Korgoth of Barbaria
Cipher
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2015
- Messages
- 920
Sierra On-Line's games represented my first introduction to PC gaming, and to games as an artform, not simply as a simple distraction. I'm a member of what older people on here would call the Millenial generation; I'm 24. Prior to my exposure to Sierra, I played Sega Genesis games and SNES like everyone else, and they were fun - honestly, great fun - but, then, in Kindergarten, I was exposed to a game called King's Quest V. It, even as a child, opened my eyes to new worlds.
Games like Sonic the Hedgehog were fun and fast paced, but King's Quest offered a (for a child) deep new world, a world of memorable characters and moments which ran the gamut from goofy to spooky; I quickly became deeply enamored with the series and within the next year had gotten as presents and played all the existing games and some other non-KQ Sierra titles. In 1997, during a very hard time in my childhood, I discovered Space Quest, and that opened my mind up to amazing worlds in outer space. King's Quest and Space Quest, in essence, launched my interest in fantasy and sci-fi.
When I got the various collections of both series, I would play the other games attached to them (like Laura Bow), and watch the little video specials on them. I'd see behind the scenes footage of awesome people like Roberta Williams and Scott Murphy and even at a young age, I knew I wanted to someday work for Sierra. It seemed like an interactive Disney! I even loved KQ8 despite how different it was - it had heart.
The years passed and as I became a tween and then a teen I kind of fell out and moved on to other games, like Legacy of Kain, Baldur's Gate, Kingdom Hearts and Icewind Dale, but then in my early teens, I rediscovered Sierra's games and got back into them, via the awesome KQ remakes by AGDI.
I looked all over the much more primitive internet for signs of new Sierra games...And was disappointed to find that Sierra was a hollowed out shadow of its former self, and was planning to turn Space Quest and King's Quest into platformer titles. And then the new LSL games came out and they were truly soulless cash grabs.
As the years went by, I followed many of the fangame projects - some I loved (like IA's SQ2), some I hated (like TSL). And I spent years hoping for some kind of revival...While I watched Sierra be closed down, their headquarters shut, and then Sierra was relaunched by Vivendi with several subsidiary companies under Sierra, and it seemed like Sierra had a fighting chance to be a real, awesome company again- even if they weren't doing adventure games.
Flashforward to last year. Activision had taken over Vivendi, and Sierra was shut down for good in 2008. Then, the name was relaunched....as a creep, soulless, hipster "indie games" publisher...But, still, deluded and hanging on to a thread of hope, I defended this move and tried to accept this nuSierra as being, if not the same company, a new hope for the name.
Then the new King's Quest was announced, and I alienated a lot of people who doubted the game, and I acted like a total shill and an asshole and burned quite a few bridges. I wanted to believe, and wanted to have hope. The guys making it seemed like genuine fans, they seemed like people who really loved KQ and adventure games and I thought, the series has a fighting chance...And when it first came out, blinded by nostalgia, I ate it up.
But then, within the next month, my enthusiasm waned and I saw the game for what it was: A shallow, generic and bland fantasy modern adventure game with some KQ references thrown in. I don't think the developers intended it to be so, but I also believe they don't get what made KQ special.
The real Sierra, even on its worst days, had heart. Ken Williams was a businessman...But he was also a geeky gamer like the rest of us. Roberta was perhaps not the best writer...But she was an awesome storyteller. King's Quest 8 was a total departure from the original series...But it had heart, inspiration and if you view it as a game simply set in the KQ-verse, it's awesome. It's not shallow, it's not generic by any means, it's simply different. Even KQ7, despite it's own flaws, was an inspired game.
Looking at Sierra and its history, it's one of depression. Seeing Sierra get sold from soulless company to now being a zombie of a name propped up to con people and win over hipsters....It's a fate worse than death. It's a rape of everything the company, as run by Ken Williams, once stood for. To have it exist as an "indie publisher"...It's an insult to what was an amazing company. Many times over the years I would get into intense disagreements with people who wanted Sierra and its IPs to stay dead...But, now, seeing what's become of both, I agree. While I still crave intensely an SQ7, I know it'd never happen the way I'd like it to.
