The many, MANY dick moves of Space Quest IV

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Features by Adventure Game Hotspot staff
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Just when you thought it was safe to roam the Sierra game galaxy again following the "surprisingly chill" Space Quest 3, along comes 1991's Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers to relieve you of that delusion in more ways than can easily be summed up in a single video. In his latest reflection on the many "dick moves" this series has up its sleeve, the Space Quest Historian admits he can't list ALL of the many ways SQ4 tries to kill players – or worse, with dead ends instead of deaths – so he limits himself to only the most insidious. You'll see why, because that's plenty.

You know a game is not on your side when one of the very first items you can pick up will inevitably blow you up soon after, thus breaking the unwritten adventure game code to pick up everything that isn't nailed down and instilling fear in your heart that the game is actively out to get you by refusing to play fair. Granted, that one comes with a warning, but the game is only getting started.

To find out for yourself how true that is, sit back and watch SQH suffer horribly so you don't have to, whether from nasty timed elements, pre-scripted or randomized events you couldn't possibly know to expect, or stupendously stupid changes to the programming in the CD-ROM version that introduced new and excruciating ways to punish players, either intentionally or just by breaking the game.

We'll say no more, except to paraphrase the famous maxim that early Sierra games taught us: save early, save often, and write down time codes!

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