out for an action game like this.
The answer is probably a combination of A, B, and In Any Case.

So yeah, that’s all the nostalgia I have for KQ VIII, which means that it’s very unlikely I will ever play it. I can suffer a lousy game—with pleasure!—if it’s basted in gobs of nostalgia, but otherwise, nah.

I just finished KQ VI today, and will be writing about that soon. My computer wouldn’t play my disc version of VII, so I’ll have to get it from GOG before moving on.

In other news, still playing Anna’s Quest, and it’s really good!

I think I’m just intrigued by KQ and Sierra fans’ relationship to that game. I’m someone who will always prefer to play something new over replaying an old game even once, so it’s really cool to me that you still get something out of I-VII decades later, and even after dozens of replays - to the point you can write lengthy posts about the new things you’ve discovered! It shows how rich and full of depth those games were. And, I suppose, how unappealing Sierra’s attempt to ride the action/rpg trend was for long-time fans.

Even here on an adventure site, you’re more likely to hear about full-blown rpgs than a Sierra game, and that’s quite fascinating. Because it’s still a Sierra game so I expect it to be more adventurey than some of the rpgs I (very, very rarely) like to play.

     
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Yeah, I don’t know much about KQ 8, but I imagine there would have to be a significant amount of adventure game design mixed in with the RPG elements. I’ve heard people say that it ought to have been marketed as QFG style game without the KQ name, or as a KQ spin-off rather than a main series game, and that might have helped with the way it was received. I’m very curious about it, but I don’t know if I’d ever play it; there are just too many great games out there that I’d like to play, so why bother with a mediocre one—regardless, for better or for worse, of it’s KQ pedigree.

Regarding the rest of your post: I haven’t played through the games dozens of times. As a kid, the only Sierra/Coktel/Dynamix games I remember owning were KQ 5, KQ 7, QFG 4, Space Quest 4 and 5, Freddy Pharkas, Conquest of the Longbow, Torin’s Passage, Inca, and Rise of the Dragon (until my parents decided it wasn’t appropriate). The only ones I beat were Torin’s Passage, KQ 5, and Freddy Pharkas; and I watched my mom and brother play through KQ VII. I knew of KQ 4 and 6 only from watching friends play at their houses.

In my mid-teens I got a volunteer gig reviewing freeware games, and reviewed the redux version of KQ 1 and 2, which led me to play 3 - 6 in full for the first time. Since then, I’ll replay them every 6-7 years or so. Fortunately, I have a pretty bad memory for these sorts of things, so the puzzles still challenge me a little. For me, it’s kind of like revisiting a favorite piece of music or rewatching a favorite movie. You know what’s going to happen, but you enjoy riding the ebb and flow of it, enjoy the places it takes you (both by exploring the art and scenes of the game locations, and in a nostalgic transportative way), and let it surprise you even though you expect everything.

So I’ve probably played through all the games 3-4 times now. The depth of my nostalgic affection for the series seems disproportionate given the limited exposure I had to them as a kid, but hey, I spent a lot of time wandering around the Serenia with my brothers, having no idea what to do or where to go next. Same thing for Sherwood Forest from Conquest of the Longbow, but multiplied by a bazillion. Perhaps because I was so young, the amount of time spent in the game was great in proportion to the amount of time I had been alive so far, which magnified its influence. Interesting thing to speculate on.

Either way, yeah, these games make me warm and fuzzy, and they make me laugh with their absurdities, so I reckon I’ll keep coming back to ‘em every so often to relive the experiences.

     

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I’m one of the few people who enjoyed Mask of Eternity for what it was - a fantasy action-adventure and not a King’s Quest sequel. It was very epic, with changing worlds and locations (my favourite was the swamp with all kind of swamp monsters wandering around which was also featured in the demo that caught my attention in the first place). And it was a true action-adventure, with quests, plenty of items to collect, characters to talk, etc. unlike Tomb Raider and its numerous clones that rose to popularity around the same time.

Not sure I would dare to replay it today, but I don’t think it deserved all the hate. But then people tend to dislike all late Sierra games while I enjoyed most of them - Gabriel Knight 3, Shivers 2, the SWAT series and whatever else they managed to produce during that horrible time period.

     

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Doom - 11 April 2021 01:12 PM

I’m one of the few people who enjoyed Mask of Eternity for what it was - a fantasy action-adventure and not a King’s Quest sequel. It was very epic, with changing worlds and locations (my favourite was the swamp with all kind of swamp monsters wandering around which was also featured in the demo that caught my attention in the first place). And it was a true action-adventure, with quests, plenty of items to collect, characters to talk, etc. unlike Tomb Raider and its numerous clones that rose to popularity around the same time.

