SamNMax
07-12-2004, 08:21 AM
Sierra was doing very well in the mid-80s with their remarkable King's Quest and Quest for glory series' these games were very good and successful. After these games, everyone wanted to know what Sierra was going to do next. Needless to say, when Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter was announced, everyone was very excited. The game looked awesome and the story was truly original. No one could wait for its release. When the game did come out, no one had played anything like it. People knew the game would become an instant classic. Were they right?
Here's my review of Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter.
Story: The story of Space Quest was a breath of fresh air for Sierra fans. All Sierra's games had a fairytale story. When SQ came out, people found a tale of originality and humor.
Far beyond the reaches of known space lies a planetary system known to its inhabitants as Earnon. For many years, Earnon's sun has been slowly dying. The planets are growing cold and food is no longer plentiful. Scientists predict that only certain insect species and most lawyers will survive the resulting ice age. The beings of these ever darkening worlds struggle to maintain the daily balance of life.
The only hope for Earnon's survival has rested in the scientific community on the governing planet of Xenon, which has been working for quite some time on a plan to convert one of the system's lifeless planets into a new sun. The effort has been centered around the development of a device called the Star Generator. The development team for the project has been stationed aboard the spacelab Arcada and sent to the outer edge of Earnon to further its research.
You are Roger Wilco, one of the crew members aboard Arcada, but, your the janitor. Yes, the janitor. While taking your usuall nap in the broom closet, the alarm goes off and a paniced voise over the intercom orders everyone to evacuate the station immedeatly. The alien Sariens have stolen the Star Generator, and if Roger doesn't get it back, the universe is indeed, toast.
There's so much greatness behind this story. The memorable characters and the overall hilarity of it all is just genius.
Story gets a 9/10
Graphics: The EGA a graphics are just great. This game had some of the greatest looking areas I'd ever seen. Great colors and backgrounds were nicley detailed. Every part of the game was very impressive looking. Space stations, open space, and even the backwater planet Kerona are quite eye pleasing.
Graphics get an 8/10
http://www.eds.org/~david/agi/sierra/sq1a.JPG http://www.eds.org/~david/agi/sierra/sq1b.JPG http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~entropy/agi/x11-sq1-01.gif http://personales.ciudad.com.ar/JuegDM04/imagenes/Space1E/Space1E4.gif
Sound/Music: At the time, SQ had the greatest theme music I had ever heard. However, this still has the same sound quality as any 80s PC game. Therefore, the sound is not qualified to be rated. I did really like the sound, though.
Sound gets an 8/10
Gameplay: The controls were like every early Sierra game; you control Roger with the arrow keys, and typed in the action you wanted him to do. These controls proved to be problematic at times, as you have to type in the excact words. Otherwise he won't do anything.
I think this game had the perfect difficulty. This game was very hard, but examination was the key. You had to look at pretty much everything in the room. If you don't do this, you, like all early Sierra games, would miss something and have to start again.
All the puzzles were pretty good for thier time, but some action-like bits (the hovercraft scenario) will make you very frusterated.
However, gameplay gets an 8/10
There is no doubt that this game is a classicthat will be remembered for a long time and rightfully so. Though the game had too many flaws to achive total greatness, it didn't have enough to give it a bad review. I give Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter a
9.1/10
Here's my review of Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter.
Story: The story of Space Quest was a breath of fresh air for Sierra fans. All Sierra's games had a fairytale story. When SQ came out, people found a tale of originality and humor.
Far beyond the reaches of known space lies a planetary system known to its inhabitants as Earnon. For many years, Earnon's sun has been slowly dying. The planets are growing cold and food is no longer plentiful. Scientists predict that only certain insect species and most lawyers will survive the resulting ice age. The beings of these ever darkening worlds struggle to maintain the daily balance of life.
The only hope for Earnon's survival has rested in the scientific community on the governing planet of Xenon, which has been working for quite some time on a plan to convert one of the system's lifeless planets into a new sun. The effort has been centered around the development of a device called the Star Generator. The development team for the project has been stationed aboard the spacelab Arcada and sent to the outer edge of Earnon to further its research.
You are Roger Wilco, one of the crew members aboard Arcada, but, your the janitor. Yes, the janitor. While taking your usuall nap in the broom closet, the alarm goes off and a paniced voise over the intercom orders everyone to evacuate the station immedeatly. The alien Sariens have stolen the Star Generator, and if Roger doesn't get it back, the universe is indeed, toast.
There's so much greatness behind this story. The memorable characters and the overall hilarity of it all is just genius.
Story gets a 9/10
Graphics: The EGA a graphics are just great. This game had some of the greatest looking areas I'd ever seen. Great colors and backgrounds were nicley detailed. Every part of the game was very impressive looking. Space stations, open space, and even the backwater planet Kerona are quite eye pleasing.
Graphics get an 8/10
http://www.eds.org/~david/agi/sierra/sq1a.JPG http://www.eds.org/~david/agi/sierra/sq1b.JPG http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~entropy/agi/x11-sq1-01.gif http://personales.ciudad.com.ar/JuegDM04/imagenes/Space1E/Space1E4.gif
Sound/Music: At the time, SQ had the greatest theme music I had ever heard. However, this still has the same sound quality as any 80s PC game. Therefore, the sound is not qualified to be rated. I did really like the sound, though.
Sound gets an 8/10
Gameplay: The controls were like every early Sierra game; you control Roger with the arrow keys, and typed in the action you wanted him to do. These controls proved to be problematic at times, as you have to type in the excact words. Otherwise he won't do anything.
I think this game had the perfect difficulty. This game was very hard, but examination was the key. You had to look at pretty much everything in the room. If you don't do this, you, like all early Sierra games, would miss something and have to start again.
All the puzzles were pretty good for thier time, but some action-like bits (the hovercraft scenario) will make you very frusterated.
However, gameplay gets an 8/10
There is no doubt that this game is a classicthat will be remembered for a long time and rightfully so. Though the game had too many flaws to achive total greatness, it didn't have enough to give it a bad review. I give Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter a
9.1/10