Game 53: Hugo II - Won(?)

By Deimar

Penelope Journal Entry #21: Dear diary: I still don’t know where Hugo is nor Horace’s murderer nor what I’m doing walking this endless garden. Getting past the killer bees was dangerous enough but now I have had to fight a snake and a dalek. Satisfy the needs of a dog and a genie and play a game of “whodunnit”. And I have no clue of why anything is happening. If only I could know what Hugo has been doing by merely thinking about him…

Last time we have just past the bees just because it was the only place we could go. Which seems to be the motivation for all the actions Penelope does in the game. In any case, in the new screen we see an old face. The guy in the boat from Hugo’s House of Horrors. Yeah, the one who tends to ask about the name of the dog of a semi-famous TV star from the 60’s. THAT guy. And he starts to question Penelope. Again. I hope he dies a painful de… oh. Ok. Apparently David Gray also got wind of the hate this character produced and just made Penelope hit him with his own wand in what is a genuine funny moment. My faith in humanity is restored. However, the rest of the screen is completely devoid of any interaction and you have nothing to do but to choose one of the two exits that doesn’t involve killer bees.

Admit it. All of you not so secretly wanted to do this.

Game 54: Space Quest IV - Roger Wilco’s Bogus Journey

By Joe Pranevich

Roger Wilco’s Janitorial Log #1 - Time: the final frontier. These are the thoughts that were running through my head as I jumped through a “rip” in time to flee some murderous-looking robots. Who was that handsome young lad that pushed me into the rip? I have no idea, but some day I will have to thank him. I landed back home, Xenon, but not the Xenon I remember. This one has been destroyed by an evil AI hidden inside a copy of Leisure Suit Larry. Judging by the subtitle, this must be the work of my arch nemesis, Sludge Vohaul. With a bit of can-do Wilco attitude, I snuck into a patrol ship and nicked my very own time pod. Time to begin my long voyage home.

Reminds me of a certain cantina I could name.

We begin our story right where Space Quest III left off, albeit with better music and a more expansive color pallet. Roger dropped the Two Guys from Andromeda off on Earth to design adventure games for Sierra On-Line and now he’s returning to Xenon. Of course, there’s no hurry right? He has plenty of time to stop off at a neighborhood space-bar and throw back a few. What Roger doesn’t realize is that we’ve now started Space Quest IV and a group of unknown villains are tracking his whereabouts. They have found him at his dive bar and are ordered by their mysterious boss to go after Wilco

Is that space-Gandalf in the corner?

Twenty Questions to Two Guys from Andromeda

By Ilmari

The first game where I realized games had developers was Space Quest 3. At one point of the game Roger Wilco found his way into a lair of evil pirates, who had imprisoned two aliens with prominent pig snouts. My 8-year old self wasn't really sure who these aliens were, until Roger finally drove them to Earth and left them to work in Sierra. Wasn't Sierra the company that had published Space Quests? And they had two pig-nosed aliens working with them? And were these aliens actually behind this game? The name Two Guys From Andromeda was then forcefully imprinted to my mind, especially as Space Quests were my favourite games at the time.

This picture spells nostalgia for me

Game 53: Hugo II - Murder, she wrote

By Deimar

Penelope Journal Entry #1 "Dear diary: After being taken in that horrible house Hugo has brought me to his uncle’s house in England to forget everything of my traumatic experience. However, the minute I fell asleep he disappeared and then his uncle was murdered right in front of me. Ever more, I was locked in my room!! It’s happening all over again!!. But there is no way I’m going to stay put one more time. This time I’m gonna take matter into my own hands and beat the crap out of that murderer. My psychologist says that I have issues. Pff… I’ll show him who has issues when I mop the floor with this puny assassin.

Oh, look, flowers, bees, a river, parrots… What a wonderful place!! Wait. Wasn’t I supposed to do something? "

Alas, poor Horace. Killed in his own house with the only witness being a woman trapped in her room. Not that I knew that at that moment, because I took the hint from the game to look for Hugo and went directly to the yellow book in the bookcase after waking up.

Our intrepid main character!

Missed Classic 8: Mission: Asteroid (1980)

Written by: Joe Pranevich

The Space Quest series was not Sierra’s first foray into science-fiction, nor was Space Quest IV the company’s first real look at time travel. No, both of those firsts have to be credited to Roberta Williams in the Hi-Res Adventure series. While I am still too far away from being able to explore Time Zone (1982), the sixth game in the series, I am right on time to look at Mission: Asteroid, the third… sort-of. This may require some explanation.