King's Quest

The Good
When I read reviews that give King's Quest a bad impression, it makes me as a grown man want to cry like a little girl with a skinned knee. It also makes me mutter things like "Kids these days wouldn't know a good game if it jumped up and hit them in the face!", even though I'm not yet 30 myself.

I can only assume, for own peace of mind and faith in the human race, that anybody slamming King's Quest is doing so by today's gaming standards, and not the gaming standards of its time. Because in 1984, when Sierra first revolutionized the computer world by releasing this game, King's Quest was the crowned King of Computer Games, and remained so for many years.

From a technical perspective, Ken and Roberta Williams and the Sierra team broke so many new levels with this game, and then again with its next few sequels over the next decade, that it seemed to me as a kid that Sierra would rule the gaming world forever. In a time of text adventures and blocky monochrome arcades, they released a full color multi-dimensional game where you could actually physically MOVE the hero around a detailed fantasy world, in front of, behind, and around objects, and interface with items, terrain, and other characters in an involving storyline and several challenging quests.

Later, when other game companies picked up on the technology, Sierra released sequels that were not only more and more playable, detailed, story-rich and entertaining with each game, but made new technology headlines every time. As KQ1 was the first game to ever make use of a CGA color, PC speaker musical sound and comprehensive text parser interface, KQ4 was the first game to use detailed EGA graphics and support for the new (back then) Adlib/Soundblaster rich audio and music. And when that very quickly became commonplace, KQ5 was released with vivid 256 color VGA graphics and a previously unheard of point-and-click mouse interface instead of the old text parser.

But back to the original. A few of the MobyGames reviews for King's Quest 1 say that the game is noteworthy only for these technology breakthroughs and its historic significance in the gaming industry, but as a game in and of itself, it has almost no merit. This could not be further from the truth.

While the storyline, gameplay and quests of KQ1 may seem pale and pointless by today's standards, imagine yourself as a child in 1984. This game wasn't made for hardcore teen/adult gamers in the 21st century, it was made for kids in the early 80's. And in that light, it was magical. With dragons to slay, magical artifacts to collect, and all manner of mystical creatures from fairies to trolls to leprechauns and everything in between, King's Quest was like an interactive movie or book where YOU get to be the hero. As a kid in 1984, who grew up on films like NeverEnding Story, Legend, and The Dark Crystal, bringing the fantasy world of wizards and warriors, dragons and princesses, magic and intrigue, to the interactive medium of computer gaming - that in itself was more remarkable than the actual technological breakthroughs Sierra made with this game.

The Bad
As several other reviewers have noted, there are aspect of the game that can seem bland and frustrating, not just by today's standards but even back in 1984. I feel it's important to note though, that these for the most part were simply the effects of technological barriers that even Sierra couldn't break through at the time, not design flaws in themselves. The text parser, for example, is frustratingly limited. Things need to be worded a certain way. You might see a brown CGA lump on the ground and want it, but typing "PICK UP ROCK" could very well yield you a "You can't do that - at least not now." error (prevalent throughout the first three KQ games!). But a little patience and a logical mind can always overcome this limitation. "LOOK AT THE GROUND". You'll see it's not a rock after all, it's actually a walnut. Don't try and be verbose - the parser isn't as intelligent as today's gaming AI technology. You can't tell the game "Offer to help the woodcutter with his poverty issues" without getting a "I don't understand 'offer'." error, but "HELP MAN" does the trick.

Also, one or two of the puzzles were a little too complex with too few clues for a child's mind. The only clue, for example, to the gnome's name, is a completely unrelated note found in the witch's house that says "Sometimes it is wise to think backwards". However, simply writing the most likely name for a straw-to-gold spinning gnome back to front is not the answer - at least not until the EGA remake of the game was released.

Overall though, these are tiny flaws in what was and remains to be one of the greatest computer games of our time. Even today, two decades after its original release, I once in a while dust it off and play it again - even though I know the game by heart better than I know my own mother's birthday!