Not sure I would dare to replay it today, but I don’t think it deserved all the hate. But then people tend to dislike all late Sierra games while I enjoyed most of them - Gabriel Knight 3, Shivers 2, the SWAT series and whatever else they managed to produce during that horrible time period.

Please keep talking me into it. This post, and a few reviews that this conversation motivated me to read, have moved the game from my firm ‘no’ list to my ‘definite maybe’ list.

But…

I am currently playing Disco Elysium. A couple of hours in. I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is the densest game I’ve ever played, and I have played Planescape: Torment (and loved it, one of my favorite games). The amount of text in Disco makes Planescape look like The Berenstain Bears (I am a huge fan of this series :p).
So this will take a while.

 

     

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Baron_Blubba - 14 April 2021 09:21 PM

I am currently playing Disco Elysium. A couple of hours in. I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is the densest game I’ve ever played, and I have played Planescape: Torment (and loved it, one of my favorite games). The amount of text in Disco makes Planescape look like The Berenstain Bears (I am a huge fan of this series :p).
So this will take a while.

I also just started playing Disco Elysium after all the praises and glowing reviews and while I was intrigued and excited by the style at first I guess the density like you say it’s getting to me. I feel like it’s just too much. Every little activity or conversation as mundane as it may seem may take me into a rabbit hole of text and sometimes even die? so the pacing it’s so weird. Like the story hasn’t moved an inch for me after playing for a bunch of hours. I’m sure that’s probably intentional and I can see a lot of good things about it. I want to like it, I often disregard RPGs because it’s always the same fantasy and D&D stuff so this seems like finally something different but I don’t know if it’s just not my type of game. (I’m not really into RPGs btw, the only ones that I have liked are Mass Effect and The Witcher because of their stories and action oriented gameplay)

     
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I approached the Disco Elysium thinking that I would either love it or hate it. I’m not a fan of ‘dark gritty realism’ (nothing realistic about it. Games that purport to be so are usually just as fantasy in their own way as LotR or Dragon Quest), and I’m not a fan of the types of stories where characters wake up with with hangovers in filthy rooms wearing only filthy tighty whities.
However, I am a fan of great writing, unique stories, and unique game design.
So I was aware going in that I might not be able to relate to the game’s character (meaning both the character of the game itself and the main character in the game).
So far, it’s been a pleasant surprise. It is so so very slow, and there’s so much to do that I feel lost…I’m barking up *a* tree, but it’s one out of so so many, and I’m not sure if it relates at all to the main tree or if it’s all just a side quest.
But I’m taking it slow and very stream of consciousness. I’m playing the way I want to play, aware that I might be missing out on certain nuances in the game world and the mechanics. To focus on those would be to lose the immersion. I’m truly trying to role play it, rather than game it.
Playing with this mindset, I’m finding it very enjoyable so far. Time will tell if I’ll be able to see it through to the end; I have a feeling this one might take 50+ hours…and sometimes life gets in the way of me finishing such games. That’s one reason why I play so many adventure games—I usually get around to finish them before life gets a chance to interrupt, since they typically take 4-10 hours to complete.

I’ll keep you posted if you’d like, and I’d love to hear your continued spoiler-free thoughts on your experience with the game, should you keep going.

     

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danigar - 15 April 2021 11:16 AM
Baron_Blubba - 14 April 2021 09:21 PM

I am currently playing Disco Elysium. A couple of hours in. I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is the densest game I’ve ever played, and I have played Planescape: Torment (and loved it, one of my favorite games). The amount of text in Disco makes Planescape look like The Berenstain Bears (I am a huge fan of this series :p).
So this will take a while.

I also just started playing Disco Elysium after all the praises and glowing reviews and while I was intrigued and excited by the style at first I guess the density like you say it’s getting to me. I feel like it’s just too much. Every little activity or conversation as mundane as it may seem may take me into a rabbit hole of text and sometimes even die? so the pacing it’s so weird. Like the story hasn’t moved an inch for me after playing for a bunch of hours. I’m sure that’s probably intentional and I can see a lot of good things about it. I want to like it, I often disregard RPGs because it’s always the same fantasy and D&D stuff so this seems like finally something different but I don’t know if it’s just not my type of game. (I’m not really into RPGs btw, the only ones that I have liked are Mass Effect and The Witcher because of their stories and action oriented gameplay)

This is why I avoided it. The Planescape game bored me too because it had no censor. The game and its writers clearly saw this as a good thing, and most of the players did too, judging by the reception these games got.

