"The best of the best"

Introduction- I grew up with these classic Sierra games. I started on King's Quest, but preferred the humor of Space Quest. This here is the original, and it's a hilarious spoof of Star Wars and sci-fi in general. Parser may turn off some modern players, so make sure you have good spelling skills before playing!

Gameplay (9/10)- The game is an adventure. You basically travel around an area, look at things, pick up things, and try to stay alive. All injected with humor. You perform all actions through the parser interface. For those of you too young to remember before the internet, that means typing in what you want to do. You'll be typing in what you want to do, and it'll keep telling you it can't do that. Often it's just the simple change of a word or two to get the game to do what you want. Character movement is done with the arrow keys, and you're allowed to adjust your speed. You can play a very slooooow game, or a very faaaast game.

Story (10/10)- It's direct spoof of Star Wars. You start out on a ship under attack from the Sariens (you weren't killed because you were sleeping in the broom closet, yes, you're janitor Roger Wilco), who have stolen the Star Generator, a device needed to revitalize the sun of your dying planet. After escaping to a desert planet called Kerona, you must find a way to make it to the Sarien's base, the Deltaur. I'm not going to give away too much, as it will ruin enjoyment of the game (and I don't want to do that!). The story does a good job of introducing us to Roger Wilco (but you have the option to use your own name, if you want).

Graphics (7/10)- The graphics are blocky. There really was no better at the time, but it is hard to decipher what's what at times. Your character (Roger) looks the same as he does in the sequel, but his sleeves and boots are gray. The various monsters and enemies have a humorous look to them, the designers did the best they could with what they had at the time.

Sound (5/10)- Nothing. There's the title tune (the famous Space Quest theme), and an occasional bleep or bloop, but that's it. What's there is handled using the PC speaker. Plain and simply stated, the sound is not good. Sadly, it would be like this until the 3rd game in the series. On the plus side, we do get to see the Blues Brothers in a bar, belting out a tune.

Replayability (8/10)- After beating this, it's doubtful that you'll want to come right back to it, but in a while, you'll play it over again. The jokes won't seem as fresh, but it will still be fun. You will have a better understanding of the parser and it's limitations, as well.

Final Recommendation- Despite an often troublesome parser, ancient graphics, no sound, and iffy replayability, this game is incredibly fun. It's better than the 2nd installment, and right up there with chapters 3 and 5. Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe did a brilliant job with this game, one that does King's Quest one better by not only having an involving quest, but keeping it lively with a healthy dose of humor. This is a classic. Buy this one, even if it's used on ebay. It's worth every cent.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/11/03