Apparently Vivendi Universal is actually going to do something with their vast treasures of Sierra On-Line that they’ve been sitting on for so long (plundering only for the wildly different recent Leisure Suit Larry game). Currently available for pre-order on Amazon are compilations of the King’s Quest, Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry titles, all for $20 each. There aren’t any details available, so it’s unknown if the most recent title King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity will be included, or if the SQ collection will have any glimpses at the canceled Space Quest VII.
My personal favorite Sierra titles alas, will most likely remain out of print. While I’d kill for re-releases of the two Manhunter games or the two Lara Bow mysteries, they’re hardly as easily marketed as the three franchises above.
I’ll be curious to see how these games are all updated for modern XP machines. I’ve only played around with Sarien a bit, but have found it to be not quite as wonderfully amazing as ScummVM (which is of course, the coolest thing ever). That’s partially because the Mac version is pretty buggy, but it’s also due to the nature of these games. SCUMM games (particularly Sam & Max and later) have an elegance that allows them to be ported to virtually every platform imaginable. Sierra’s earlier titles, which require a keyboard, don’t adapt quite as well, particularly on portable systems. So I wouldn’t hold out for PSP ports (yes, I know there were talks at one point for GBA versions, but that would have been pretty clunky).
Sadly, the manner in which I came by this happy news is from a news story at Adventure Gamers, reporting that the fan-made King’s Quest IX: Every Cloak Has a Silver Lining has been canned following a cease-and-desist order from Vivendi Universal. It’s not surprising to hear (these fan-made sequels, cool as they are, violate every conceivable copyright law there is), but that doesn’t make it any disappointing.