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GOG.com sale highlights 30 games from the past 30 years
A new promotion at GOG is bringing 30 games from the past 30 years into the spotlight. A rotating carousel of discounted games will be offered, one at a time – as more people purchase the highlighted deal, it gets more time as a featured game. GOG users can also vote to cut or add a second to each deal's promotion time. Discounts can reach as high as 90% and sale prices can go as low as $0.59. Before this post was published, we saw a bundle of the first three Space Quest games offered up for $2.99. The sale started with Zork Anthology, a six-game collection of the classic text-adventure series, for $1.79. Once GOG has gone through all 30 deals, the sale will end. If you're interested in checking out what's available, point your browser over to GOG.com and get comfortable. There's no telling how long each game will be featured. Image: GOG
Activision PC games on sale on GOG.com this weekend
GOG.com is holding a sizable sale on Activision properties this weekend. While the official number of discounted games is 32, the sale features a number of multi-game packs in series like Quest for Glory, King's Quest, Police Quest and Space Quest for $3.99 each, bringing the grand total of games included in the sale to 55. Other deals for the weekend include Phantasmagoria ($3.99) and Phantasmagoria 2 ($2.39), the three games in the Gabriel Knight trilogy for $2.39 each as well as Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura for $2.39. The entire sale comes to $97.28, which the digital retailer says can save players $146.60 on all 55 games. GOG.com's sale is good until Tuesday, November 12.
Space (and other) Quests half off on GOG this weekend
If you grew up on the LucasArts side of the adventure game turf wars, you missed out on some really wonderful Sierra stuff -- specifically, the Space Quest series; a consistently funny, wonderfully designed set of sci-fi adventure games.GOG just happens to have them on sale this weekend for 50% off, so you can get the entire series for ten bucks. Other Sierra adventure game packs are marked down too, including King's Quest and Police Quest. Those are fine, but they lack a certain something. There are no pet facehuggers, for example.
Space Quest and other Sierra collections on sale at GOG
Your weekend itinerary has just been officially cleared by Good Old Games. Your new task? Buy and complete all six of Sierra's delightful Space Quest games. Each pack of three is on sale for $6.99, 30% off the usual price. You can also get King's Quest or Police Quest collections for the same price, but we suggest going through those only after you've experienced the epic space opera of interstellar janitor Roger Wilco, full of thrilling action, spacefaring adventure, time travel, cowardly hiding, and floor waxing.
Police Quest: Swat 1 and 2 added to GOG, pie-slicing imminent
We bet that your household in the mid-'90s resembled our household in the mid-'90s -- filled with concerned adults, watching their children periodically and meticulously sweeping through rooms, communicating through stern hand gestures and occasional orders to "slice the pie." Then again, maybe Police Quest: SWAT and its sequel didn't penetrate the walls and minds of your family as potently as it did ours, which would be a sad, sad fate indeed. You can rectify your oversight (or relive those precious childhood memories) by grabbing Police Quest SWAT 1 and 2 on GOG, available now for $9.99. The latter half of the pair is actually a pretty deep tactical strategy title -- but the original, a pseudo-FMV adventure game, is the one you'd be incredibly foolhardy to miss. (Here's a protip: You're not supposed to shoot, like, anyone. Why do you carry around a substantial amount of guns and ammo? It is a mystery.)
Adventure game portal Sarien back with Activision's approval
In a lengthy post on the personal blog of Martin Kool, proprietor of the recently cease-and-desisted Sierra adventure game portal Sarien.net, the lengthy history of the site's development was recounted. We assumed said history would end with the site's closure earlier this week -- but luckily, it looks like a new chapter is set to unfold, as Activision has given Sarien approval to continue running, albeit in a limited fashion. Kool explained, "Activision proposed to officially authorize Sarien.net to publish the first game of any series in its multiplayer HTML5 form." The portal will include a link from each of these free-to-play first chapters to the series' full collections on Steam. The publisher also demanded that the iPad versions of the titles be removed, on the off chance that they ever decide to drop their own adventure game Apps. Seems like a pretty reasonable response from Activision -- especially when compared to most publishers' policy of "Hey, that's ours, cut that out right away, young man."
GOG brings Police Quest series in for questioning
Rookie, you don't know how easy you've got it. These days, it's all polygons and Dolby 13.1 surround explosions, but in my day we had to rely on real police work. We'd comb the streets looking for clues just a few pixels wide and clicking on so many dead ends that the blisters on our index fingers had blisters. We'd question the locals and have to read their answers. That's right, rook: Read. And if we got stuck in a case, there were no GameFAQs to fall back on. Hell, we didn't know what a GameFAQ was -- we called a 900 number. And we were grateful to have it. You know what? Forget about the Schloienger case. No, you've got some homework tonight. I hear Good Old Games just added Police Quest 1-4 to its service for $10. Go home, play them all, and see if you don't come back tomorrow with just a bit more respect for your elders. And rook ... when you tell me what you think of them, could you do it in a speech bubble? You know, for old time's sake.
