sierra posts

AGD Interactive has released King's Quest III Redux: To Heir is Human, a complete remake of the classic adventure game updated with higher resolution graphics, a remastered music score, and a voice pack. The game is available for free to download and play for both PC and Mac.

Those that want to check out remakes for the previous two games in the series can do so. Download links are shown below.

Download King's Quest III Redux: To Heir is Human (101 MB)
Download King's Quest III Redux: To Heir is Human [Mac] (165 MB)

Download King's Quest II: Romancing the Stones (308 MB)
Download King's Quest II: Romancing the Stones [Mac] (397 MB)

Download King's Quest: Quest for the Crown (101 MB)
Download King's Quest: Quest for the Crown [Mac] (165 MB)

GoG.com continues to go through the back catalog of games that are now controlled by Activision. The DRM-free web site has now added the first two games in the Police Quest SWAT series from now defunct publisher Sierra to its library in one bundle for $9.99.

The first game (which has the full title Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT) was released back in 1995 and was one of the many full motion video games that were all the rage during that time period. Police Quest SWAT 2 was released in 1998 and is a completely different game. It's a real time isometric tactical strategy game where in addition to the SWAT campaign you can also play a separate campaign as a member of the fictional terrorist organization that's giving SWAT headaches. It's also the last game in the series with the "Police Quest" title; after that the series would continue with just the SWAT name.

Valve generated a lot of hype for its decision earlier this year to port a number of its more recent games like Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and the Left 4 Dead games to the Mac platform. But that's still not the case for some of its older games including the original Half-Life game. But the truth is that there was plans to release a Mac port of Valve's debut game in 1999. In fact it was nearly complete before the game's original publisher, Sierra, pulled the plug.

That's the story told by Rebecca Heineman, who worked on the programming of the port for Logicware. In a new and extensive interview at Gamasutra she states, "We were about three weeks from master. We just had some minor bugs here and there, just a little polish needed to be done." Then pre-order sales numbers came in from stores that totaled about 50,000 copies. While that was huge for Mac games in 1999 that wasn't good enough for Sierra who made the decision to cancel the Mac port. Despite pleas from other publishers that they would publish the port, Sierra also said, "No" to those requests. Heineman states, "As a result, we were told to take the code and bury it. And it's been buried away since."

[Via Blue's News]

This weekend's out of the blue announcement of a new game in the Tribes series of sci-fi shooters by developer Hi-Rez Studios likely has the attention of some old school gamers who remember where they were when the original game in the franchise was first released. However it's also likely that many people reading this web site have never played, or even worse, never heard of the Tribes series.

So we decided to whip a quick history of the Tribes franchise for those of you who have yet to play any of the games in the series. The franchise was a massive influence of the first person shooter genre, particularly in its multiplayer features. In many ways the first game in the series was years ahead of its time but its successors never achieved the audience that the first game did.

The DRM-free PC game download site GoG.com is now well into its 2.0 version of its site and today GoG.com has added a new game to its line-up ... sort of. Actually the game is a free addition to its previously released fantasy RPG title Betrayal at Krondor.

People who have already purchased or will purchase Betrayal at Krondor from the site will get the free game Betrayal in Antara, First released in 1997, the game uses the same graphics engine as the earlier Betrayal at Krondor but is set in a separate and original game universe since Sierra had lost the rights to make another game based on the fantasy universe created by author Raymond Feist. GoG.com is now offering both games in a bundle for a mere $5.99.

It looks like the fans have gotten a big corporation to relent in the release of the long-in-development King's Quest fan-created game project. A few months after Activision, the current rights holder to the classic Sierra-created adventure game series, put a "cease-and-desist" order on the years-in-the-making project, the developers, Phoenix Online Studios, have announced a new agreement with Activision that will allow them to release the game for free after all.

The game, The Silver Lining, will be released in episodic format beginning July 10 with the first chapter, "What is Decreed Must Be". The storyline will let players control King Graham once again as he has to fight off a curse that threatens his children. You can check out a trailer for the game after the jump:

The on again, off again, on again fate of the King's Quest fan game project may be on again. The project, titled The Silver Lining, was a plan to continue the Sierra-created adventure game series. The game was developed for years by an amateur team but it seemed to be shut down by the game's current right holder Activision earlier this year.

However the game's official web site now has the ever popular countdown clock that should reach zero sometime on Saturday. Having some kind of countdown clock means something is about to be announced Has the project been revived? Or has the game simply been changed enough to eliminate any reference to the King's Quest series? Stay tuned.

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

Rounding out our coverage of older, historical real-time strategy games is the excellent Empire Earth. Released only a year after the fantastic Age of Empires 2, Empire Earth aimed to push the historical real-time strategy game one step further. While it was a little rougher around the edges than the first two Age of Empires games, Empire Earth still managed to be incredibly fun and give players a look into an interesting and fictional future. If you ever wanted an RTS with the grand scope of Civilization, this is definitely the game for you. Despite its considerable age, it's one of the best games of this theme, and thanks to GoG.com, you can now pick it up without any DRM!

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

Tribes is a classic of the multiplayer FPS genre, and has influenced many games since its entry into the market. Games like Battlefield or MAG owe a debt to Tribes, as Tribes was the first truly massive first-person multiplayer experience. The level of detail and scale on the maps and gameplay was awesome, and almost every modern team-based shooter can trace its lineage to Tribes. However, the success of Tribes didn't stop with the first game. It extended into a franchise that has received two sequels. The latest, Tribes Vengeance, was not all that good, but the immediate sequel Tribes 2 was absolutely fantastic. Released for free a while ago to commemorate the launch of Vengeance, the authorization servers went down in 2008, with the community releasing their own in 2009. It's now completely freeware, and anyone who wants to enjoy this updated classic can do so once again.

Last week we reported that Rebellion had bought a number of former Vivendi Games properties from Activision Blizzard but it seems Activision has kept the rights to a number of those games as well. Today five former Sierra/Vivendi Games properties are available to download via Steam under the Activision publishing banner.

Among the games listed are the Space Quest Collection and the King's Quest Collection, each collecting the classic Sierra adventure game series. Also included are two more recent downloadable titles, Aces of the Galaxy and 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures. Finally the hardcore first person shooter Timeshift has also been added. All five titles are available for 25 percent off their normal Steam prices until June 30.