Space Quest I: Roger Wilco in The Sarien Encounter (VGA Version)

"The little touches make it worthwhile."

"Far beyond the reaches of known space lies a planetary system known to its inhabitants as Earnon. For many years, Earnon's sun has been slowly dying. The planets are growing cold and food is no longer plentiful. Scientists predict that only certain insect species and most lawyers will survive the resulting ice age. The beings of these ever darkening worlds struggle to maintain the daily balance of life.

The only hope for Earnon's survival has rested in the scientific community on the governing planet of Xenon, which has been working for quite some time on a plan to convert one of the system's lifeless planets into a new sun. The effort has been centered around the development of a device called the Star Generator.

The development team for the project has been stationed aboard the spacelab Arcada and sent to the outer edge of Earnon to further its research. You, a lowly apprentice sanitation engineer, are employed on the Arcada in tasks requiring only the lowest security clearance." -- from SpaceQuest.net

This VGA remake of the original Space Quest is chock full of flavorful description and superfluous detail that didn't make it into the similarly-styled Space Quest IV. With the burden of design partially lifted, the dev team took the opportunity to polish up descriptions and sounds. Case in point: using inventory items on one another yields dozens of fruitless -- yet unique -- results, even when combining objects is not required for a single puzzle!

Like many well-crafted Sierra and LucasArts adventures, the best things are off the beaten path. Space Quest may be counterintuitive to many players -- after each precautionary save, death should be pursued rather than avoided. Save often and throw yourself into every moronic, easily escapable demise. Loads and loads of easily missed and completely delicious content await. What's the bubbly green goo? Sniff it and laugh as your head melts. If it looks remotely dangerous, chances are it can (and should) kill your hapless janitor hero in a hilarious or grisly fashion. This is what the game's about -- be too careful and you'll miss the series' unique fun.

In addition to walking off cliffs, make sure you EXAMINE, TASTE, and SMELL everything in the game for loads of hilarious description. Make sure your sound's well configured -- the sparse effects are used for a couple of priceless gags.

It's a shame this and the other VGA makeovers didn't sell well; if SQ1VGA was any indication, remakes had a bright future at Sierra.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/02/07