“I intend to infest your planet with thousands
of these genetically engineered door-to-door life insurance salesmen. I will at
last reap sweet revenge from the scientific community that mocked me.”

—Sludge Vohaul, Space Quest 2

Commanders
Sure Can Be Mean Sometimes …

What do you get when you mix a cowardly
hero/janitor, overgrown apes, and an evil plot to destroy Xenon with life-insurance
salesmen? Why, you get Space Quest 2: Vohaul’s Revenge, the second game
in the prestigious Space Quest series.

Space Quest 2 thrusts
you into the position of the space janitor from the first game. Though the player
can choose his or her own name, the default name is Roger Wilco. Apparently, Roger’s
glory from saving Xenon in the first game has since faded, and after numerous
attempts to cash in on his glory, he has taken up a posting as a janitor on Xenon
Orbital Station 4. A rather boring post for such a hero. Fortunately, things get
a little spiced up for our hero, as he is soon kidnaped by an evil villain named
(here’s where the subtitle comes from) Sludge Vohaul. Never met him? If one will
recall, the dying scientist onboard the Arcada in Space Quest 1 was named
Slash Vohaul. Sludge, his evil deformed brother, is rather peeved at Roger for
saving the day in Space Quest 1 and destroying his weapon of mass destruction,
the Star Generator. He decides to take revenge on Roger Wilco and Roger’s home
planet of Xenon. The brave (brave meaning cowardly) janitor is sentenced to live
out the rest of his life doing hard labor on the jungle planet of Labion, and
Xenon is to meet a far more horrible fate–infestation by door-to-door life insurance
salesmen! Through circumstances beyond his control, Roger manages to escape. Left
alone on a backwater planet, he must find a way to escape and stop Vohaul’s dastardly
plan. This plot gets an A in my book any day.

Ah, Labion. Sure,
it May Be Boring but it Sure Is Purdy!

With such a funny back-story,
one would expect the actual gameplay to be hilarious. Unfortunately, this is not
the case. The game takes place in three locales, the Xenon Orbital Station 4,
Labion, and Vohaul’s asteroid. While the section on the asteroid is quite funny,
on the planet of Labion the game is boring. Very boring. So boring that you may
forget that the game is supposed to be humorous. The game was programmed in AGI
(adventure game interpreter) like so many of Sierra’s games in the eighties. Movement
of the characters is controlled by the keyboard, and everything else is done by
a parser (i.e., search man, put gem mouth, etc.) Because of this, the gameplay
is quite stable. Adding in the fact that around a half of the game is about as
interesting as watching grass grow, I give the gameplay a C-.

Maneuvering
Through the Plant of Death. How Fun.

The puzzles in Space Quest
2 are a mixed bag. They range from excellent, brain-straining puzzles (putting
toilet paper in a waste basket and lighting it on fire to set off the fire sprinklers,
which destroys some killer robots) to monotonous mazes (trying to navigate through
a maze of plant tentacles which, if touched, automatically kill you.) Most of
the game follows the Sierra standard of “collect everything you see and try
to use it on everything.” This is quite fine for the game. Of course, the
programmers just had to throw in mind-numbingly annoying mazes that could drive
even a trained chimpanzee wild. Also, sometimes what you have to do isn’t obvious,
but that makes the game more challenging and overall more enjoyable. I give
the puzzles a B-.

Even a Hero/Janitor Has to Go Sometime …

Yes, Space Quest 2 was programmed in 1988. And yes, graphics have improved
exponentially since then. Thus, the game is quite a pixel-fest in its glorious
16 colors. For the most part, the graphics are sufficient. However, there are
several times during the game that the poor and pixelated sprites make the game
next to impossible. In one instance, Roger is standing next to an unusual shaped
object. It looks like nothing I’ve seen in real life or otherwise. Typing “look”
produces nothing to tell me what it is. What is it? A mailbox. And in the middle
of the Labion jungle! Because of this, I give the graphics a B.

You
Must Stop the Evil Vohaul from Launching the Insurance Salesmen!

Sound
effects? Music? No, Space Quest 2 does not have an abundance of these.
The few sound effects, as well as the music, are produced from the internal speaker.
Though the songs are few and far between, they sound excellent and have a nasty
habit of getting stuck in one’s head, even though they are played on the internal
speaker. The main theme and Vohaul’s theme both show up in the future Space
Quests, and they are catchy little tunes. For this, I give the music and
sound effects a B-.

Space Quest 2: Vohaul’s Revenge is a challenging
adventure game that any fan of the series should enjoy. My advice: throughout
the section on Labion, keep telling yourself that it gets better and funnier.
Keep telling your self that it is so funny you will learn the meaning of ROFL.*
Do this, and you should somewhat enjoy this game.

Space Quest 2 final
grade: C+

System Requirements:
IBM PC Jr./ Tandy +

*Rolling
On Floor Laughing