King's Quest Collection (PC, 2006)

* King's Quest Collection (2006)

In September 2006 Vivendi Universal released King's Quest Collection, a compilation CD for Windows XP encompassing games I-VII. Rather than porting the games directly, however, this release uses the original versions running under the DOSBox emulator and a Windows frontend. As a result, it is also possible to run King's Quest I-VI on other platforms with a little tweaking and ports of DOSBox. King's Quest VII is the earlier 16 bit windows version, version 1.4. It lacks dos compatibility, the improved save and restore functions, and character speed control found in version 2.0. It contains the dragon tail death that was removed from version 2.0, "Father always said to let sleeping dragons lie". It runs natively on Windows 32bit versions but is incompatible with 64bit windows.

Missing in the collection are the original AGI version of King's Quest 1, as well as the Windows CD version of King's Quest VI with high-resolution character art (some of the original Windows files were removed from this release), the 2.0 dos and windows versions of KQ VII, and King's Quest: Mask of Eternity. It also lacks any of the bonus material from previous collections.

This collection was released on Steam in July 2009

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Kings Quest fan at heart and love all the games. This isn't a review of the game play because honestly, if you are buying these games, it's not for the graphics but for the memory of the old games. And games 1-6 work great on XP/Vista. However, the makers of the game did not put a lot of effort into seeing either Kings Quest 7 will work on XP/Vista or put any of the patches on that fix the glitches. This was the game that I was looking forward to playing the most, and it frustrated me. The problem is with the DOS program that isn't compatable. However, there is a fix (took me 3 attempts to figure it out.) http://www.sierrahelp.com/foru​ms/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47
I wouldn't have been able to play the game without it, but make sure that you uninstall the game before you put the patch on and you also makes sure to put the patch, new dos program, and game in all the right places on your computer or it won't work. Still, a real pain for something that the manufactures of the game should have figured out before the put it on the market.

I wanted to buy the old King's Quest games because I used to play them as a kid and wanted to relive it! I was previously aware there could be a few technical issues with this game and Windows, but so far I have had minimal trouble with it! What trouble I did have was fixable by Googling the issue or visiting dosbox.com!

I love these classic games, but there were a few glitches in the game (not just on this one, but on most of the ones that were remade for Windows XP). There are ways to fix the problems, so it all works out. It's a great compilation for anyone who loves RPG games!!!

I forgot what I used to think of Sierra when I bought this new compilation of the "King's Quest" games. They work - but there's always a problem. This one is supposed to run the old DOS and 3.1 games on XP - maybe. Sometimes. Oh well, there IS a reason for Sierra not producing any more games in the past several years.