Gamer Girls

I haven’t watched this guy’s videos in fucking years. I tuned out around the time of that proposed RV trip that was begging money for. He was also shilling hard for Patreon after that. Fuck this. Also, his content just wasn’t interesting any more. It’s all so formulaic. Hidden gems and whatnot. How many hidden gems can there possibly be?

So he’s reviewing a game. That’s…new for him. As far as I’m aware.

The game is made by Roberta Williams, the woman who co-developed the King’s Quest games, along with her husband. I’m always dubious on husband and wife video game developing. How much work is each party actually doing? To be blunt, is the woman actually interested in video games and engaged and knows how to program or is this really all the husband’s work and the wife is just along for the ride?

1:00 – “Before we get started, I do want to address that a review like this for me is a bit tricky because I’m grateful to call Ken and Roberta friends and also I worked for them at Sierra in the 90s.”

And there’s video of Metal Jesus hanging out with the Williams family. HE’S HUGE! What the fuck happened? I heard that this guy went into a restaurant and ate all the food in the restaurant and they had to close the restaurant.

Aside from the obesity epidemic in the US, it’s fucking pathetic how Metal Jesus claims that he worked at Sierra. He worked on the hint line telephone network. So some kid would call in and ask, “Where’s the wizard’s magic wand in King’s Quest III” and Metal Jesus would look up the answer and say, “Well, it’s on top of the safe in his study, of course.”

Then when the phone bill comes, that kid would get beat for calling this $3.99/minute hint line.

But Metal Jesus never says this. Well, he must have done at some point. How else would I know about it? But in general terms, he just says that he, “Worked at Sierra”. He’s obviously implying that he worked on the games. No. He was answering the fucking scam hint line.

And how long did he even work there? It would be pathetic to work a hint line for years. What other jobs has he had? I have a hazy memory that he also worked in retail. I could be wrong. I’d like to see his full resume.

So I’ve watched the video now. Basically, he says that the game sucks dick. And this is a game that he says he gave feedback to during the early development and he gets a “thanks” credit in the game, ala Kieran in the AVGN videos.

I don’t think that he’ll be invited back to the Williams home any time soon.

His complaints do seem valid, though. Puzzles that don’t make sense. Lack of a story. I guess that this is how the original game was but this isn’t 1976 any more.

New games from former Sierra people always seem to be disappointing. There was Hero U from the people who made Quest for Glory. Another husband and wife team, as it happens. I never played it but from the reviews I read, it was okay at best. The reviews weren’t enough to get me interested and I was huge into the Quest for Glory series. Except for the fifth one. I never played that one because all of the reviews said that it’s shit.

All of the Leisure Suit Larry games post-Sierra got mediocre, at best reviews. Although, I guess even the Sierra games in the series weren’t anything amazing.

Didn’t the Space Quest guys release a game fairly recently too? Yeah. Space Venture. Released last year, after ten years in development. From the few reviews I’ve managed to find, it looks like it’s not good. I’ve never played any Space Quest game, by the way.

What about Police Quest? Nobody’s tried to reboot that franchise. There’s all kinds of shit you can do with that concept. Social commentary.

Why doesn’t somebody just use the old school, 16 colour graphics but update the games? Do something new with them. New story. New puzzles, obviously.

I suppose that people have done this. Fan games. There are probably loads of these games. There’s Quest for Glory 4 1/2. I played that one a bit years ago. Was put off by the bizarre racism in the game.

There was that fan project that converted Quest for Glory II into…whatever…VGA graphics and a mouse cursor. I played that for a bit too, years ago.

Oh yeah. They used a program called Adventure Game Studio to make the game. And there appear to be loads of games on there.

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/allgames/

A full 27 pages of games. And people are still making the games. The most recent one is Super Star Trek (1978) meets 25th Anniversary. They took the 1978 Star Trek game (which I haven’t played) and put it into the 25th Anniversary game (which I have played). That’s cool. Well, obviously it isn’t. It’s only something a giant nerd would be interested in. But I find it cool.

Here’s a great idea for a Youtube channel or a Twitch stream: just play these fucking games. We don’t need any more playthroughs of Escape from Monkey Island or whatever but play fucking Masquerade at the Con or Huggles Goes on a Trip or something. You’d be the only person with a video of this game. You’d quite possibly be the only person ever to have to played the game.

If the games are bad, you have funny stuff to talk about. If the games are good, you have a genuinely hidden gem to talk about.