King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow

"A Great Old Graphic Adventure"

Reviewing this game is a trip down memory lane. It actually came packed with my first CD-ROM drive. My Father and I worked for a couple hours to get the drive working, all the while I was anticipating the CD-ROM games that came with it: King's Quest VI and Where in Space is Carmen Santiago.

King's Quest VI didn't disappoint me. I idly leafed through the hint book that came with it while waiting for the CD-ROM drivers to finish installing and the computer to reboot. Then it came the moment of truth. I slid the CD into the drive, typed D:, and soon enough I was playing the game.

I know it's not a big thing now, but those first spoken words in the game... It was mind blowing. It was like looking at the future. "All games should have speech in them," I thought to myself. Little did I know that one day many of them would.

The graphics were brilliant. Colorful, cartoony, but still somewhat realistic looking. It captured the feel of a magical fantasy world perfectly. The animation was pretty fluid. The whole effect was wonderfully immersive.

The puzzles were tough, but solvable after just a little bit of trial and error for the most part. I think I only had to look up things in the hint book twice the whole game - and one of those times turned out to be after I saved somewhere that I was doomed to die in.

And that's pretty much the only peeve I have. The game lets you walk yourself into a dead end and save, wasting all the time you've been playing. This wouldn't be so bad if I'd kept lots of saves, but I didn't. Perhaps the game, like many graphic adventures, is a bit too kill-happy too. A little swim probably shouldn't end in your character's death unless you've been warned about the water being particularly treacherous.

Now for a quick scoring summary for those of you keeping track of the numbers:

Gameplay: 6

Some fun and creative puzzles, but it doesn't make up for the fact that this is just a graphic adventure. So gameplay consists of walking around, backtracking a lot, dying even more often, and using random items that you find to solve often obtuse puzzles.

Story: 6

It's not particularly innovative. You're a prince and get shipwrecked on strange islands. While there you get embroiled in a plot to rescue a maiden and defeat an evil wizard. More or less stock stuff.

Graphics: 9

I just love the way the game looks. It's a bit pixellated by today's standards, but it still looks good.

Sound: 8

At the time I originally played this, there was nothing like it that I'd played before. The sound just blew me away. Today, the sound is just pretty good. It gets the job done and is nice enough to listen to.

Replay: 2

Only a hardcore graphic adventure fan is going to replay Kings Quest VI instead of moving on to new pastures.

Other: N/A

Diphthong. I know you're looking at me like I'm crazy, but Diphthong is the man.

Overall: 7

This is a great old graphic adventure game. If you like the gameplay of the genre, or you're testing the waters, this is the game to try. It's fun, tough, beautiful, and sounds nice. What more could you want?

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/15/06