Infamous Quests
Public Forums => Banter and Chit-Chat! => Topic started by: Chadly on April 25, 2013, 12:38:33 PM
-
What is the worst Sierra game ever made? For me it is Leisure Suit Larry 2. It just sucked all around. A close second is Manhunter. Worst Sierra series is Ecoquest or Willy Bemish.
Chadly.()
-
Gabriel Knight 2. Now, the story is pretty great - but the FMV? It was a gimmick of the time, and unfortunately, it's rendered the game unplayable.
LSL2 is a game I absolutely adore - but it does have MANY, MANY flaws. I also love Manhunter - it's harder to get into that one at first, but if you do - it's amazing.
Codename: ICEMAN was a disappointment to me when I played it in the 90's.
Bt
-
I can't comment on the ones I haven't played, but I'll be honest and say that the Police Quest games were among the weakest in my opinion. While LSL2 had its problems it was still enjoyable to play. I hated having to adhere to strict police guidelines. The storylines were great but the gameplay was lacking.
-
I also hate Gabriel Knight 2. The other FMV games sucked as well, and for the same reasons, but for me the amount of sycophantic adoration that Gabriel Knight 2 gets is cause enough for it to edge out the others and claim the title of WORST SIERRA GAME EVER. Definitely the most annoying, that's for sure. There is absolutely no justifiable reason that a game like GK2 should be on anyone's best adventure game of all time lists, let alone anywhere near the top. A good story does not a good adventure game make. It is deeply flawed from a gameplay standpoint, and as Bt said, the pig ugly and utterly gag-inducing FMV (and just the overall aesthetic of the art direction in general) renders it nearly unplayable, unless you are a true masochist or a Jensen sycophant.
-
I think GK2 could really stand for a remake. In fact, if that's in the future plans for the franchise by Activision, I'd be interested in that.
Bt
-
Yes I have to agree GK2 was absolutely terrible. The gameplay sucked. Story was ok tho. Also Phantasmagoria sucked too! The only FMCS game I have ever enjoyed was WingCommander 3 and 4. And they weren't really FMV games. The video, gameplay, and story made those classics which I still play today. :)
-
Off topic but I would enjoy a remake of conquest of Camelot and conquest of the LongBow. Hell lets just talk Activision into remaking the entire Sierra library of games! :D
-
I thought GK2 was good. Yeah I prefer the artistic graphics, but I liked the game.
-
I got into the story at points, but every time I'd start to get into it, I'd get pulled right back out again by the terrible editing of every single FMV sequence. Way too many awkward pauses, actors not seeming to realize they're being filmed before springing to life, lingering shots, etc. I've seen student work that was put together much MUCH better. I'm not complaining about the story--I even liked a number of the puzzles. The art style left a bit to be desired, in my opinion. I think there is a certain aura to hand-painted work that just can't be captured by photographic artwork--at least, not the low res, badly manipulated stuff from the Sierra FMV era. Really, though, it was mostly the editing that killed it for me. Made every interaction feel like a chore to me.
Now with all this talk about it, here and on the AG forums, I'm actually kind of itching to play it again and see if it sits better with me the second time. I'm sure that a big part of my problem with it stems from playing it for the first time years after the fact, when FMV was already horribly dated, but I've talked to plenty of people who played it when it was new that share my opinion.
I just think the amount of praise it gets is not deserved, given the amount of gameplay and story flow issues the badly edited FMV creates.
-
Codename: Iceman is usually cited as one of the worst, not because of the story, but mostly because of the sub simulation parts..
-
Codename Iceman would be for me it was doubly disappointing because it had such an enjoyable start.
I am in the minority that would KQ5 as one of the worst. I am not adverse to dead ends in games, but this was majorly overdone in KQ5.
I think Larry 2 gets too much criticism. Despite it short comings I remember it as a really enjoyable play
-
What is the worst Sierra game ever made? For me it is Leisure Suit Larry 2. It just sucked all around. A close second is Manhunter. Worst Sierra series is Ecoquest or Willy Bemish.
Chadly.()
As an aside, in all fairness: can a stand-alone game ("The Adventures of Willie Beamish") that spawned no sequel truly be considered part of a series? ;D
-
I think Larry 2 gets too much criticism. Despite it short comings I remember it as a really enjoyable play
The problem with Larry 2 is that it's just not a very good Larry game. It's a fair adventure game, but there's precious little where our hapless Lothario can use his questionable "girl-picking-up" skills during the game.
Instead, the plot is a case of "mistaken identity"; if Larry had been replaced with a new "Joe Generic" character, the game wouldn't have suffered in the least.