     
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Of all my personal favorite games, Planescape is the one that I completely understand how other people just plum don’t like it. I played it at the perfect time: I was severely injured and had plenty of time to do nothing but sit around/lay around. As an avid outdoorsy person, the game enabled me to become immersed and intensely distracted, which was wonderful at the time. I also like it when developers take big swings, even if it means that they occasionally whiff big time as a result. The writing was good enough that, severe lack of editing or not, it was still all worthwhile in its own right.

Disco Elysium is the same thing…but much much much moreso. Curious to see if I’ll be able to tolerate it for the full extent of the game, but so far I am really enjoying it.

One thought I’ve had so far is that Disco Elysium is the most seamless and perfect integration, or marriage, or evolution, of the point and click genre…or of the CRPG genre. I would love for more point and click games to take influence from many of the things that Disco does.

     

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Baron_Blubba - 14 April 2021 09:21 PM

Please keep talking me into it. This post, and a few reviews that this conversation motivated me to read, have moved the game from my firm ‘no’ list to my ‘definite maybe’ list.

But…

I am currently playing Disco Elysium.

Well, I adore Disco Elysium and would rather inspire you to play it instead (but you are already enjoying it, so no worries here). Mask of Eternity is certainly less polished and less “integrated” (there’s plenty of action that might get on your nerves), but it’s a curious 3D experiment, “a game ahead of its time” as they say. Personally I think it’s one of the better 3D action-adventure games of the 1990s, with maybe only Omikron and Redguard surpassing it.

     

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Gabriel Knight 3
First playthrough ever and heavily stuck but definitely won’t look at any walkthroughs even if it takes me weeks to complete. Game is awesome so far, besides the Graphics and crude game mechanics, Jane Jensen is a master storyteller.

     
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dirac - 17 April 2021 06:14 PM

Gabriel Knight 3
First playthrough ever and heavily stuck but definitely won’t look at any walkthroughs even if it takes me weeks to complete. Game is awesome so far, besides the Graphics and crude game mechanics, Jane Jensen is a master storyteller.

There is some serious pixel hunting in that game. *Scour* every inch of ground and examine and re-examine the ground closely.

Are you past the infamous puzzle yet?

     

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dirac - 17 April 2021 06:14 PM

Gabriel Knight 3
First playthrough ever and heavily stuck but definitely won’t look at any walkthroughs even if it takes me weeks to complete. Game is awesome so far, besides the Graphics and crude game mechanics, Jane Jensen is a master storyteller.

First playthrough, I envy you - it’s one of my favourite games. Maybe you should know that unlike in previous games, you can miss clues, events and even parts of the story here - for example, if you don’t spy on some people, or don’t visit certain places at certain times, or do something to something before Gabriel or Grace gather enough information about it. But I wouldn’t think into those too much, especially on my first playthrough (I didn’t) - it’s pretty much impossible to get the full score anyway Smile Just enjoy the story, the game is full of surprises.

     

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Baron_Blubba - 17 April 2021 06:55 PM

There is some serious pixel hunting in that game. *Scour* every inch of ground and examine and re-examine the ground closely.

Are you past the infamous puzzle yet?

Yes I’m on day 2 playing with Grace, but please no hints, I would like to savor it. That damned Lily puzzle in “The Beast Within” also took me days, but it was worth it at the end.

Doom - 17 April 2021 08:41 PM

First playthrough, I envy you - it’s one of my favourite games. Maybe you should know that unlike in previous games, you can miss clues, events and even parts of the story here - for example, if you don’t spy on some people, or don’t visit certain places at certain times, or do something to something before Gabriel or Grace gather enough information about it. But I wouldn’t think into those too much, especially on my first playthrough (I didn’t) - it’s pretty much impossible to get the full score anyway Smile Just enjoy the story, the game is full of surprises.

Thanks will do. I have always hesitated to play the third installment because of the dated optics (Part 1 & 2 seem to have aged more gracefully in this regard) but I should have known better. Despite the Graphics you get immersed surprisingly fast, a very worthy successor so far, it’s a shame games like this aren’t made anymore. Jensen definitely shouldn’t have stopped making these, or at least put out a few more Gabriel Knight books, the series is her Magnum Opus after all.

     
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What a great game! I envy you. I loved GK3 back in the day. This must be an amazing experience. I need to replay this game, it’s a classic.

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