Well in defense of that theory of shooting KQ5 as the first CDROM game because of diskette versions also being released - I think Sierra was VERY smart in how they played the field. If they moved simply to CDROM - they potentially cut off a part of the buying market of KQ games! Why wouldn't you - if it was possible - find a way to put these games in every available version from CDROM to Diskette? There was certainly no harm in it. And it shouldn't nullify the fact that KQ5 (may have been) the first CDROM game JUST because they did diskette versions also.

I mean would you tell someone who walked a mile that it didn't count just because they wore shoes?

I'll readily admit that producing a game in multiple formats is a smart idea. KQ5 was even released on the NES. It wasn't a very good copy, but it was still made.

As for your analogy, that doesn't make sense. Not really, anyway. I see where you're going with that, but shoes -- for the most part -- are essential when walking. Maybe you don't wear them inside the house or in your yard, but try walking a mile outside without any shoes on. You might be able to do it, but I bet you'll be in pain afterward.

Putting KQ5 on CD-ROM was not an essential move for Sierra. At the time, you could easily play a game on 5.25" or 3.5" diskettes. Was it a smart move to make the transition to CD-ROM optional? Perhaps. However, it wasn't essential at all in the early 1990s.

I used shoes - perhaps because I live in California and shoes are pretty much optional. For example, I could walk a mile, very easily on the beach without shoes. And I usually do. Since it'd make my shoes wet if I wore them while walking on the beach.

But that's neither here nor there. I was pretty much saying that it's odd to say that KQ5 isn't the first CDROM game just because there were disk versions also.

The two formats are not interchangeable. The floppy version was not an MPC game and the CD was. While much of the two share a lot of the same code, much is different. Sierra had acquired Bright Star for its speech technology. The end result is what was developed for KQ5. You dismiss the two versions of KQ5 as if the differences were merely in the format of storage. The end result for the CD version took extra time to produce, but was still released before T7G.

King's Quest V was being developed as a CD-ROM game with speech right from the very beginning. It was not later 'remade' as a CD-ROM game like Space Quest IV was. SQ4 was remade later with its soundtrack altered to General MIDI format and with new graphics. The same cannot be said for KQ5. It's the same with the way King's Quest IV was made. They had both an SCI release (which, incidentally, was a breakthrough as being the first computer game to support a sound card AND the MT-32, backing up my earlier point that almost every game in the King's Quest series innovated something in the PC gaming world) and an AGI release for people who still used older hardware. It's no different with King's Quest V. They even had a 16-colour version.


Thank you. I didn't realize that was a crime (bad pun on this forum, I know). I DID say I did research.

But this has gotten terribly off-topic. Maybe it should be split.

Speech or not, KQ5 on either format is essentially the same game. Unless the graphics or story were changed, then it's still KQ5.

Whether or not it was released before T7G (and nowhere have I seen it listed that it does), my point remains that KQ5 was not the first game to be released solely on CD-ROM. Maybe it was the first multi-format game, but that's about all.


If both versions of KQ5 were released at exactly the same time (i.e. the same day), then yes, the game wasn't remade or released at a later date. However, if the CD-ROM version was released even a day, week or month later, they did not release simultaneously.

In addition, Collector said the two versions of the game were not technically the same. The diskette version had only text while the CD-ROM copy was a "talkie." Knowing this, whatever work went into the voiced version was essentially a remake. Maybe not in story or graphical design, but was remade on some level.

Even after playing through PQ4 multiple times, I still don't even feel like I know what the hell was going on. Games like PQ4 killed the adventure genre IMO, there's silly puzzles that don't make a lot of logical sense, and a bad story... too bad for a game that had a lot of promise.

The character of Detective Carey is hollow, there's a lot of pointless busywork in the game (filing paperwork, oh joy!), no real investigating, and at the end you still don't know what the hell happened. You don't even draw any conclusions to find the murderer, a dog drags you right to his house! (And one is only really guessing about the killer's identity and has now window into his motives.

Signs point to Mitchell Thurman as the murderer, but that's never even confirmed. Supposing it is him though, you're left to wonder why. You can't read his case file for some damn reason, and he's a serial killer with no motives at all. The whole end feels like you just fell ass backwards into winning the Medal of Valor. Sierra would have done a lot better to stick with Jim Walls and Sonny Bonds but they just couldn't pass up the big name.

I think that most PQ fans don't see PQ4 in the same caliber as the first 3. As you mentioned, there was probably too much emphasis placed on procedure than on story. Fans expected an adventure game, not a police training program. Anyway, Welcome to the forum, even though it sees little traffic, these days. Not to draw you away from this board, but you will find more life on some of the other Sierra community boards.