Am I the only one who dislikes the AGI games?

[BagginsKQ]

Helen Hots, ya, she's better than Tawnee Helmut. Tawnee looked like a crossdressing man!





I think Art Serabian, the drunk programmer is better than the remake's replacement character;

http://policequest.wikia.com/wiki/Art_Serabian

The drunk gangster wannabe William Barnum, in the remake...

http://policequest.wikia.com/wiki/William_J._Barnum

[Blackthorne519]

Seriously. Helen Hots was awesome! I don't know WHAT the mess is in the VGA game.

And Art Serabian is way better. WAAAY better.


Bt

[exo]

celebrity deathmatch needs to be revived. agi vs sci.

[Chyron8472]

I like both. Though, I can understand younger/newer gamers not liking the older stuff.

I remember playing the text-based Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I liked it, but I don't expect other people to.

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by Chyron8472

I remember playing the text-based Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I liked it, but I don't expect other people to.

Didn't someone do an AGS graphical remake of that? I feel like I remember hearing about it a while back, and hearing that it was good. Gonna have to check into that.

[MtnPeak]

I loved both AGI and SCI EGA. I felt like there was more freedom to roam and goof around than there was with the multiple icon interface. You could just take your time and do random stuff, like type in "undress" or "f*** so-and-so." I loved how these games were like animated film worlds where you could basically do or try anything you wanted. They plopped you in this cartoon world and let you loose without much of a safety net; if you walked off a cliff or ran into a deadly animal, then oh, well. Fooling around was a large part of the fun for me. With AGI games, in particular, it seemed like the backgrounds were more open and allowed you to walk on more of the screen, though maybe I'm remembering wrong. With many of the SCI EGA games it seemed like the walking paths were more limited or constrained.

[Lambonius]

You're not wrong. Many of the later VGA games used automatic pathfinding, at least for certain scenes. Additionally, the greater complexity in the background art usually meant more "scenery" and less walkable area. But yeah, in the AGI games, you could pretty much go anywhere that made sense in the context of the screen.

[BagginsKQ]

The open level of exploration, is one reason why I felt KQ8 as far as exploration felt more like a nod back to old KQ game worlds (1-4) than the later KQ games, that were more restrictive in exploration. Those games had alot of 'extra' rooms that had absolutely no purpose except to give you something to pass through to reach more important areas (they were not used in puzzles). They just looked cool, and in a few cases, might have some monster appear to try to kill/rob/curse you.

I felt the enemies you encounter in KQ8, were similar to the pointless random encounters that were there to kill/rob/curse you in KQ1 and KQ2, but didn't offer anything in the way of puzzle solutions, except in KQ8, you can actually do something about them (rather than the game telling you you are too weak, or not skilled enough to take them on).

Also felt there were other nods back to the original KQ (such as a lowly knight trying to save the king and kingdom much like Graham in the first game, lonely invaded daventry inhabited by few friends), but no need to go into detail here.

If someone was to demake KQ8 into an AGI, EGA, or VGA-style game, it would probably be more like KQ1 mixed with QFG (1, 2 & 4), and absolutely huge if the game designers were to keep the scope and size of each indvidual land.

The question would be would demake have random encounters more like KQ1 and KQ2, so that you have to just avoid them, or make combat something closer to QFG's early games, or The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian (if you haven't played this its more KQ-like than QFG, even with the few bits of combat, the sequel was to go more in the way of Space Quest).

[techie775]

The only AGI game I really disliked was KQ1 cause it took forever to go anywhere on normal speed and you went too fast on fast speed. I don't know if it works that way with ScummVM. Personally I always liked Hero's Quest or Quest for Glory I EGA better than it's VGA counterpart. There were a few dialogue pieces I never would have found without the VGA version, but the VGA version seems alot buggier and harder to control. Plus it's funny when you type in a swear word and the game responds "GADZOOKS!"

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by techie775

There were a few dialogue pieces I never would have found without the VGA version

Which is ironic, since there's actually quite a bit more dialog in the parser version! They cut out a lot of possible queries, responses, and narrator responses when they condensed everything into dialog trees and limited the interactions to the standard point and click verbs.

