The Mortgaging of Sierra Online
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Despite my extreme level of nostalgia for those old games (I installed KQ3 a few weeks ago just to visit Manannan) I find them unplayable today. I think the last Sierra adventure that I honestly enjoyed was probably KQV. When I look at the list [0] of their releases I think the last Sierra adventure game I ever bought was probably Dagger of Amon Ra.
By about 1991/1992 I was beginning to move on to other genres. When more open games like Microprose's Darklands and Origin's Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, and Privateer were released I switched over and never looked back. I haven't played an adventure game for more than a few hours since.
I often wish I could travel back to 1989 and sit down in front of my IBM PS/2 30/286 and fire up The Colonel's Bequest or KQIV and experience the enjoyment that I felt with those games one more time.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sierra_Entertainment_v...
It started with some Pong clones, and went on to various Atari machines and then to NES.
But pretty quickly, I realised that I was taken with the IDEA of buying and owning them. Actually owning them and actually playing the games wasn't that fun.
I think I kept hold of the NES the longest and sold them all as consoles with huge game collections (kickstarting someone elses hobby I hoped). I hope who ever got them enjoyed them - but it turned out there are very few old games I really enjoy playing for any length of time.
I think 'Blazing Lazers' is likely my favourite old game, and I still have a romantic attachment to owning a NEOGEO to play it on, but in truth a fire it up no more than once a month on my MAME, play it for 15 minutes at most and turn it off again. I keep telling myself I'll build a MAME cabinet, but again, I'm more interested in the idea of the cabinet than actually the pleasure I'll get from owning it (and the 'space debt' it will add to my house).
I found the same thing you did on the experience. There are games from that era that are still fun, but you really have to dig. I run emulators and sort through them, and it's no surprise no one is trying to repackage and sell most of them. No one would buy them. The IP is only valuable for respins.
One thing worth noting, I found the more simple the games were, the better they aged. There was a time in the 90s when Atari 2600 games felt useless, now I'm finding their simple arcade action aged better than genres that tried to do more.
Adventure games themselves are timeless because they're at their core, puzzle-oriented storybooks.
My favorite by far is Hero's Quest / Quest for Glory. Those were the crown jewel of the Sierra lineup. The original creators are back at it, and recently released Hero-U (it's on Steam and GOG). I've only played it a bit, but it seems like as good as you can do to bring a traditional adventure game into 2019.
Hero-U is definitely worth checking out for any old Sierra-head!
After that, I felt there was a noticeable drop in the quality of the hand-drawn artwork, and soon after, the 3D-for-the-sake-of-3D hysteria that overtook the industry and we had to suffer through a few years of 3D games that were uglier than the 2D games they "superseded."
See King's Quest 8: Mask of Eternity (at your own peril. I'll spare you the link.)
Checkout Hero-U, from the creators of Quest for Glory. I truly believe it's the closest and best concept possible for a modern adventure game.
KQ8 was horrendous, I had no interest in it even when it was released. Couldn't agree more that 2D art oftentimes makes more sense than 3D. Artistry is often forgotten in favor of technology. As long as the artist's vision is conveyed (which never includes "ugly"), I don't care if it's voxels, polygons or sprites.
This doesn't jive with my recollection, though:
> The monochrome cargo vans of 1985 had improbably become the multimedia sports cars of 1993, all whilst sticking to the same basic software and hardware architecture.
I don't really believe that this was true until after the adoption of Windows 95 (and remember, Windows NT retained the older Windows 3.1 look for longer; well into the late 90s my college labs' Windows machines looked ancient). At the time, the Mac was the closest thing to a multimedia sports car (with Amiga being the hand-crafter multimedia Rolls Royce, to carry the metaphor too far): it was attractive and ran well. Those of us who used Macs back then look at Windows 3.1 and thought it was a joke; we didn't even think DOS was worth noticing.
In retrospect, I actually have a lot more respect for DOS now than I did then: given what it was, it wasn't actually bad, and it enabled some neat programs. If I were teleported back in time, I might get a DOS box. But there is no way I'd want to use Windows 3.1 again — give me a System 7, 8 or 9 Mac anytime!
3D accelerators and internet play finally killed off DOS.
Even in the days of Windows 95, you had to drop down to 320x200x256 to get any decent performance on the average PC.
Playing a game in 1992 like Wolf3D or Duke Nukem II was a very, very different experience using the bleeps and bloops of the PC speaker compared to even an 8-bit sound card, much less the great music you could get on a 16-bit card with wavetable synth.
We had an IBM Aptiva at school that cost $3500 (ours was free from Campbell's soup labels), it had a 640x480x256 screen, 2X CD-ROM, and a sound card with speakers. It had a few kid-oriented games where you basically pointed/clicked at stuff, our teacher wouldn't let us install any 'cool' games.
I'm glad there has been a resurgence in point-and-click adventure games lately (like Thimbleweed Park, Broken Age, Samorost, Machinarium etc.) and I hope they become more popular again.
Disclaimer: I participated both last year and this year.
For me the turning point was Wolf3d. After seeing it running on all the PCs on the tables in the old computer shows at the Cow Palace, my days on the 500 were limited.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/broken-age/id887649233
This was great on the Apple TV, where I first played it, and you get the iPad version too for just 5 bucks.
[0]: https://www.gog.com/game/irony_curtain_from_matryoshka_with_...