King's Quest V

Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder!

Sierra was the first industry to implement the point and click interface to its games, and King's Quest V was the first game to be tortured, mutilated, and maligned with this horrific feature. But despite my bias against such games, Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! does not hold up on any other level.

After a leisurely walk through Daventry, Graham returns home just in time to see the castle vanish before his eyes. A nearby owl, a talking one of course, reinforces Graham's despair by recounting the details of the tragedy. He then sends the king to go see the local benevolent wizard. A lengthy dialogue ensues where the Good wizard tells Graham that a Bad wizard (who is related to Mannanan), is out for revenge against the royal family. The Good wizard gives Graham the wand necessary to destroy the Bad wizard, and more or less leaves Graham to his own adventuring wits, which he will need to get anywhere near the Bad wizard. While the plot does help tie the series together a bit, it is in true Sierra fashion detailed in full before the player even touches the mouse.

The point and click interface, as mentioned, dumbs down play to merely finding the correct pixel or combining the right inventory items together. While this does relieve the player of parser ignorance, and the dreaded "You can't do that" messages, it can completely destroy the playing experience unless done with great care. While the interface was not a total disaster in its first installment, it surely did not impress me.

Several puzzles throughout the game are unintuitive in the most forgiving terms, often requiring inane logic while leading the player to randomly click until the solution is found. Of course, random clicking ends up providing many "You can't do that" messages of its own, which is exactly what was trying to be avoided in the first place. On top of that, point and click almost guarantees that some puzzles will be solved by accident, ultimately less satisfying for the player at the keyboard.

But it's up to the game designers to make a game playable and enjoyable no matter what engine or interface is used. Roberta and Ken did not succeed. Although, to be fair, there were parts I enjoyed. As the first game to be released on CD-ROM, the graphics were excellent, and the voice acting was for the most part effective. However, someone thought it would be a good idea to make the aforementioned owl Graham's sidekick. He follows Graham practically everywhere, is rarely helpful, and when he would be helpful, he is nowhere to be found. Worse yet, his voice and demeanor are grating. Think Jar-Jar Binks.

What really deserves this game a place in the Hall of Shame is a Point of No Return. I can generally handle such inconveniences if they are either logical or damn funny. However, the one in this game world is either the most incredibly cruel puzzle in history, or more likely the worst programming bug I have ever witnessed. To sum up this atrocity, about halfway through the game there takes place an action sequence of about seven seconds in all, in where Graham must think quick and perform a task. Completion of this task grants Graham an item necessary to complete the game, and the action sequence will appear once and only once. This would be tolerable, if only the action sequence had any determinable reason to appear at this particular juncture, or if the player had even the slightest notion that it was a requisite puzzle. To top it off, the task can only be completed if Graham is carrying the appropriate object at the time. Note to game designers everywhere: beta-test your games to death, especially if you're going to sell them. How this did not get caught is beyond me.

I can say nothing more, other than don't waste your money. With all of the improvements in technical features (not including the interface), this game could have been a lot better. Sierra helped start a trend in 1990 of focusing on flash rather than content, and adventure games have suffered to great lengths ever since.