The Bottom Line
"Kids these days" {evilgrin} think they're "old school" if they remember finishing Doom or the original Wolfenstein. In my personal opinion, you're not even a gamer unless you've played King's Quest. In a world where most of today's games involve fragging the crap out of your friends with a multitude of high-tech weapons over a LAN or the internet and watching the blood and brain fragments fly, I'd like to think there are others like me out there who remember when good gaming involved using your mind, not your minigun, and a good game was good because of the storyline and gameplay itself, not just because it uses the latest ultra-fast 3D graphics technology, has heaps of powerful weapons and needs 2Gb of RAM and a $700 video card to play. As much as I hate to say it, but "those were the days"! =)

The Good
Everything. The gameplay was complex and new for the time of release, as were the graphics. In a time when computer games consisted of black screens with dots on them and a lot of numbers to keep up with, Kings Quest showed what a computer game could be. I, along with many, many other people, was completly engrossed in this game for months during 1984 and 1985.

The Bad
The hardest thing about Kings Quest is that when compared to todays games it appears very old and dated. This is not a fault but something to be understood. The gameplay strongly overplays this and a good run through Kings Quest will give a modern gamer an understanding of his roots.

The Bottom Line
At the time of release Kings Quest was everything that a computer game tried to be. Over the test of time the gameplay has paled, as have the technical elements; but Kings Quest is still one of the classics, as it will always be. Anyone interested in where the computer games of today come from, why Sierra is a major player in the computer game world today (despite their recent work and reputation) and why the Kings Quest series of games have sold millions and millions of units should take a look at this game.

The Good
* Multiple versions cater for early computer users

Back in the early Nineties after playing King's Quest VI, I brought the original King's Quest from 1984. This was the version that used AGIv1 and had CGA graphics. It just wouldn't run on my old 486. Somehow years later I discovered that Sierra released multiple versions of the same game, and I was able to install the fifth release which added support for EGA and Hercules, and could be installed on a hard drive rather than having to be booted up from floppy. I was able to complete the game, and slowly had a go at the sequel.

* Alternate solutions for puzzles

Another thing that I liked are the different ways you can solve puzzles. Roberta Williams, the game's creator of King's Quest, intended to make the game non-violent as possible, and this trend continued for its successors. The alternate solutions usually involve violent actions in which you lose points.

* The game reminds you of fairy tales

The solutions to some puzzles require you to think back to those fairy tales that you used to enjoy as a child, and you are expected not to stick by them. For example, instead of luring the goat to the troll so that it can ram the troll like what happens in the Billy Goat story, you can give the troll something to pay for the toll if you are willing to sacrifice some points. As a person who has already forgotten what I read as a child, solving puzzles based on these fairy tales are welcome; and you do the same thing in KQ2.

* Nice music

Although the PC Speaker is used to generate sound in the game, I enjoyed listening to Greensleeves, KQ's main theme song. Users of Tandy computers get a better rendition of the theme song. If you haven't got a Tandy and would like to hear what the theme song was like on a Tandy, you could download a copy of DOSBox and use it to emulate the machine.

I have played the Apple IIgs version and it doesn't include Greensleaves. It also uses different pieces of music and great sound effects.

The Bad
* Roberta's interpretation of Jack and the Beanstalk is wrong

Anyone who has read this story will know that Jack trades a cow for magic beans so that he would plant them in the garden to make the beanstalk grow. Instead of adding a cow to the game, Roberta makes players guess the name of a gnome. Because of this, Sierra's hint line was overloaded by people who request hints on how to get the name right.

The Bottom Line
In 1980, a small company known as Sierra On-Line started life making adventure games for the Apple II. Their first game was Mystery House, and it was a step above normal text adventures that were available at the time as the game had a combination of graphics and text. Even though the graphics were black and white, things eventually changed when IBM asked Sierra to produce an adventure game to showcase the technological capabilities of their PC. The result was King's Quest. For the first time in history, KQ introduced color graphics, and featured a central character that they could move around the screen and use that character to interact with other characters in the game, as well as the environment.

King's Quest is a game for the whole family to enjoy. It was the first game to introduce text and full-color graphics at the same time. Of course with any old Sierra adventure game, you have to enter commands at the keyboard. You have to do certain things that will most likely cause your death if you're not careful such as crossing the wooden bridge or climbing the beanstalk. That's what the save function is used for.

The game depends on you having a knowledge of popular fairy tales since you use them to complete the game. There are alternate solutions, but using these solutions means that you are sacrificing a few points. The game's theme tune is excellent, even if it is played through the PC Speaker, and the keyboard interface means that you can get away with entering anything and it won't cost you.

So in conclusion, if you are new to the KQ series and would like to play the first game, then try to hunt down one of the KQ collections in your local retro store.