Classic Sierra Collections Finally Released (September 22, 2006)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
Several long-awaited Sierra Compilations appear to have made it out of limbo. Four classic combo packs quietly appeared at Amazon.com in 2005 without any sort of announcement of official confirmation from Vivendi, now the owner of Sierra franchises. For months they looked like they might be vaporware, but then Amazon suddenly posted box arts. GameStop, Walmart and the Vivendi Store have since added listing as well. Although the exact ship dates have shifted around and we haven't yet seen any copies in stores, it does look like the games have been released to retail with units showing in stock at several websites. Each of these series were popular contempories of Wing Commander back in the day, but Space Quest is a particular favorite of many of our visitors. The Space Quest Collection released in 1997 has become a high priced item along the lines of Kilrathi Saga, so these new sets are a welcome sight. It's been thirteen years since Space Quest 5 parodied the Kilrathi, and here's looking forward to future parodies of future Wing Commander games.





​

--
Original update published on September 22, 2006
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Was there a kilrathi character in Space Quest 5? I remember Captain Kielbasa in Space Quest 6 being sort of kilrathi-like.
 
Yes, I beleive Captain Kielbasa is who they were referring to.

Here's hoping that a WC collection gets released sometime soon.

Very sad story: I asked for the Kilrathi Saga for Christmas after it came out, but my Dad didn't get around to trying to buy it until there were no more remaining copies. So, I ended up going without it. :(
 
Vinman said:
Was there a kilrathi character in Space Quest 5? I remember Captain Kielbasa in Space Quest 6 being sort of kilrathi-like.
Click to expand...


Yeah, Chris fixed it. Here's an excerpt from an interview with the game's makers that apeared in a 1995 issues of sierra's games magazine: Interaction

The "Where is" name is an obvious poke at the popular educational series. What other computer and video games do you satirize?
SM: Well, there's a pretty good send-up of the game Street Fighter 3 called "Stooge Fighter 3." The contestants are Big Mo, Larman, and Coily and they fight in a slapstick way. There's also some pretty good running gags that target the character from Wing Commander III that looks like a big cat. We put a kitty litter box in his cabin. Care to guess where you'll find the Captain's Log?
Click to expand...
bcarticles2.gif


http://www.wiw.org/~jess/scott2.html I used to have that issue way back when but threw them out.
 
Lt.Death100 said:
From what I heard it's easier just to buy the DOS versions if you just want to play them.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, most of the older collections today cost between 50 and 200 dollars (even on eBay, though you sometimes can find them cheaper); and though that may be a better investment, 20 dollars is a much more appealing number. However, beyond that these games are just the DOS versions, all Vivendi has done is thrown in DosBox, a custom front-end, and PDF's of the manuals. Leave it to another media giant to milk the classics for all they're worth (ok, so I'm a little cynical :p). The truly sad thing about these "collections" is that they don't include all the games! Space Quest 1 EGA is missing, as is the original AGI Kings Quest 1, as well as Kings Quest 8, Leisure Suit Larry 7, and most likely Leisure Suit Larry 1 EGA, and Police Quest 1 EGA (not sure about those). The only reason I can think of for that is to save space; that and some of the excluded games weren't DOS ones, so they would have needed to patch them themselves (that's probably why there is not Quest For Glory Collection being re-released) and that probably would have put them in the red on these re-releases. However, even given all that I will still be buying the Space Quest Collection since I lost my 15th Anniversary Edition years ago.
 
Also, how come the LSL collection is missing a game? (6 LSL games, 5 only on the CD. I'm presuming the missing one is LSL7, Love for Sail (the recent LSL isn't an LSL game at all - Al Lowe had zip involvement)).
 
Al Lowe promised that he would never make a Larry 4, so when he decided to make another Larry game after 3, he made it number 5, leading to the running gag of the "missing episode".

As for "only" repackaging the games, they're also adding native WinXP compatibility, something which the Win95 version doesn't have--e.g. King's Quest 5 will not run at all without DOS emulation.
 
Ijuin said:
As for "only" repackaging the games, they're also adding native WinXP compatibility, something which the Win95 version doesn't have--e.g. King's Quest 5 will not run at all without DOS emulation.
Click to expand...

http://forums.vugames.com/thread.jspa?threadID=31839&tstart=0

These games are re-releases of the originals wrapped in an emulator so they will install and run on XP systems. Vista was not able to be tested against at the time we finished the code-base...
Copy protection is consistent with the original releases, ie. code words/numbers found in the manuals... The original collection manuals are included on-disc and have been updated to be consistent with these current releases. Meaning some information is removed or changed to coincide with the boxed code. We also have an insert card calling out last-minute consumer info.
Click to expand...
 
Death said:
There was no LSL4.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but there's another one missing. They made 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, & 7. The pack only has 5 LSL games.

sq_paradox said:
Unfortunately, most of the older collections today cost between 50 and 200 dollars (even on eBay, though you sometimes can find them cheaper); and though that may be a better investment, 20 dollars is a much more appealing number.
Click to expand...

He was talking about DOS WC games, not Space Quest ones.

sq_paradox said:
Leave it to another media giant to milk the classics for all they're worth (ok, so I'm a little cynical :p).
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think comments like that are pretty disgusting. There's tons of people out there begging for rereleases like this, and it took them almost a decade to get this out. That's not milking. Now that it has been so long, a whole new generation of people can get these games and play them for cheap. It's win-win all around, even if bits and pieces are missing.
 
Of course they're disgusting, this is the same jackass from the PSP thread -- he's a common troll. Get rid of him.
 
In this case he does have a point though... throwing in a free opensource dos emulator (instead of updating to WinXP compatibility, like EA would probably do) is a really sleezy way to make a collection. I've heard grumbles on other forums too.
 
Kilrathi Saga is something of an oddity, in terms of money/effort spent -- EA later released an Ultima collection that was just all the DOS versions on a CD.

... and besides, WC1 and 2 run *much better* if they're the original releases emulated under DOSBox than they do as edited Win9x ports. KS is neat, but pointless today.
 
Dyret said:
Not really. It had some upgraded sound and music, which makes it interesting to play through anyway.
Click to expand...

No offense to ol George Oldziey but parts of KS felt very slap-dash, especially the music. While performed on an updated sound pallette, it didn't really bring anything new to the game.

Not to mention - its almost a bad thing updating the music. Everyone remembers the MIDI music from TIE Fighter - but Lucasarts stuck the original John Williams music into the Win9x CD-ROMS. This is a similar affair.
 
It's odd that when a movie or a TV show changes its music for legal reasons, everyone is offended -- but when Kilrathi Saga does it, hooray! (And they even cut out the one thing that was supposed to be cool about the new music, that you'd g et an audio CD with the game...)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top