Customer Reviews

King's Quest Collection

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I normally don't post reviews but for some reason, a lot of reviewers are giving this collection a one-star based on some fan-based game and are angry at the company. I thought I'd chime in with an, I guess, less biased view.

The Kings Quest series was basically the worlds first adventure game. The beginning by today's standards has a simple story. You're a knight, find three treasures. But in the telling lies some of the most creative ideas ever found in any game. Period. All the games are based on fairy tales or mythologies... the first game has a giant in the clouds, an endless stair, the witch in a gingerbread house, a troll under the bridge, and the land of the leprechauns just to name a few. Eventually you're running fromt the abonimable snow man, brewing a storm to slay a dragon and even descending into the minotaur's labrynth.

Gameplay wise, the four games are text driven, but the fifth on out uses an icon "point and click" system which makes things much easier for non-typers like me. All of the games are almost entirely nonlinear. Go anywhere, do anything at any time provided you have the proper equiptment. Now, its the norm, but at the time, it was revolutionary.

For the negatives... There are a few unalterable design flaws about the first few games. For example, in KQ2 there is a bridge that can only be crossed 7 times, and you HAVE to cross it seven times. If you cross it an extra time at any point, and have it saved... prepare to replay the first half of the game. A warning for those who hate typing though, KQ3 in particular has a very complex spell casting system where you have to type very precisely, very quickly at times. But really all these complaints are very minor and nothing an online FAQ won't help with.

Check the series out, you won't regret it.

-B-

Fans of the classic King's Quest series have been clamoring for a re-release compatible on today's computers for a long time. Enter Sierra (Vivendi), who's ears clearly perked at the prospect of cashing in on a zero-effort package that their loyal fans would eat up anyway.

There's not a lot of good I can say for this package, except that it's exactly what you expected, and little else. You get King's Quest 1-7, complete with a launcher that allows you to play these ancient gems in Windows XP, and you won't have to insert their respective CDs again. That's all well and good.

What you don't get is a manual, which would have been nice seeing as they didn't bother to take the copy protection out of King's Quest IV. You instead have to sift through PDF copies of all the games' literature.

Seeing as this is a relatively new release, it's ironic that it's just now Windows XP compatible, just as Vista is becoming the standard. To get it to work on XP, they used amateur 3rd-party software, which you can get for free on the internet. I experienced some annoying speech stuttering with King's Quest 5-7. If you've got the games, don't buy them again expecting something different.

For a 'compilation,' it's sorely lacking one major thing: the last game in the series. Many series vets probably don't care, but there's really no other context Vivendi could still rightfully sell this game in today, and many fans still would have been appreciative. Also, the original King's Quest has been completely replaced by the 1990 remake -- not a phenomenal loss, but far from the 'complete series.'

There's no jewel case or liner notes or anything; just two cds in paper sleeves with a little piece of paper with installation instructions, made even more ironic by the fact that the install program doesn't work and you'll have to open the setup manually.

Instead of forking over 20 bucks with shipping, consider some alternatives: the previous edition, King's Quest: Collection 2, although hard to come by, is a fantastic product, featuring KQ 1-7, Laura Bow 1 & 2, Mixed Up Mother Goose, the old apple games that led up to KQ, including Mystery House, some trivia and arcade games, and some other nice bonus features.

If you're looking to breathe new life into the series, play through AGD Interactive's phenomenal remakes of King's Quest 1 & 2, as well as Infamous Adventures' similarly great remake of King's Quest 3, and wait until the fan-made KQIX is released. It's clear that their development have way more reverence for this classic series than Sierra does.

I've been counting down until I could get this release and couldn't wait to play all these great games again. When I got it and started playing, it was fun but the disappointment kept mounting. Little things like no manuals (you have open a file and/or print them yourself... not a big deal in itself, but come on Vivendi, quit being so cheap) and no case for the CDs (you just get twopaper sleeves) make the package look incredibly cheap and low quality. Yes, these are computer games from the 80s and early 90s, but this package could have been put together better.

The graphics are the same as the originals, so I didn't expect any "update" there. I completed KQ6 and 1 with no problems, but KQ5 is annoying because you can't go back to text (or at least, I haven't figured out how). The "music" overpowers what the characters are saying. Any of the problems you had with the previous games, such as difficult maneuvering, remain the same, which is to be expected.

Overall I guess my disappointment comes from the fact that Vivendi COULD have made a really nice package with this, added some extras, beefed it up, included more information, stuff like that. Especially with how long it took to get this going. How many times was the release date pushed back?? But no, it's a bare minimim cheapo production. I know it's only $20, but still... could have been a lot nicer.

Still a must for any KQ fan and tons of fun to play, but I am ultimately disappointed with this product.

I am a huge fan of this series. When I found out they were releasing all the games for XP I was extremely happy. However, King's Quest 7 has a problem in chapter 5 with the firecracker exploding when it is picked up causing an endless loop and forcing you to restart the entire game. This was only a problem on XP with the previous game and I expected it to be fixed on this release. However, when I got to that point in the game I picked up the firecracker AND IT EXPLODED RIGHT AWAY. I could not believe this. The whole point of this release was to port the games to XP and they didn't even do that properly. This was a known problem and they didn't even fix it. This makes me extremely catious of buying anything from Vivendi in the future.

