Sierra multi-series License

[Anakin Skywalker]

In terms of Sierra games, I've always felt KQ6 had the best voice acting. The Narrator was neither jarring nor boring; The voices for all the characters fit, IMO, with what their characters were supposed to be. Alhazred is particularly awesome, portrayed as a delightfully evil character.

And it had the late, great Tony Jay in numerous roles. That alone could nominate it for "best voice acting."

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by JuntMonkey

The slow-talking Creole narrator is sublime and is my single favorite voice performance in any game.

You must be joking.

In a game that is supposed to encourage you to interact with as much stuff as possible in as many ways as possible, the idea that the voice that narrates those interactions should speak as slooooooooowwwwwwwwlllllllllyyyyyyy as humanly possible and in an awkward sounding accent is utterly absurd. I would rather shave my genitals with a cheese grater than play GK1 with the narrator voice turned on. Thank God they included an option to turn it off and allow the other voices to keep playing. That tells me that someone on the development team understood how bad it was, and that a fair number of players would hate it, because no other Sierra game I can think of has included an option to turn off JUST the narrator voice.

And yes, English is my first language. I know I'm not alone on this. I've spoken to much bigger GK fans than me who can't stand the narrator voice either. Different strokes for different folks though.

[MusicallyInspired]

It never would have even dawned on me that the narrator would be annoying. To me it was just a locale-fitting choice. The voodoo-Jamaican witchdoctor or whatever. Fit perfectly for the supernatural New Orleans story. Of course, I can see now how people would find it annoying, but at the time I just accepted it.

[corruptbiggins]

The only thing about the narration in GK1 that bugs me to this day is the way the year is said when looking at a newspaper. Stupid thing to get bugged by but there you go.

[inm8#2]

In somewhat related news, Jim Walls announced just moments ago on a podcast with Chris Pope from the Spaceventure project that he's going to be coming out of retirement to do a new game. It's not going to be Police Quest, but it'll be a PQ-type game.

[exo]

I'll reserve judgement for these "style" games until I see Spaceventure (or whatever they are calling it). I'm not convinced I want to see a knock-off version of something i played before.... even if it is made by the same people. Not saying I'm not interested to see what happens. I'd rather have this then just remakes of the old games. Also, i find it hilarious that all these people are rallying to chris pope and not paul trowe. so much for his dreams of sierra 2.

[inm8#2]

I think Jim was closest to Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy at Sierra, so they probably also recommended Chris Pope. I like the guy and think he's doing a great job with helping on Spaceventure.

A PQ-style game will be a very tough sell to today's audiences. Each subsequent Sierra kickstarter seemed to struggle more than the preceding ones, so Jim will need a lot of help.

[MusicallyInspired]

According to the stream, Chris said that he, Scott, and Mark met with Jim a few months back and talked about the Kickstarter craze and the excitement of making new projects again and were encouraging/filling him in.

[JuntMonkey]

Originally Posted by corruptbiggins

The only thing about the narration in GK1 that bugs me to this day is the way the year is said when looking at a newspaper. Stupid thing to get bugged by but there you go.

Haha I love that and think of it often at random times. "Dated June first, nineteen hundred and ninety tree..."

Originally Posted by inm8#2

I think Jim was closest to Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy at Sierra, so they probably also recommended Chris Pope. I like the guy and think he's doing a great job with helping on Spaceventure.

A PQ-style game will be a very tough sell to today's audiences. Each subsequent Sierra kickstarter seemed to struggle more than the preceding ones, so Jim will need a lot of help.

Yea I can't see a PQ Kickstarter succeeding for much more than maybe $100K-$200K. It seems like it's the least popular of the Sierra series, especially in the amount of (or lack of) attention it gets when people wax nostalgic.

Originally Posted by Lambonius

You must be joking.

In a game that is supposed to encourage you to interact with as much stuff as possible in as many ways as possible, the idea that the voice that narrates those interactions should speak as slooooooooowwwwwwwwlllllllllyyyyyyy as humanly possible and in an awkward sounding accent is utterly absurd. I would rather shave my genitals with a cheese grater than play GK1 with the narrator voice turned on. Thank God they included an option to turn it off and allow the other voices to keep playing. That tells me that someone on the development team understood how bad it was, and that a fair number of players would hate it, because no other Sierra game I can think of has included an option to turn off JUST the narrator voice.

And yes, English is my first language. I know I'm not alone on this. I've spoken to much bigger GK fans than me who can't stand the narrator voice either. Different strokes for different folks though.

Interestingly, the voices bore the hell out of me in many - maybe "most" - other adventure games (and some non-adventures). I think that going from text to voice was bad for adventure games in some ways, because if they're not well cast it's awful to have to sit there and listen to. I can't stand listening to dialogue even in games that most of you consider "classics", like Longest Journey and Syberia and most Telltale games. So boring, so poorly acted, so long. GK1 had distinctive voices that were a pleasure to listen to. If it's a pleasure to listen to I want to hear more of it, and so I was happy to spend time listening to all the dialogue I could in GK1, especially from the narrator.

It's almost like you're saying that the goal is to chug through as many interactions as possible and therefore the process should be expedited by not using a slow narrator. But if the process itself is enjoyable, what's the rush?

[Jennifer]

Originally Posted by MtnPeak

Edit: oops, you took out the skepticism part. Anyway, I won't believe anything 100% till I hear it from Jensen's own mouth.

Yep, I'm still skeptical about Mystery Game X being Gabriel Knight, but I removed my comment since it turns out that the only thing I could find about Jane saying that it was not related to Gabriel Knight was at Giantbomb, and since anyone can edit it and they don't include a source for her comment, that's not reliable info.

[MtnPeak]

Originally Posted by Jennifer

Yep, I'm still skeptical about Mystery Game X being Gabriel Knight, but I removed my comment since it turns out that the only thing I could find about Jane saying that it was not related to Gabriel Knight was at Giantbomb, and since anyone can edit it and they don't include a source for her comment, that's not reliable info.

Seems like she's doing a good job keeping people guessing. Supposedly the publisher for MSX is a big one with extensive, sophisticated marketing plans for the game.

In the meantime, we wait...

A commenter named Mostly posted this image in the MSX forum at the Pinkerton site: