Why The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour deserve better... and why they don't

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Features by Adventure Game Hotspot staff
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The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour are just about as far from Space Quest as can be, but the Space Quest Historian is anything but a one-game pony, so in his latest "fair and balanced retrospective" video, he sets his sights on Trilobyte's classic – or maybe not so classic? – 1993 adventure game and its sequel to find out why they seem to attract a lot of hate from modern reviewers.

Turns out, there are lots of reasons! No fan of logic puzzles at the best of times, SQH is less than dazzled with the collection on offer in The 7th Guest, but he's even less impressed by their barest of connection to an already flimsy story (about a demented toymaker named Stauf, who once lured various guests to his puzzle-filled mansion in search of the soul of the elusive seventh guest) inspired by Clue and Twin Peaks. As for The 11th Hour... well, everything its predecessor did wrong, the sequel did worse, plus a whole lot more, such as insanely difficult (even impossible) puzzles, a constantly moving camera from an inexperienced director wreaking havoc with video compression on hardware at the time, and turning what was meant to be a camp, family-friendly affair into (as SQH calls it) a "sleazy, made-for-TV raunchfest."

But that's only part of the story! Perhaps over time, people have forgotten just what a technological marvel The 7th Guest was in its day. Along with Myst, it's commonly cited as one of the games that popularized the burgeoning CD-ROM – an advancement that allowed it to be the first game to display live actors in full-screen, high-resolution, full-motion video. It may not hold up well today – especially with nothing done to enhance the video or audio among other quality-of-life improvements in the 25th Anniversary Edition – but it was a key pioneer whose legacy sent ripples throughout the industry. And it's still rather entertaining in its own right, with a score by renowned composer George "The Fat Man" Sanger adding to an experience that "oozed atmosphere and had immersion in spades." The 11th Hour... well, really none of that applies.

So says the Space Quest Historian anyway, who adds plenty of insight and humor in detailing these two FMV oldies in great detail.

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