Love these reviews. I started reading your classic rock reviews on Only Solitaire when I was 12 years old (I'm 38 now). Two humble requests from a longtime reader:
1) Would you share how you're playing these games? Are they all available on Steam or do you have an older computer system for gaming?
2) Any chance you would be able to review the Quest for Glory series (especially the first game)? It's another Sierra franchise I assume you are familiar with. "So You Want To Be A Hero" is one of my all-time favorites.
Hi Jason, always pleasing to hear from those who share both of my passions. To answer your questions:
1) I actually have my old copies of many of these games from long ago, but yes, I think they are all easily available if not on Steam, then certainly on GOG.com (GoodOldGames). It's only possible to play them through emulators like DOSBox or ScummVM these days, but I think that they come bundled with these anyway, and it's pretty easy stuff. (Much easier than it used to be in the days of Windows XP, when old DOS games became unplayable and easy-to-use emulators did not exist yet).
2) I'm sort of saving the best for last - Quest for Glory is my absolute favorite Sierra series after Gabriel Knight, and I want to savor them slowly. I'll probably refresh the Conquests (Camelot / Longbow) series first, but who knows.
Great breakdown on the game setup, thanks George! I haven't done much PC gaming but I remember downloading GOG a while back (I think for Sim City?), glad to know these are on that platform.
And I will patiently await your Quest for Glory review! I only ever played the first one in my youth, so it might inspire me to give the rest of the series a spin.
P.S. Apropos of nothing, I completely agree with you that Too Old To Rock n' Roll is an elite and underrated Jethro Tull album. Hopefully you will forgive me for slightly cross-pollinating subjects on the blogs :-)
How cool is this to find George here on Substack…and then realize he is also a fellow adventure game enthusiast. I first learned about you from Mark Prindle’s site many moons ago, and enjoyed your reviews. Looks like I’m going to get to continue to enjoy them.
RE: PQ 4. I played this in 1998 or 1999 and haven’t played it since. Your review echoes my recollection: it was pretty fun and followed the Police Quest format before going off the rails at the end. I remember my mom hearing the Nazi character drop an F-bomb, which raised an eyebrow, but I was 17 or 18 at the time so she didn’t make me turn it off (though I did apologize). It’s a shame because as a Police Quest game, it did what Police Quest games are supposed to do…and did it better than PQ 3.
I appreciate your nuanced look at the game’s “problematic” elements, and I’m glad you chide the Digital Antiquarian. He tends to pepper his write-ups with his own political views which just makes the blog more about HIM than what he’s reviewing. And with regards to this particular game, maybe LA WAS a crime-infested shithole at the time this game was developed and released? Maybe it actually is true to life in a way that a guy who lives in Denmark can’t understand?
Looking forward I to digging deeper through your archives. Take care George.
Thanks Alexander! (sorry for replying so late, for some reason Substack does not notify me of new comments and I only found this one today accidentally).
To be fair, I did not live in crime-infested LA in the 1990s either, though I did live in 1990s Moscow which was most certainly more crime-infested than Denmark back then (and fairly comparable to LA in some ways, though obviously quite culturally different in others). Also to be fair, I like Jimmy's serious approach to researching all his topics and all the background information he supplies - but when it comes to actually evaluating the product, I feel like our approaches are extremely different indeed.
I think I actually crossed paths with your blog a couple of times in the past when looking up things - great job, very exhaustive! I'll be sure to give it another look when writing further reviews.
Maybe I was too harsh to Jimmy. He does do a lot of research, which is always nice. But let's just say I'm much more a fan of your reviewing style than his.
Love these reviews. I started reading your classic rock reviews on Only Solitaire when I was 12 years old (I'm 38 now). Two humble requests from a longtime reader:
1) Would you share how you're playing these games? Are they all available on Steam or do you have an older computer system for gaming?
2) Any chance you would be able to review the Quest for Glory series (especially the first game)? It's another Sierra franchise I assume you are familiar with. "So You Want To Be A Hero" is one of my all-time favorites.
Thanks for all of the great content!
Hi Jason, always pleasing to hear from those who share both of my passions. To answer your questions:
1) I actually have my old copies of many of these games from long ago, but yes, I think they are all easily available if not on Steam, then certainly on GOG.com (GoodOldGames). It's only possible to play them through emulators like DOSBox or ScummVM these days, but I think that they come bundled with these anyway, and it's pretty easy stuff. (Much easier than it used to be in the days of Windows XP, when old DOS games became unplayable and easy-to-use emulators did not exist yet).
2) I'm sort of saving the best for last - Quest for Glory is my absolute favorite Sierra series after Gabriel Knight, and I want to savor them slowly. I'll probably refresh the Conquests (Camelot / Longbow) series first, but who knows.
Great breakdown on the game setup, thanks George! I haven't done much PC gaming but I remember downloading GOG a while back (I think for Sim City?), glad to know these are on that platform.
And I will patiently await your Quest for Glory review! I only ever played the first one in my youth, so it might inspire me to give the rest of the series a spin.
P.S. Apropos of nothing, I completely agree with you that Too Old To Rock n' Roll is an elite and underrated Jethro Tull album. Hopefully you will forgive me for slightly cross-pollinating subjects on the blogs :-)
How cool is this to find George here on Substack…and then realize he is also a fellow adventure game enthusiast. I first learned about you from Mark Prindle’s site many moons ago, and enjoyed your reviews. Looks like I’m going to get to continue to enjoy them.
RE: PQ 4. I played this in 1998 or 1999 and haven’t played it since. Your review echoes my recollection: it was pretty fun and followed the Police Quest format before going off the rails at the end. I remember my mom hearing the Nazi character drop an F-bomb, which raised an eyebrow, but I was 17 or 18 at the time so she didn’t make me turn it off (though I did apologize). It’s a shame because as a Police Quest game, it did what Police Quest games are supposed to do…and did it better than PQ 3.
I appreciate your nuanced look at the game’s “problematic” elements, and I’m glad you chide the Digital Antiquarian. He tends to pepper his write-ups with his own political views which just makes the blog more about HIM than what he’s reviewing. And with regards to this particular game, maybe LA WAS a crime-infested shithole at the time this game was developed and released? Maybe it actually is true to life in a way that a guy who lives in Denmark can’t understand?
Looking forward I to digging deeper through your archives. Take care George.
Thanks Alexander! (sorry for replying so late, for some reason Substack does not notify me of new comments and I only found this one today accidentally).
To be fair, I did not live in crime-infested LA in the 1990s either, though I did live in 1990s Moscow which was most certainly more crime-infested than Denmark back then (and fairly comparable to LA in some ways, though obviously quite culturally different in others). Also to be fair, I like Jimmy's serious approach to researching all his topics and all the background information he supplies - but when it comes to actually evaluating the product, I feel like our approaches are extremely different indeed.
I think I actually crossed paths with your blog a couple of times in the past when looking up things - great job, very exhaustive! I'll be sure to give it another look when writing further reviews.
Maybe I was too harsh to Jimmy. He does do a lot of research, which is always nice. But let's just say I'm much more a fan of your reviewing style than his.