Sierra On-Line games playable on iPad via web app (for now)
It's almost certainly a matter of time before the subject of this post is struck down with an Activision-branded cease and desist, so listen up: Using a bit of sorcery, Sarien.net has made its catalog of Sierra On-Line adventure games (including hits like Space Quest, King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry) playable on the iPad. To access the games, just visit Sarien's website, pick your game and bookmark it. It's alarmingly easy. Again, we can't imagine Activision smiles upon any of its IPs being distributed so freely and simply, so the games probably won't be available for long. We suggest you get to perp-busting/galaxy-saving/womanizing at your earliest convenience.
Sierra On-Line games hit iPad via web app, those old enough to remember them rejoice
You may or may not be old enough to remember Sierra On-Line, makers of such fine games as Leisure Suit Larry, the King's Quest, and Police Quest, but none of that matters anymore. Thanks to the folks over at Sarien, you now have access to these glorious titles via your iPad's web browser. The entire catalog has been ported over, and the games which were previously available via the web only are now there on your Apple tablet! The whole shebang is now hosted on Amazon's content distribution network, and the games have been extensively tweaked for that multitouch interface. Sarien hasn't apparently been issued a cease and desist from Activision -- owners of the catalog -- yet, so get these free gems of yesteryear while you can.
Old Sierra On-Line games now available on iPad via the Web
Get ready to lose your weekend. As we reported it would a while back, Sarien.net is now offering up a whole slew of old Sierra On-Line games, playable through your iPad's web browser for free. The first three King's Quest games, the first two Police Quest games, and even a Leisure Suit Larry title are all online and available. Sarien.net even allows for multiplayer within these old games, so you might see some other players in there while you're wandering around trying to solve puzzles. For those of us who grew up or cut our gaming teeth on these Sierra titles, this is kind of a goldmine. Sarien, a.k.a. Martin Kool, hasn't received a cease-and-desist from Activision yet, but he has received some kudos from some of the original games' creators. Hopefully that will be enough to keep Activision's legal team at bay, at least until they get these games on the iPad officially. Don't let that stop you from enjoying these games while they're up and available to play -- I just gave King's Quest another shot, and it's weird to go back and play a game where actual death is around every corner. [via TouchArcade]
Daryl Gates, ex-police chief and Police Quest: SWAT designer, dies at 83
According to Reuters, former Los Angeles chief of police Daryl Gates passed away at his home on Friday. Though Gates is probably best known for being forced out of his job as chief due to his handling of the Rodney King beating and ensuing riots in 1992, we at Joystiq remember him as the designer of Police Quest: SWAT, the fifth game in the Sierra series. (Gates also contributed to the previous game, Police Quest: Open Season). Okay, okay, so the FMV relic isn't particularly beloved, but Gates was also responsible for establishing the very first SWAT team -- a concept the video game industry has gotten so much mileage out of, we figured Gates was at least owed a moment of recognition. He was 83 years old.
Play classic Sierra adventures for free -- with multiplayer
Hopefully this gets to you before the inevitable cease-and-desist: right now, a site called Sarien (named after the antagonists in the original Space Quest) is offering a selection of vintage Sierra adventure games, playable right in your browser. If you've never known Leisure Suit Larry to be anything but a terrible minigame collection, you can check out the real game here, along with Police Quest, The Black Cauldron, and the first two wonderful Space Quest games.As if a free, simple interface for enjoying these games weren't enough, Sarien adds a bizarre twist: (optional) multiplayer. When you go into a game, you'll be surrounded by identical avatars, all playing their own adventures. You can watch them explore and type commands (that's right, typing), or you can provide tips to your fellow players. It can be pretty disorienting to adventure game fans (and creators) but once you get used to the crowd, it's an interesting variation on these old games.[Via What They Play, Offworld]
Activision won't publish Sierra legacy titles
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Activision_won_t_publish_Sierra_legacy_titles'; When we heard that Sierra was divesting itself of much of Vivendi/Sierra's portfolio post-merger, most of us on staff were worried about what it meant for interesting upcoming titles like Brutal Legend or Ghostbusters. But a few of us (and a few of you, we'd imagine) hear the word "Sierra" and still think Quest for Glory, King's Quest and all the other great Sierra legacy franchises, despite most of them being dormant for more than a decade.Here's the word, straight from Activision: "We are retaining only those franchises that are a strong fit with our long-term strategy including Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age and Spyro, as well as Prototype and a second game that has not yet been announced. We will not publish any other titles that previously were part of the Vivendi Games portfolio and we are currently reviewing our options regarding those titles."According to the PR-Decode-A-Tron 3000, that means you shouldn't expect to see a next-gen Space Quest any time soon, but we'd bet if we all put the money in our couch cushions together we could buy the whole lot. What do you say?
Classic Sierra adventure games re-released
Point and click adventure gamers rejoice! If you've been struggling to (legally) complete your collection of Sierra classics, Vivendi Universal is finally ready to give you just such a chance. They are releasing "compilations" of King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry, available March 30th through Amazon, Target, and who knows where else.There is almost no other information about the compilations, except that they run on Windows XP. Have they been ported or are they running through an emulation layer like Sarien? Does the compilation include all the games in the respective series? At $20 each, this could be a great way to build that collection. Then they'll just need to release Gabriel Knight and Quest for Glory... then maybe LucasArts will get in on it...[Via digg]Read - King's Quest CompilationRead - Space Quest CompilationRead - Police Quest CompilationRead - Leisure Suit Larry Compilation