KQ2 through KQ6 are nearly exact replicas of the originals, which is what I was looking for. KQ1, sadly, is the VGA remake. I was looking forward to hearing the original sounds from the pc junior era, i.e., the rushing rivers and the fake bird sounds. That was very disappointing for me (not to mention, graphically, the original was more heartfelt than the vga remake by a long shot). I have searched far and wide for a true version online and none of them ever have the origial music. Damn.

KQVII was among my favorites in the series. I think it just hit me at the right moment in my life. Anyway, The music on the very first stage is what did it for me. There was this amazing organ with a horn (all synth of course) playing intermittently. (It reminds me of Tori Amos's Playboy Mommy at the beginning) Well, it's not there anymore. Whoever choose the MIDI sounds for the remake..., well they should have found someone else.

Otherwise everything works fine. It's just that my two favorites in the series are not originals and I am beginning to think they never will be again.

Anyway, for those of you who were "kind of" into KQ like your best friend had it and you sort of remember it, then it will probably be fun. However if your memories are stronger of the game than your own first kiss, than buy it but beware. It will be a sad initial shock.

I played the first three King's Quest games when the first came out in the '80s. So, to be able to play them again, plus four new adventures that I had never played before is great.

Had no problems installing the games. I've tested each one and they all work fine. Of course, the first games have the more basic graphics, but, to me that just gives them charm. Anyway, the original King's Quest game looks better to me, because when I played it over 20 years ago, I had CGA 4-color graphics.

Just a note for the reviewer below - Dawn M. Christensen. There seems to be some confusion about the copy protection in the game. Contrary to her review, the game documentation for KKIV DOES give you everything you need to enter the correct word and play the game. There is a table at the end of the doc that gives you the page number, paragraph number, word number and the actual word that corresponds to those. So, if you need the "3rd word on the second paragraph of the of the 7th page of Kings Quest 4 manual", you simply look for the line in the table that says --

7 2pp 3w SOLITUDE

Type in 'SOLITUDE' and off you go.

Also, once you've installed the games, you can put the discs away as you don't need them to play the games. Nice.

The advertising for this collection led me to believe I would be getting these 7 games in their original formats... but I was disappointed to find not the original version of KQ1, but the SCI version released in 1990. KQ6 has voice commentary instead of text, but you can switch back to text if you like--I haven't found any such option for KQ5, so it looks like you're stuck with the voice (and no supplemental text, either, so it gets annoying fast). I haven't had a look at KQ4 yet but everything else seems to be the same. I'll be glad to play these games without having to wrestle with our old Tandy, but I wish they didn't get messed with. Especially disappointed with there being no text option for KQ5.

The KQ series continues to represent the best of gaming on many levels. Modern game companies have, for whatever reason, turned away from this particular genre in favor of hack-and-slash action games. There is much here for avid gamers of all ages, however. In spite of what continues to dominate the current video game market, a large fan base still prefers these sorts of games, as evidenced by their loyal following. Older versions of single episodes of KQ sell for outrageous sums on internet marketplaces, and are not always compatible with modern machines. It's wonderful to see the return of this series in a format compatible with newer computers, so that a new generation of gamers may discover and enjoy these classics. If you enjoy games with believable heroes, inventive and challenging puzzles, captivating story-lines, unexpected plot twists, complex character interaction, beautiful music, high re-playability, and tremendous historic value in the gaming world, that are visually pleasing, then this is one compilation you won't want to pass up.

I still have fond memories from the past of the "quest" set of games. Police, Kings, Space...all were gems. There was nothing quite like wandering around for hours and finally finding the solution to that one elusive puzzle. Or finding an object -- a shovel, cupid's bow, or a smelly flower -- and envisioning just what zany way it would be used.

The Kings Quest series adds on a charming tie-in with popular fairy tales and mythology that we are all familiar with. Help the seven dwarves, defeat the famed Minotaur, or melt the wicked witch.

All of it adds up to a charming package of games that any nostalgic gamer will be pleased to own.

Now the bad... The package itself is hurridly put together. It's a couple of CDs in box. The game guides are not even printed out for you. Now this would not be too big of a deal except that the old Sierrra games had a habit of employing copy protection by asking you to answer something out of the manual. So you either print it out yourself, or alt-tab back to the pdf to get the needed information. On top of that, XP compatibility simply means that they install and run DOS-Box underneath the game. So little work was done to actually ensure compatibility. It's more a repackaging of the games. A couple extra features would have been nice.

Also, I like many wish that Vivendi had included the original version of Kings Quest 1.

All told, however, the thrill of seeing that Sierra logo pop up and the familiar tunes of a classic from my past was more than enough for me to overlook the negatives.

My gripe is about KQ6. One customer said that there were no differences between the cd and disk versions. This information is false. At the time of its origional release, I was fortunate to have a high end computer (for its time) that was able to run the Windows CD version of KQ6 which had much better graphics and Character Illustrations. I was beyond upset when I found out that this was nothing but the DOS version. I bought this to play the windows version that to my knowlage does not work in any way on any OS past win95 (maybe 98). Those who have played and have been waiting to play the Windows CD version will be very upset.