Space Quest I: Roger Wilco in the Sarien Encounter

Roger Wilco in the Sarien Encounter is a remake of the 1986 game Space Quest: Chapter I - The Sarien Encounter. Utilising a point-and-click interface and featuring improved VGA graphics, this is one of several updated games that were released by Sierra On-line in the early 1990.

The first adventure of the ever popular space-janitor Roger Wilco, it sees Roger battle the sinister alien race known as the Sariens. With his ship, the Arcada, destroyed, he finds himself stranded on the planet Kerona, from which he must escape before embarking on a quest to stop the Sariens from conquering the Universe.

For those who prefer not having to type text commands, this version offers a full point and click interface instead of the older text based parser. The updated VGA graphics really add to the remake and introduce a retro-future B-movie style that would be a feature of all the later games in the series (starting with Space Quest IV which was released in the same year).

Although the game engine and graphics are updated, the story largely remains the same - it retains many of the features of 1980s adventure games. There are many ways to die and it is possible to end up in dead-ends after missing items in previous locations or through failing the in-game copy-protection. Despite all this, Space Quest is more lightweight than many of Sierra’s other releases from the time as it has more than enough humour and charm to make it worth playing. So much so, it still remains something of a cult classic among adventure gamers.

Review By Richard