"I'm going to sit down here and complain."
All right then...Let’s run through a list of the not-so-pleasant aspects of the new Vivendi Universal collections, shall we?
-They have pushed back the release date for the collections for almost an entire year, apparently hard at work on making the “XP-Compatible”, which consisted of…
-Bundling the games with DOSbox, a DOS emulator that can be downloaded for free. They even used an older version.
-From what I’ve heard, they did not include the first games in the series. They included the remakes of the first games, but not the first games themselves. No SQ1 EGA, no KQ1 EGA, etc. WHYYYYYYY? How could they do this?? This is right up there with the “remastering” of the Star Wars trilogy in terms of badness. Newcomers are going to be pretty confused when they play the 256 color SQ1, then proceed to SQ2, which has 16 colors and music that comes out of the internal computer speakers, not to mention the plug for the original plug for SQ1 in the rock in KQ2. Just like the new generation of Stars Wars fans is probably going to think that Greedo always shot first, now the new generation of Sierra fans is going to think that Roger’s hair was yellow in SQ1. Brown, darnit, brown!!!
-They apparently didn’t include those cute little “making of” videos included with the older collections (like “Current Inside Copy” of the SQ series) or even the bonus minigames. Waaaah.
-Leisure Suit Larry 6 came in two versions - the hi-res CD version which included voices, and the low-res disk version, which didn’t. Guess which version VU put in the LSL collection? Go on, just guess. (They also didn’t include LSL7, one of the best of the series)
-The contents of the SQ6 CD were copied to the collection CDs with practically no changes whatsoever made. Normally, this would be okay, except that the SQ6 CD had two promo movies for two games called Torin’s Passage and Woodruff and the Schnibble. Since those games came out ten years ago and are a bit hard to find nowadays, the newbies that watch these promos are probably going to be a little confused…
-There were no Mac versions of the collections. According to VU, this is because “the games were only developed to play on Windows systems”. Um…no. I’m positive that nearly all of the games had a Mac version, not to mention the fact that there is a Mac port of DOSbox.
-The games are run by a launcher - just press a game’s button and it starts. On the SQ launcher, there’s a flashy graphic besides the buttons, but what did VU use for the graphic? The box cover, complete with the “6 complete games” sticker, the rating sticker and the “runs in WinXP” sticker. Laaaaame.
-Roger Wilco looks like David Duchovny. (I blame the JT crowd for putting this notion in my head)
On the plus side…well, people can buy the games for a reasonable price for the first time in years. Sure, VU could have made the games freeware, like other companies who realize that they can’t make any more money off of their obsolete games and therefore release them to the public, letting everyone enjoy them for free and even advertising their freeness on their home page, but nooooooooooo…
One last gripe regarding the catchphrase on the SQ collection box: “A long time ago in a janitor closet far far away…”
Um…shouldn’t that be “janitor’s closet”? A janitor closet sounds like a closet where you keep janitors…y’know, like a broom closet is a closet where you keep brooms…?
Well, at least the games are available now, and according to Gamasutra they've been selling pretty darn well.
-They have pushed back the release date for the collections for almost an entire year, apparently hard at work on making the “XP-Compatible”, which consisted of…
-Bundling the games with DOSbox, a DOS emulator that can be downloaded for free. They even used an older version.
-From what I’ve heard, they did not include the first games in the series. They included the remakes of the first games, but not the first games themselves. No SQ1 EGA, no KQ1 EGA, etc. WHYYYYYYY? How could they do this?? This is right up there with the “remastering” of the Star Wars trilogy in terms of badness. Newcomers are going to be pretty confused when they play the 256 color SQ1, then proceed to SQ2, which has 16 colors and music that comes out of the internal computer speakers, not to mention the plug for the original plug for SQ1 in the rock in KQ2. Just like the new generation of Stars Wars fans is probably going to think that Greedo always shot first, now the new generation of Sierra fans is going to think that Roger’s hair was yellow in SQ1. Brown, darnit, brown!!!
-They apparently didn’t include those cute little “making of” videos included with the older collections (like “Current Inside Copy” of the SQ series) or even the bonus minigames. Waaaah.
-Leisure Suit Larry 6 came in two versions - the hi-res CD version which included voices, and the low-res disk version, which didn’t. Guess which version VU put in the LSL collection? Go on, just guess. (They also didn’t include LSL7, one of the best of the series)
-The contents of the SQ6 CD were copied to the collection CDs with practically no changes whatsoever made. Normally, this would be okay, except that the SQ6 CD had two promo movies for two games called Torin’s Passage and Woodruff and the Schnibble. Since those games came out ten years ago and are a bit hard to find nowadays, the newbies that watch these promos are probably going to be a little confused…
-There were no Mac versions of the collections. According to VU, this is because “the games were only developed to play on Windows systems”. Um…no. I’m positive that nearly all of the games had a Mac version, not to mention the fact that there is a Mac port of DOSbox.
-The games are run by a launcher - just press a game’s button and it starts. On the SQ launcher, there’s a flashy graphic besides the buttons, but what did VU use for the graphic? The box cover, complete with the “6 complete games” sticker, the rating sticker and the “runs in WinXP” sticker. Laaaaame.
-Roger Wilco looks like David Duchovny. (I blame the JT crowd for putting this notion in my head)
On the plus side…well, people can buy the games for a reasonable price for the first time in years. Sure, VU could have made the games freeware, like other companies who realize that they can’t make any more money off of their obsolete games and therefore release them to the public, letting everyone enjoy them for free and even advertising their freeness on their home page, but nooooooooooo…
One last gripe regarding the catchphrase on the SQ collection box: “A long time ago in a janitor closet far far away…”
Um…shouldn’t that be “janitor’s closet”? A janitor closet sounds like a closet where you keep janitors…y’know, like a broom closet is a closet where you keep brooms…?
Well, at least the games are available now, and according to Gamasutra they've been selling pretty darn well.