[BagginsKQ]

I noticed that with the KQ1SCI vs. the fan remake too. A bit of the more obscure narrative (and or easter egg comments) was not accessible. The things you could access by using certain verb noun combinations.

Interestingly if you can also find places where the developers of the fan remake also changed some of the text as well.

[doom saber]

Originally Posted by Anakin Skywalker

Don't get me wrong, I love the content of them, and I know how important the first KQ games were to the adventure genre...But a large part of whether I'm going to like a game or not relies on the presentation; the gameplay, the interface, etc.

It's not that I have anything against typing or even the primitive graphics--I love SQ3 and KQ4 for example and those have non VGA graphics with typing--but I could just never bring myself to like any of the earliest games. I played through KQ1-3 fully, but I could never quite get into them the same way as I did the VGA-SVGA games.

But the AGI games did help my reading skills when I played them first as a Kindergarten age kid, I will give them that.

Perhaps it's the fact that I was introduced to the KQ series, adventure gaming, and PC gaming in general with KQ5--and thus with the VGA, Point N' Click games--But like I said, I've never been able to really get into the AGI games.

Anyone have similar feelings?

You aren't alone. I dislike the second game. The first one was okay, so is the third one. In my opinion, I think it is because how they would go and add more to the story, which can come out being too dark or different than the rest of the King's Quest games by Sierra.

[BagginsKQ]

You aren't alone. I dislike the second game. The first one was okay, so is the third one. In my opinion, I think it is because how they would go and add more to the story, which can come out being too dark or different than the rest of the King's Quest games by Sierra.

You do realize that the first game has less story than the second game right? There is almost twice as much text in the second game, and the 3rd is almost twice as large as the 2nd.

The 2nd game added an intro cartoon which was push of the technology for the time (the original didn't have an introduction). The 2nd also added linear and changing events, that is characters that would only show up only if certain conditions were already met. This 'scripting' was also and advancement to the technology.

Also if you pay attention and use the right commands, you learn that several characters in the game are connected to each other, and mention each other in the 2nd game. This was not done in the first, where every character you encounter was disconnected from every other character. By connecting characters to together gives a more 'living breathing world' where neighbors are seemingly interacting with each other. KQ3 takes this much further of course.

[MtnPeak]

Originally Posted by BagginsKQ

You do realize that the first game has less story than the second game right? There is almost twice as much text in the second game, and the 3rd is almost twice as large as the 2nd.

I think he may be mistaking AGI for AGDI?

By the way, looking over some of these AGI pics of women from Police Quest and LSL, I think it's interesting how prominent they made the nipple bump through the clothes. Quite risqué.

[BagginsKQ]

No I'm talking about the technical specs of the official AGI games.

KQ2 by Sierra is about twice as large as KQ1, and KQ3 is almost twice as large as KQ3.

The script and scripting became progressively more sophisticated in each. As far as limits in technology at the time would allow.

Check out the KQ wiki for complete (or near) transcripts of each.

[MtnPeak]

Right, I was referring to Doom Saber, not you. My comment was actually addressed to you. He mentioned KQ2 as having darker, added story components that seemed different than what was found in the games "by Sierra." But I could be totally misinterpreting what he was saying. FWIW, I love AGDI stuff and can't praise them enough for what they have done.

[BagginsKQ]

Personally I thought they were fun, but I don't like them anywhere near as much as the originals...

The fan games including TSL are way to gimmicky and rely to much on similar plot ideas... Evil "black cloak" are behind nearly everything stereotype... 1000 year prophecies etc... Weird character changes. They take too many liberties to originals.

It's almost the same reasons why I like PQ1 original over the remake.

Personally I'm looking more forward to MusicallyInspired's lovingly nod to the SCIEGA games and the KQ1 remake/KQ4 SCI version of KQ2. Supposed to have enhanced script with improved soundtrack, and stay truer to the original series.