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Review by will
January 31, 2009

The trick with reviewing a remake is that you often find yourself treading on the toes of the previous iteration, and if you don't do that you confuse the hell out of anybody not familiar with it. But I think I'm safe in assuming that most readers aren't familiar with Space Quest at all, let alone enough to know that Space Quest 1: Roger Wilco in The Sarien Encounter is a remake of the original EGA Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter released by Sierra around the same time they were working on the fourth title. Thus, I will treat this review as new ground, as it was, for me and a generation of gamers like me, my very first Space Quest adventure.

Meet Roger.



A janitor sub-extraordinaire aboard the research vessel Arcadia, tasked with such daunting duties as mopping up after the scientists finish their exciting tests, sweeping the floors, and cleaning the latrines. An unlikely hero, to be sure.

We join our intrepid hero as he awakens from his mid-day nap in the janitorial closet...to find that the ship has been boarded by Sarien raiders, and more importantly, the Star Generator has been stolen! :O Armed only with his wits and whatever random objects you can find, your custodial alter-ego's first task is to escape the Arcadia before its self-destruct triggers - but only after retrieving a mysterious data cartridge from the head researcher. As you set out to accomplish this, you will soon come to suspect that this quaint little DOS game is out to kill you at every turn.

Take a wrong turn exploring the ship? Death. Didn't know you had to open the shuttlebay doors? Death. Didn't know you needed a space suit? Also death. Click the wrong spot on a walkway? Plummet to death. Even failing to fasten your seat belt is instant death.



Space Quest pioneered the phrase "Save early, save often". Most times you'll die seemingly for no reason other than the game's twisted pleasure. Like the other adventure games of its kind, Space Quest's puzzles are almost exclusively inventory based, leading astute players to attempt to pick up anything on the screen. If that fails, Roger comes armed with many other ways of gathering information; in addition to the ever-useful Walk and Hand icons, one may employ the Talk, Eye, even (strangely) Nose and Mouth - though those last two lead to comedic uselessness just as often as certain death.



Still, that's the way the game is played; click on everything you can, and try your darnedest to figure out what to do. It sounds easy, but sometimes it's a tall order; while the interface is as simple and intuitive as any I've seen, puzzles often follow their own warped brand of logic, leading to slightly silly solutions just as often as straightforward ones.

Ever tried to hide in a clothes dryer? Roger has.

You'll soon find yourself trudging across the desert wastes of Kerona and sipping dehydrated water(!?) from a canister, exploring the skeletal remains of some gargantuan beast and a strange underground cavern. You'll soon find your way to Ulence Flats, the local hive of scum and villainy, playing slot machines and drinking beer with the galactic riff-raff in a seedy backwater bar, and haggling with a used spaceship dealer for something that won't explode. You'll come to love the game's quirky humor and charming artistic style, even its catchy MIDI soundtrack, and of course the constant threat of unexpected death.



Oddly the countless "wtf" deaths of Roger Wilco are the game's biggest selling point, more so than bizarre humor and constant references to mainstream sci-fi. What I like about agonizing demise at every corner is that it gives the player the illusion of freedom. Sort of. Where another adventure game might respond to stupid ideas or keep the player railroaded with "You can't get ye flask", or another similar assurance, Space Quest instead decides to indulge you and kill poor Roger yet again to illustrate why your idea is dumb, as if it were a parent indulging a child's suggestion if only to teach them why sticking their finger in the electrical socket is not smart.

Such blatant sadism goes a long way towards eliminating that telltale feeling of being railroaded that we all hate, and saves Space Quest from being a generic sci-fi adventure game and instead catapults it towards something much more. It's the difference between being herded down a narrow, doorless corridor, and trekking across a narrow bridge with rivers of lava on either side; the latter gives some small measure of freedom, even if that freedom is whether or not to immerse yourself in molten rock.

But for all its gratuitous deaths and thinly-veiled railroading, Space Quest somehow remains a lovable experience. Even if you're smashing your keyboard in anger because the last time you saved was a half hour ago, you'll nevertheless be enjoying yourself. You'll appreciate the game's quirky atmosphere and impressive (even for VGA) backdrops, lovingly detailed character sprites, and clever, challenging (and lethal) puzzles. This is a game you'll come back to again, long after you've recovered the Star Generator and saved the galaxy.

There's a lot more to this DOS classic than might appear at first glance. Don't pass it up.

Rating: 10/10

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