Showing posts with label sierra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sierra. Show all posts

Hoyle Card Games 2004 Review

Hoyle Card Games 2004
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
Hoyle Card Games 20004 is OK and I got around its "Insert CD" while playing by using Alcohol 120% (version 1.4.8) putting it in a virtual drive. Now my only real beef with it, is you cant change the background when playing Crazy Eights. The Hoyle Bucks
(I used a cheat) and Facemaker is neat. If you dont like having
to put a CD in all the time, get Hoyle Card games 2003-its
basically the same game, just without the "insert CD". Odd though, I still play a 1996 Hoyle Cards version, which except for a minimum 4 players in every game, is still far superior
to the 2000 generations, IMO.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Hoyle Card Games 2004



Buy Now

Click here for more information about Hoyle Card Games 2004

Read More...

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned Review

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
This is truly the next step in interactive fiction. While you may think of computer games as just kids stuff, "Gabriel Knight - Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned" will change your mind. Imagine stepping into your favorite mystery novel, and becoming one of the characters. You get to walk around, explore, question suspects, solve puzzles, uncover secrets... This game has everything: mystery, romance, history, great dialogue, beautiful European scenery. If you've never played a computer game before, make this your first! And if you are already a gamer, this game is like nothing you've ever played before. It brings adventure gaming to a new level.
P.S. There are two other games in this series, which give great background to this story. You don't need to play them first, but you can find them both in the title "Gabriel Knight Mysteries: Limited Edition".

Click Here to see more reviews about: Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned

You set out to solve it...Product InformationThe best-selling adventure series is back! Blood of theSacred Blood of the Damned is Jane Jensen's third Gabriel Knight mystery.Based on a real-life enigma GK3 puts you high in the mountains of Francein the unassuming town of Rennes-le- Chateau.The first demand for a Gabriel Knight 3 arrived by e-mail exactly four daysafter the release of Gabriel Knight 2. It was soon followed by hundreds morefrom fans and game reviewers around the world. When The Beast Within won thelion's share of 1996 game awards the future of the series was assured. Nowfinally designer Jane Jensen has unveiled the latest mystery to puzzle herintrepid shadow hunter...We do hope you're not afraid of a little intrigue?Blood of the Sacred Blood of the Damned is set in a small village and valleyin rural Europe. The village Rennes-le-Chateau is a real village and is thelocation of a Great Enigma -- either that or a Great Scam depending on yourlevel of beliefThe case begins when Gabriel is invited for a weekend at the home of acurrently dethroned royal scion. Grace is delighted assuming that at lastthey're moving into the kinds of circles a family like the Ritters ought tohobnob with. But it turns out that the 'Prince's' motivation for invitingGabriel was not a social one. He has a new infant son and is concerned for hissafety because the Prince's family has been plagued for generations by what seemto be a secretive sect of vampires.It turns out the Prince was right to be afraid. The very first night Gabrielwatches guard over his infant son the boy is kidnapped. Gabriel gives chase andwinds up at the train station. He follows the kidnappers to Rennes-le-Chateaubut quickly loses their trail.Gabriel will come to realize that the mystery that surrounds the Prince'sfamily and the mystery of this ancient little town are not only connected butwill involve both very real current political agendas and ancient secrets. Onceat the town Gabriel discove

Buy NowGet 57% OFF

Click here for more information about Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned

Read More...

Leisure Suit Larry Collection Review

Leisure Suit Larry Collection
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
The Leisure Suit Larry games are some of the best games that came out in the late 80s and early 90s, so a collection that contains all of them is certainly welcome. However, this is not that collection.
As the box says, there are only 5 games in the collection: 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. Take note: they inexplicably only included the Larry 1 remake here, not the original Leisure Suit Larry 1. That's fine if you just care about being able to play a version of Larry 1 but for a box that seems to want to emphasize its nostalgic value, to not include the original in all its blocky-graphics glory is inexcusable. The omission is even more glaring because they manual contains a section devoted to the original AGI version of the game.
The box also lacks Leisure Suit Larry 7, which unlike the more recent (and poor) Magna Cum Laude was one of Al Lowe's originals and should have been included, especially since an earlier Larry collection released by Sierra (before the soul was sucked out of the company) DID contain that game. I was especially annoyed that Larry 7 was not included, since it's the only Larry game I've never played. There was apparently also a version of Larry 6 with voice acting that didn't make it into this box. Again, inexcusable.
As another reviewer mentioned, they spared every expense on packaging - the disc comes in a white sleeve with no manual. Actually, it comes with a sheet of paper asking you to print the manual yourself, because you'll need it for the copy protection, which was annoyingly left enabled. They also left the age verification questions in there, which would have been fine if they weren't so period specific. There are ways around them (e.g., Ctrl+Alt+X in Larry 1) but as far as I can tell they weren't documented.
I do have a few positive things to say about the collection. It's nice to see an affordably-priced collection of these games available again, since the older collections are going for $100+ on Amazon. The games also come with a nice, easy installer and are set up to work without any extra effort on the part of the player. There's very little reason for a computer-savvy player who already owns the games to buy this collection, since it just uses DOSBox to make the games work, which is available online for free. But for anyone who is not so computer-savvy, the collection requires very little effort to get set up, which is nice considering that it tends to take some effort to make these games work on modern PCs.
All in all, the games in this collection are great, but the collection itself is a little disappointing, since it actually contains less than previous Larry collections did.
(If you are one of the [relatively few] who are not running Windows XP with an administrator account, see my technical footnote in the comments for this review).

