Welcome to the Monday edition of the UFie Gaming Corner! Below the block, Sierra has re-released some of my favorite old games.
Discussion of any and all types of gaming are welcome here - console games, PC games, pen and paper games, board games, it's all on the table.
If you mention or link to a game that other people might like to find later, please toss it in the Online Games or Download Games diary as appropriate. (And of course, head over there periodically to check out what's new!)
Daily news links and an archive can be found in the diary, and if you want to manually browse recent Gaming Corners, this link to the UF Toolbox will allow you to do so - just use the "previous cartoon" and "next cartoon" buttons to switch days.
If you have a topic you'd like to see covered in the Gaming Corner, or an article I ought to check out, feel free to email me at Ravenlock (put the little at symbol thingy here) inbox (put the little dot symbol thingy here) com. Time permitting, this will be posted daily, but anyone who wishes to cover it on a day when I'm being slow is of course welcome to do so - just copy the TLP from the previous day. :-)
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My first computer of any kind was a Timex keyboard that my father got me when I was... 3? 4? He used to program BASIC programs onto it (it read from and wrote to a cassette player, and wrote output to the TV screen), and I would play number guessing games on it that he had written, or hangman.
My next computer was a Tandy 1000EX, with a 5.25" floppy drive and no hard drive. It was on this computer that I truly fell in love with computer gaming, and it was thanks to the games of Sierra (later "Sierra On-Line") - King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, I played them all. I played Leisure Suit Larry eventually, too, but don't tell my parents. ;-)
Sierra, of course, is defunct now as a developer. The King's Quest series ended in a rather dismal state, while the others just stopped getting sequels. Police Quest sort of branched out into the first-person SWAT series, but as far as adventure games go, Sierra stopped a long time ago.
Finally, however, Vivendi - the publisher that eventually purchased the Sierra name - has released (according to Amazon at any rate) compendium packs of their classic games. They've been saying they were going to do this for years, but apparently they're really doing it now. So if you've never played King's Quest (includes 1 through 7), Police Quest (includes 1 through 4), Space Quest (1 through 6) or Leisure Suit Larry (1, 2, 3, 5 and 6, there was no 4), now's your chance. They all claim to be WinXP-compatible and are less than $20 apiece.
Sierra was largely responsible for the PC gaming market as we know it today. They were a huge part of PC gaming history, and their games are tons of fun in addition to - for some of us - their nostalgic value. I'm really happy to see these collections finally hit the shelves. :-D |
