Nerds That Geek Game Review – ‘Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

​There was a time in my life where science fiction was everything to me. I simply fell in love with the genre and everything it stood for and it motivated me to seek out as many stories as I could from said genre, from just about every single medium imaginable as I did my best to satiate my starving mind. That meant sci-fi books and movies and shows were a staple for me on the weekends and I honestly thought that was the only way I would get my fix because I was unaware of the fact that there was another route to celebrating the genre, by way of computer games.
 
For while I poured over Asamov and Clarke in print, a couple of dudes released their own love letter to the science fiction genre on floppy disk and it wasn’t until my gaming phase in middle school that I discovered the wonder of the Space Quest game series from Sierra On-Line and oddly enough, my first real taste of this particular saga came by way of the demo of the third entry in the series, The Pirates of Pestulon and getting to play that demo, motivated me to seek out where these adventures began and I’m so glad I started at the beginning because Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter was truly a revolutionary game and a wonderful beginning to a sweeping and fun journey through the stars.
 
Granted, the graphics at the time look outdated in this day and age, but they were top of the line back in the day and done well enough to make it inherently clear that this first adventure with a janitor named Roger Wilco was going to highlight the best parts of the genre, all while making you chuckle and laugh with its ability to lampoon the genre as a whole and well, it didn’t take long for me to be instantly hooked on this game. Because for starters, I was in space and traveling through it and really what blew me away the most when it comes to this game was the sheer fact that it featured one hell of an epic plot.
 
Because this game went beyond merely moving us from point A to point B, there was a nasty villain to deal with, and our goofy protagonist obviously was more of a hero than we initially gave him credit to be and venturing from world to world, all while working toward defeating the dastardly Sariens from destroying the galaxy was thrilling to say the least and I tore through the game as quickly as possible to see how it was going to end and well, who knew that this simple adventure would lead to a massive franchise, one that was celebrated for celebrating the most iconic parts of the genre?
 
But, that’s me getting ahead of myself, because we will talk about the other games in the coming days. But in the here and the now, this is a game that quite frankly holds up well despite its graphical shortcomings, because it really was an honest attempt to tell a fun sci-fi story, one that I would venture to say is a rousing success and while it got a lovely VGA remake in 1991, updating the look and feel of the story to match the industry at the time, nothing will ever replicate the feel of this one and the wonder that came with this first adventure all from stepping into the shoes of a janitor that would become the hero of the galaxy.  

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