Roberta Williams Anthology Reviewed by Laura Duncan Minimum requirements: Win 95/Win 3.1 and DOS CD-ROM, double speed CD-ROM drive, 486/33 or better, 8 MB RAM, 100% Soundblaster compatible sound card, SVGA 640 x 480 256 colours, mouse and keyboard. Once upon a time there was a computer programmer called Ken. One day when he was tired with work he started browsing round the mainframe he was using and stumbled upon a mysterious program that was simply called Adventure. This was some sort of text based game which involved telling the computer what you, the player, wanted to do next. He found the idea both novel and exciting and told his wife, Roberta about it. Roberta was fascinated by this new form of entertainment and could hardly sleep until she had completed exploring the caves in the game. That was back in the mists of time, when the millennium bug was not even a twinkle in IBM's corporate eye, in 1979. Now Roberta Williams is a legend in the world of adventures. She quickly decided that games with no pictures were no fun, so set about remedying this and starting from humble beginnings, a wire frame house in Mystery House, moved on over twenty years to producing movie-style epics like Phantasmagoria. This anthology, charting the development of her games, is quite fascinating. It contains the following : Mystery House, Wizard and the Princess, Mission:Asteroid, Time Zone, the Dark Crystal, King's Quest I - VII, The Colonel's Bequest, The Dagger of Amon Ra, Mixed-Up Mother Goose and a snippet of Phantasmagoria. This is quite a trip through history and worth a look. However history isn't everything is it? My own reasons for buying this collection was to play the King's Quest games. Ever since I owned an Atari ST I'd been interested in graphic adventures. I don't really know why I haven't got round to playing any of these games before. I enjoyed the Police Quest series and even quite liked Sierra's Gold Rush, though the gameplay is so primitive by today's standards. Maybe it was the fairy tale element that I found off putting or maybe I was just too busy with other Atari classics like Elite, Populous and Sim City (not to mention the ubiquitous Dungeon Master and clones). Anyway, better late than never, as the cliche goes. So does this anthology offer anything to today's discerning player? Well I think the answer is yes. Starting not at the beginning but at the end I found KQVII quite captivating. It plays like a cartoon and worked fine on this primitive 486 PC that I am using at the moment. Even in 1999 this adventure looks and sounds lovely. What about the gameplay? (Is this a word?) There are two outstanding threads that run through the KQ series that must come from the great Roberta herself; these are the extreme difficulty of some of the puzzles and the slightly sweet sense of humour. As an example of the latter you just need to read some of the KQ titles: Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder (V), To Heir Is Human (III), Romancing the Throne (II) and Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow (VI). See what I mean? The humorous puns should appeal to even the youngest player but the difficulty level means that they are going to need help to get very far in the games. The puzzles range from novice to expert, so I had to turn to SynTax to help me find solutions (i.e. cheat) frequently. The broad range of puzzles does make it fun to play the games with others, unless you're an expert of course. The KQ games are also remarkable in that they are all quite distinct and individual, there are interlinking threads but they are not a serial like, say, the Monkey Island threesome. I think that is one of the reasons that the series has endured. Mixed Up Mother Goose is a delightful adventure which involves solving nursery rhymes. It is really for the very young however and not of much interest to anyone over age eight. If you're still reading then you'll enjoy wandering around a fantasy wonderland searching for the likes of Bo Peep's sheep and a cock horse to provide transport to Banbury Cross. When you complete your task you are rewarded with a crackly rendition (does anyone remember Junior Choice on the radio?) of that nursery rhyme you've solved. One for the teletubby generation. Laura Bow is the heroine in two other games here, The Colonel's Bequest and The Dagger of Amon Ra. These are beautifully illustrated murder mysteries awash with colourful suspects and lots of clues. The first is set in an isolated mansion in the Deep South of the U.S., the second in New York. The emphasis here is on interrogating everyone and noting the responses. Just like real life detective work, I suppose. The development of the playing interface has evolved from the oft- frustrating typing in of likely verbs to the point and click method in current vogue. Roberta herself says, "I had to design an icon interface with that future in mind; something that's about as easy to use as it's going to get. On a design note I preferred working with the no-typing interface because I had more time to think about the plot and puzzles instead of writing all those error messages for people typing things that alternated from the story." That said the games are easy to play and the set comes with the appropriate instructions. There are four CD-ROMs and a lovely manual that not only contains instructions but also a detailed history of new developments and interviews by Roberta and Ken Williams. It's fascinating to read how their company, Sierra, almost went under until rescued by King's Quest I, quite a fairy tale in itself. Attention to detail and good production is a Sierra hallmark and they must be complemented for their high production values. There is a warning that some of the really old games (pre-KQI) may not play on today's super fast PCs. I suppose its similar to the way those 78rpm records don't fit in the CD player. So far I haven't had time to take a look at these titles but I thought it would be more helpful to compile a review before the end of the century. There is also a playable demo of Phantasmagoria which is interesting from a developmental point of view. It is a horror story with real actors and the whole game has been reviewed previously on SynTax (nos. 44 and 49). KQV, VI and VII, The Dagger of Amon Ra and Mixed-Up Mother Goose are multimedia titles and I would recommend this selection even if you don't have the patience to try the older style titles (where reading and writing come into play). There is a new KQ game out, "The Mask Of Eternity" which I haven't seen but apparently is influenced by the likes of Quake and Tomb Raider. This would be moving the genre on to a more 3D style of play. I'm intrigued to see how it's turned out. As usual I suspect Roberta Williams is ahead of the game and sees that there is not much future in the old style 2D graphic adventure. Life is cruel in the computer gaming world but if you are into nostalgia then get this compilation. - o -