KING'S QUEST V: ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GO YONDER!

 KING'S QUEST V: ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GO YONDER! is the latest installment in
Roberta Williams's and Sierra On-Line's successful line of graphic adventures.
For some odd reason, the entire royal family of Daventry has a strange
compulsion to get into sticky situations just so that we adventurers can have
games to play. (This review is based on the IBM-PC version.)

 This time, King Graham returns to his castle to find that his family and home
have disappeared. Of course, it is Graham's duty to all gamers to rescue them.
Fortunately, Cedric, a not-so-wise owl and Graham's companion, witnessed the
entire disappearance and enlists his master's help. With the type of coincidence
that only appears in television and games, Cedric's master is an old magician,
Crispin. Crispin is kind enough to aid Graham on his quest, giving him an old
magic wand (which also serves as KQV's copy protection) and the ability to talk
to animals (which has absolutely nothing to do with copy protection but is still
useful). Of course, there has to be an evil adversary, and in this story, the
nasty character is the almost-omnipotent Mordack.

 KQV is one the first 256-color games from Sierra for MS-DOS machines. In order
to use the 256-color (VGA) mode, you must have VGA or MCGA graphic capabilities.
The VGA version is slower than the 16-color (EGA) version, and even if you have
a VGA card, the game might be too slow on your computer; only 286 or 386 owners
should buy the VGA version. The VGA version also requires a hard drive or two
floppy drives. Two disk formats for the VGA version are offered: One includes
nine high-density 5-1/4" (1.2 Mb) disks and a 720K 3-1/2" disk (for dual-drive
use only); the other includes seven high-density 3-1/2" (1.44 Mb) disks with
both 720K and 1.2 Mb startup disks.

 Sierra also offers a 16-color version that runs on EGA, Tandy, and CGA systems;
it comes with both 3-1/2" (720K) and 5-1/4" (1.2 Mb) disks. Of course, all
versions support the Roland MT-32 or LAPC-1, AdLib, Sound Blaster, and Game
Blaster cards. KQV has off-disk copy protection that forces you to translate
symbols so that Graham can cast a spell and continue with his adventures. Also,
note that both versions require about 575K of free RAM (after all TSRs and
drivers have been loaded) for the longer animation sequences.

 KING'S QUEST V shows off Sierra's newest no-typing interface. Now, instead of
typing commands, you select icons from a menu bar that appears only when needed.
Unlike the reverse-parser interface found in Lucasfilm games like INDIANA JONES
AND THE LAST CRUSADE, this icon bar leaves most of the screen free for the
graphics display. Like the Lucasfilm interface, there is now a "travel" mode
that allows you to walk around obstacles simply by choosing your destination.
Also, there is no need to move to an object before using it; Graham will walk to
the appropriate place before performing the required action.

 Unfortunately, only one icon (selected from your inventory) represents the
actions of giving, throwing, and using. Several times, I meant one use for an
item (such as giving it to someone) only to have the game respond with an
animated sequence, finding another use for that item (possibly using it as a
weapon). I felt as if KQV were solving itself for me on occasion, and I hope
this is a trend that Sierra will not continue. The new interface now responds
with a red "X" any time you look at something that is not important or use
something in an unexpected or incorrect way. I would've still preferred standard
text responses from KQV instead of symbols. Even the occasional "You can't do
that" would add some atmosphere to game, making you feel a bit more like Graham;
the "X" gives KQV more of a distant, third-person view of this fantasy world.

 KQV's graphics are nothing short of amazing, and even screen shots from the EGA
version are impressive. All of the pictures were hand-drawn and then digitized,
giving KQV a more realistic feel. Also, characters' speech is often animated in
close-up views. (A talking head is sometimes placed in a dialog box. Other
times, a detailed screen is shown with backgrounds carefully drawn.) Sierra has
even done a fair job of matching words with animation. And even on the standard
PC speaker, the musical score and sound effects are impressive, adding much to
the ambience of each scene.

 However, in the quest for disk space, Sierra has sacrificed a portion of game
play for graphics and sound. Unfortunately, the puzzles in KQV seem somewhat
shallow, and for the most part, they're quite easy. (There are several tricky
situations in KQV, although far fewer than you'd expect in a game of this size.)
KQV relies a lot on "adventure game logic," where finding a key in one place
would make a house with a matching lock materialize at the other end of the
game. Naturally, there are no puzzles exactly like this, but there are several
similar puzzles; the connections between two events are often as illogical as in
my example, and are especially obvious in this game.

 Roberta Williams seems to have been in a be-kind-to-everyone mood while
designing this game: There are at least three instances when helping someone (or
something) earlier in the game will have an effect later on. In returning a
favor, characters sometimes come from nowhere -- at least, not from anywhere
that should put them in a position to know Graham is in danger. The sequences
where Graham is helped by an outside character are fully animated, although not
totally believable. KQV may have benefited if the connection between Graham and
the outside character had been made stronger.

 The weakest parts of KING'S QUEST V are the speech sequences. Whenever you
click the "talk" icon on a character, Graham automatically says what the people
at Sierra thought would be most logical; the player has no control over the
dialog. In a way, the talk icon can only be used the way a button on a VCR would
be: Once you press "play," the movie starts. Even if KQV gave you a choice of
three or four possible dialogs (and even if all but one of such paths were "dead
ends"), it would seem as if you had greater control over the game. The animated
speech sequences may be fun to watch, but they take far too much control away
from the player.

 Experienced adventure gamers may be disappointed by the simplicity and
shallowness of many of the puzzles. The third-person animations, although
well-done, also emphasize the weaknesses of the game. New adventurers will
appreciate the added help, and should find KQV much to their liking. Still, the
graphics are so amazing that even experienced players can appreciate KQV for the
advances it makes in both playability and graphics. Even with all of its flaws,
most gamers will find something enjoyable in the latest KING'S QUEST adventure.

 KING'S QUEST V: ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GO YONDER! is published and distributed
by Sierra On-Line.

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