That being said, if Replay's next game is a LSL2 re-do as PnC, I'd still 'Kick' that...
-
I think Dynamix did indeed make a sequel to Willy Bemish. If so it's a series in my book. If I'm wrong then Willy Bemish still sucked.. On other notes the sub part of Codename Iceman was very frustrating as well as driving the van at the end of the game. In all Sierra games traversing a maze like the mountain in kings quest 3 drove me crazy especially when you are short on time getting back to the house before the wizard woke up. Chadly 8)
-
The early ones like "Mystery House" and such is not that good but if you compare them to the other games of that time they are good so I guess you have to do that.
I would have to say "Codename: Iceman" among the ones I have played. The story is great and the graphics are really nice but the gameplay... wow... horrible
-
I think Dynamix did indeed make a sequel to Willy Bemish.
No, they did not. I am not sure that there were ever any serious plans to do so.
-
I stand corrected. Thank-You Collector. My bad. Been over 20 years since I played Willy Bemish.
-
I think Dynamix did indeed make a sequel to Willy Bemish.
No, they did not. I am not sure that there were ever any serious plans to do so.
According to the Wiki page (standard Wikipedia disclaimer: depending however believable/accurate you think Wikipedia is), it claims that...
A sequel was reportedly planned starring Willy Beamish as a late teenager, but the project was canceled.
And Chadly -- I was only kidding; I hope you didn't mind by my gentle ribbing... :D
Good natured fun, and all that rot!
-
C'mon, cut LSL2 a break, it was a freakin' EGA game! You can't compare those to today's games!
As for me.... Space Quest 6- HORRIBLE GAME!
Once that one guy left, SQ 5 began a dip into pure suckage.... by the end of SQ6, that dip was complete. Wilco had lost most of his humor and charm, and his hot space babe future wife was replaced with this kind of mannish looking girl with an annoying personality.
After such a great game in SQ4, how'd things get so bad? I guess that one Andromeda guy really was central to the success of SQ....
-
Goat, it's cool I know you we're only kidding. I am a bit of a smart-ass myself. I find humor makes life easier to deal with. Otherwise I would go insane.
-
After such a great game in SQ4, how'd things get so bad? I guess that one Andromeda guy really was central to the success of SQ....
You do realize that Mark Crowe worked on SQV as an employee of Dynamix, while Scott Murphy took the helm of SQ6 after Josh Mandel... so "that one Andromeda guy" definitely worked on at least one of the ones you hate.
I think it's important to consider more than just the basic stories of the later Space Quest games. As I said in the "best Sierra game" thread of KQVI, I developed a much deeper appreciation for SQV as I spent more time looking for interesting things to do outside of the game's main story. Mostly subtle things, like looking at the ships in the Starcon Academy's docking bay - did you know that if you look at Beatrice's ship before meeting her, and then again after meeting her, you get different messages to reflect how Roger remembers her? Granted, IV had a lot of that too, and I didn't care much for it until, again, I did the Let's Play of it and explored some of the amusing options available. I think if the entirety of SQ6 had as many amusing asides as the Deepship 86 has, it would be among the best instead of the worst. (Seriously, try using the Mouth cursor on everything in the Deepship. EVERYTHING. It's worth it.)
I'd be pretty hard-pressed to choose a single game as my least favorite, but the original King's Quest II likely qualifies. It did away with almost everything that made the first game good and centered around even more arbitrary puzzles, even more linearity, and even more hoping to bump into characters who randomly appear without bumping into others. Letting you retrieve stolen treasures was pretty nice, though. (Has anyone but me gone through the original King's Quest and gotten the shield first? It really works!)
EDIT: Actually, one game I developed LESS appreciation for as I LPed it was Torin's Passage. It's got some great stuff, but the bad parts are absolutely atrocious, and from reading the design documents, it was planned to be that way, rather than trimmed down from something that was going to be much better!
-
I am glad that my threads are getting some decent debate. In the end whatever Sierra game you play there are good things and bad. None were perfect in every way. Another bitch of mine was playing Gold Rush and die mysteriously at almost the end of the game of disease. No way to counter this but restart or restore. I like the game however.
Also two classics are Rise of the Dragon and Heart of China. Challenging and for the time very good graphics and sounds.
-
Hmm...for me would have to be Leisure Suit Larry 7 (Love for Sail). It takes a lot for a LSL game to bore me, and I was boooooored on that dang ship. I could have cared less about the Juggs, the Cybersex 2000 (or whatever), and even prank-calling the front desk guy was lame. Ha, I'm not bitter at all... ;D
Also probably any Gabriel Knight game after the first one. I wanted the gameplay and graphics to be like the first one, and I was really disappointed...