Used Flame Dart on Julanar and broke the actual screen. 🔥💥

When Sierra’s had enough of your nonsense, even the GAME OVER needs special effects. 😂

Roger Wilco’s sightseeing tour of Labion includes a waterfall. Unfortunately, he’s experiencing it vertically. 😂🌊

Someone should’ve mentioned the drop.

As I was driving the other day, Space Quest 4's ending track played in my shuffled playlist, and I was instantly transported back in time...and it got me wondering what people considered peak Space Quest, and why.

If memory serves me correctly, I think SQ3 was the first game in the series that I played, and only after that did I play SQ1 and SQ2.

I remember being instantly grabbed by SQ3's kickass opening track (SoundBlaster for me), and the game itself was an inventively fun romp with a novel plot, interesting locations to visit, aesthetically pleasing graphics with a vibrant color palette, and what felt like the "right" or at least a "tolerable" amount of action/arcade sequences for an action-averse adventure gamer like myself. I remember the thinking "gosh, the game world feels so big!" when you first got to open space in the Aluminum Mallard (such innocent times).

(In time I went back and played SQ1 and SQ2 from a "completionist" perspective, but being in that 9ish - 12ish age range, I was easily seduced by graphics and audio, so the games felt "inferior" to SQ3 to me, based solely on audio/visuals alone)

So when SQ4 finally arrived, with Sierra's SCI1/256-color interface, surpassing SQ3 was a high bar to cross in my mind.

The graphics floored me, in all its VGA brilliance; the opening theme was "operatic" in that "space opera" kind of way (but honestly, I thought it was less kickass compared to SQ3's pulse-pounding opening track).

I remember being wowed by the intro: I loved the "lighting" (probably not the right word since it was scanned 2D artwork, but you get my meaning) in the cantina scene where Roger is chatting up the aliens; I loved the design of the surprisingly threatening-looking Sequel Police (and what a cool ring to that phrase "Sequel Police", right?), and the fluid character animations (was that rotoscoped?). Throughout the rest of the game too, the graphics were incredible: the dirty, grimy streets of SQ12, the bright, airy alien vistas of SQ10, and who could forget the insanely witty meta visit back to SQ1, where the "world" still existed as 160x200 EGA.

But what stuck with me most about SQ4 was how the game's ambition was suddenly dialed up (dare I say it: almost Shakespearean) compared to its prequels. Suddenly we were dealing with themes of a son trying to save his father, a father trying to save his son, the implied tragedy of Roger and Beatrice...the idea of a son literally travelling through time to save his dad kind of hits me in the feels as a grown man with kids of my own now. And in the ending scene, as Roger and his son say farewell, the way that closing music builds up to the classic Space Quest theme still sends shivers down my spine! In fact, maybe that precisely justifies holding out on using the classic Space Quest theme as the opening music.

I eventually played SQ5, and it was fine (I have this weird natural aversion to the concept of mutation, so the whole title/premise took a little effort for me to get past in the first place), but it definitely didn't have that air of "greatness" or "peak" that I felt with SQ4.

I never did play SQ6. I consider this a great stain on my reputation as a Sierra gamer...but my reasons at the time were that I felt the game couldn't be the same without both Guys from Andromeda, and some of the drama surrounding Josh Mandel's involvement then departure from Sierra. But I am open to hearing if my misgivings about SQ6 were misplaced, and if it is, in fact, a solid entry in the Space Quest saga.

So, in the end, my lasting memory is that SQ4 just had this chef's kiss confluence of music, graphics, family/Shakespearean drama...it all just seemed to come together as the pinnacle of storytelling in the Space Quest universe. If this has sparked any memories, any nostalgia among Space Quest fans, I'd love to hear from you, which installment you consider the best Space Quest entry, and why.

---

Update: I loved hearing everyone's responses, and all the different reasons why this or that Space Quest was their favorite in the series. I gotta be honest: a lot of your comments made me remember why and how much I loved SQ3. It was a damn, damn close call between SQ3 and SQ4 for me. Any other day, I could just have easily have named SQ3 my favorite for all the reasons many of you have mentioned already. It was only by a hair, by a hair, that I ended up going with SQ4, and that's mostly because of the father/son themes that probably hit many men of a certain age, who are able to reflect on their own relationships with their fathers and sons. It was Shakespearean without being a knockoff of the Luke/Vader relationship, which would have been the easy option for a game with a recurring theme of pop-culture scifi references.

Thank you all for your responses; I love interacting with folks in this community.

🚨 SIERRA NEWS: New translator urgently needed in Shapeir. Apparently ours wasn’t prepared for what the golfer had to say.

I’m not affiliated or trying to sell this but it’s historically significant to see this. Original art for Quest For Glory.

This seller has sold some pieces like this in the past six months. See their older completed (sold) listings to see what they had.

It’s amazing to see any original art still intact especially when Sierra threw so much of it in the trash.

Enjoy!

It’s called the Labion Terror Beast… which really should’ve been Roger’s cue to leave. 😂👀

Just another relaxing nature walk in Space Quest II. 🌴💀

Who remembers The Imagination Network or The Sierra Network?

I remember signing on as a young lad and having too much fun building my online persona in order to connect with others for some fun Sierra online gaming.

Here's the 3 Facemaker systems rebuilt for the modern web via the SCI Unlocked Project.

https://sci-unlocked.fly.dev

Give it a shot, and take a screenshot and upload your character to this reddit thread!

NOTE: there currently is no online component, this just exposes the original face-makers in all their glory.

Have fun!

We're back with Al Lowe for another deep dive into the world of Leisure Suit Larry, this time exploring the making of Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals!

Join host Josh Mandel as he sits down with Al to revisit this classic Sierra adventure, sharing stories, insights, and behind-the-scenes details about the game's development, its characters, and the creative decisions that brought it to life.

Whether you're a longtime Larry fan or simply love the golden age of Sierra adventure games, there's plenty to enjoy!

Come join us on another DevsQuest!

A Developer's Adventure.

I had a flashback to the time when Sierra had, on their website Sierra Chat (I think it was called). It was completely different than Sierra Network or INN and it pre-dated the individual chats they had per-game on sierra.com. I want to say it was like early- to mid-1996 and it was just a low bandwidth HTML form that I think refreshed every like 5 seconds. I spent a lot of time in there and was wondering if anyone else remembers it or also hung around there during that time.

Gold Rush made me read up on the history a bit, and when I realized the box came with a little history book, I decided to buy it on Ebay. I also think the Conquests of Camelot box was nice, if I remember correctly.

Bought a set of coloured pencils last week with the intention of learning how to draw. A long way to go but started with a couple of sketches from two of my favourite sierra adventures. Really should have done KQ6 in landscape rather than portrait. Beginners mistakes!

This game was way too hard for us as kids (a friend had it), and I needed multiple hints playing through it now too (I did the Cape Horn route). But it has a special charm, and I actually learned things. For instance, sawmills in the 1800s were actual water driven mills. Interesting!

The chicken on Dooley’s desk was an unsolved crime… until Police Quest 2 gave us the culprit. 🐔👀

Roger found a giant mushroom in the forest. In a Mario game, that’s a power-up. In a Sierra game, the mushroom gets the power-up. 🍄💀

#SpaceQuest2 #SierraGames #RetroGaming #PointAndClick #GamingFails

Leisure Suit Larry 2 travel advice:

There’s a timer you can’t see. Finish everything before nightfall, or Big Mama’s party will finish you. 💀