Sierra is dead; long live Sierra - and here's to new projects like Hero-U, SpaceVenture, and the great games created by wonderful Sierra successor companies like Infamous Quests and Himalaya Studios.
Games like Sonic the Hedgehog were fun and fast paced, but King's Quest offered a (for a child) deep new world, a world of memorable characters and moments which ran the gamut from goofy to spooky; I quickly became deeply enamored with the series and within the next year had gotten as presents and played all the existing games and some other non-KQ Sierra titles. In 1997, during a very hard time in my childhood, I discovered Space Quest, and that opened my mind up to amazing worlds in outer space. King's Quest and Space Quest, in essence, launched my interest in fantasy and sci-fi.
When I got the various collections of both series, I would play the other games attached to them (like Laura Bow), and watch the little video specials on them. I'd see behind the scenes footage of awesome people like Roberta Williams and Scott Murphy and even at a young age, I knew I wanted to someday work for Sierra. It seemed like an interactive Disney! I even loved KQ8 despite how different it was - it had heart.
The years passed and as I became a tween and then a teen I kind of fell out and moved on to other games, like Legacy of Kain, Baldur's Gate, Kingdom Hearts and Icewind Dale, but then in my early teens, I rediscovered Sierra's games and got back into them, via the awesome KQ remakes by AGDI.
I looked all over the much more primitive internet for signs of new Sierra games...And was disappointed to find that Sierra was a hollowed out shadow of its former self, and was planning to turn Space Quest and King's Quest into platformer titles. And then the new LSL games came out and they were truly soulless cash grabs.
As the years went by, I followed many of the fangame projects - some I loved (like IA's SQ2), some I hated (like TSL). And I spent years hoping for some kind of revival...While I watched Sierra be closed down, their headquarters shut, and then Sierra was relaunched by Vivendi with several subsidiary companies under Sierra, and it seemed like Sierra had a fighting chance to be a real, awesome company again- even if they weren't doing adventure games.
Flashforward to last year. Activision had taken over Vivendi, and Sierra was shut down for good in 2008. Then, the name was relaunched....as a creep, soulless, hipster "indie games" publisher...But, still, deluded and hanging on to a thread of hope, I defended this move and tried to accept this nuSierra as being, if not the same company, a new hope for the name.
Then the new King's Quest was announced, and I alienated a lot of people who doubted the game, and I acted like a total shill and an asshole and burned quite a few bridges. I wanted to believe, and wanted to have hope. The guys making it seemed like genuine fans, they seemed like people who really loved KQ and adventure games and I thought, the series has a fighting chance...And when it first came out, blinded by nostalgia, I ate it up.
But then, within the next month, my enthusiasm waned and I saw the game for what it was: A shallow, generic and bland fantasy modern adventure game with some KQ references thrown in. I don't think the developers intended it to be so, but I also believe they don't get what made KQ special.
The real Sierra, even on its worst days, had heart. Ken Williams was a businessman...But he was also a geeky gamer like the rest of us. Roberta was perhaps not the best writer...But she was an awesome storyteller. King's Quest 8 was a total departure from the original series...But it had heart, inspiration and if you view it as a game simply set in the KQ-verse, it's awesome. It's not shallow, it's not generic by any means, it's simply different. Even KQ7, despite it's own flaws, was an inspired game.
Looking at Sierra and its history, it's one of depression. Seeing Sierra get sold from soulless company to now being a zombie of a name propped up to con people and win over hipsters....It's a fate worse than death. It's a rape of everything the company, as run by Ken Williams, once stood for. To have it exist as an "indie publisher"...It's an insult to what was an amazing company. Many times over the years I would get into intense disagreements with people who wanted Sierra and its IPs to stay dead...But, now, seeing what's become of both, I agree. While I still crave intensely an SQ7, I know it'd never happen the way I'd like it to.
Sierra is dead; long live Sierra - and here's to new projects like Hero-U, SpaceVenture, and the great games created by wonderful Sierra successor companies like Infamous Quests and Himalaya Studios.