Click Here to see more reviews about: Leisure Suit Larry Collection



Buy NowGet 49% OFF

Click here for more information about Leisure Suit Larry Collection

Read More...

Space Quest Collection Review

Space Quest Collection
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
I bought a couple of these re-release sets over the years trying to make them work on newer computers. Vivendi finally took some time here to polish up these games and get them working on modern hardware. I have tested and played through the intro to each of these games and did some basic gameplay.
Vivendi has licensed a program called DosBox to act as middleware between DOS emulation and Windows XP. This means the games finally run properly on new computers. The sound is properly redirected through sound cards under Windows. Even the beeps and bleeps of the PC speaker sound from Space Quest II come through on my Sound Blaster Audigy 2. I had not been able to play the sound for Space Quest III since I sold my old 486 about 8 years ago.
The games also play at the proper speed. No longer does the character move at light-speed regardless of the setting you make in the game. The games all seem to be playable and enjoyable. Included in the set is the VGA remake of Space Quest I, the talking CD-ROM version of Space Quest IV, and the CD-ROM version of Space Quest VI. It might have been nice to see the other versions of those games included, but the quality of what has been included here is first rate. There is also a manual included in PDF format from one of the earlier releases of the anthology.
Thank you Vivendi for resurrecting some of my favorite adventure games from my childhood and for taking the time to make a polished interface to make them work properly!! I hope the rest of the Sierra games will be released soon. You certainly can't beat the price for these at all!
I also bought the King's Quest Compilation and I expect it to be just as great based on my impressions of the Space Quest Compilation.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Space Quest Collection



Buy NowGet 26% OFF

Click here for more information about Space Quest Collection

Read More...

Police Quest Collection Review

Police Quest Collection
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
I love PQ1-Police Quest: Open Season. After Open Season it got bad. Daryl Gates's Open Season was eary and very tough, I needed the hint book. The only problem I have with this compilation is PQ1. I hated the VGA version (remake) and hoped both EGA and VGA were on the cd's. Unfortunatly EGA was left out. Similar to Leisure Suit Larry 1. I was very disapointed with both remakes of PQ1 and Leisure Suit Larry 1.
Police Quest 1 dealt with the Death Angel Jesse Baines. You are Sonny Bonds regular police officer patrolling the streets until you get promoted to detective and try to track down the death angel. The ending was great and one of a kind. The hotel was the final (would of been the final meeting with Baines) part of the game. After you play poker for alittle while, you recognize Baines across from you and when you go back up to his hotel suite LOOK OUT!. Police Quest 2 had a different take on PQ1. You are thrown once again into the Death Angels clutches when Baines escapes jail and swore his revenge on Sonny Bonds, The classic writing to issue a command was great. The ending was terrific where you had to difuse a bomb as well as meet Baines again in a different city. PQ3 was also oe of my favorites. The graphics were much improved and you again were Sonny Bonds but your true love Marie (who you met in PQ1 but Sonny knew her before that) was stabbed by a visious gang (part of an occult). From patrolling the streets to becoming detective, Sonny is once again seeking all the answers and trying to stay calm and hope Marie recoperates after getting stabbed and left in critical condition. PQ 4 Open Season takes you out of Lytton as well as Sonny Bonds's shoes and into a detective who works in Los Angeles. This one is very ear, gorry (back in those times), and took you to different places. Once the PQ series switched to SWAt it was terrible, Jim Walls, please come back! If Police Quest was resurrected now the graphics and gameplay would be amazing. Imagine sitting on the highway with a radar gun pulling over people, respondonding to a bank robbery ect...

Click Here to see more reviews about: Police Quest Collection



Buy NowGet 56% OFF

Click here for more information about Police Quest Collection

Read More...

King's Quest Collection Review

King's Quest Collection
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
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-

Click Here to see more reviews about: King's Quest Collection



Buy NowGet 55% OFF

Click here for more information about King's Quest Collection

Read More...