“I’m not going down there! A man has to draw
the line somewhere,
and I’m drawing it at the er … colon.”
–Roger
Wilco, while exploring Stellar Santiago’s body

The subtitle of Space
Quest VI, “The Spinal Frontier,” is obviously a parody on Star
Trek V: The Final Frontier. Besides the name similarities, these two pieces
of science fiction have one major thing in common–Star Trek V was undoubtedly
the lamest, most pathetic, most forlorn, and any-other-synonym-for-pitiful-and-bad-you-can-think-of
of the Star Trek movies, and Space Quest VI seems to carry that
torch as well for the Space Quest series. While not a totally horrible
game, knowing that The Spinal Frontier is the last of the Space Quest
series is sure to leave any fan disappointed.

Space Quest VI’s problems
begin with its story. While the plot focuses on a conspiracy against hero/janitor
Roger Wilco to steal his body, this is hardly apparent throughout the game, especially
in the beginning. Roger was a captain in Space Quest V; now he’s demoted
back to janitor. The game starts as Janitor Second Class Wilco departs for shore
leave on the backwater planet Polysorbate 60. What’s his goal? Absolutely nothing.
No plot to speak of. You’ll spend hours wandering around a city with no apparent
goal, solving puzzle after monotonous puzzle. Some of them are easy, some are
more difficult, and almost all of them are inventory-based. Unfortunately, some
of the best brain-ticklers in the game are found here, so “enjoy” it
while you can. I won’t give away the story, but Roger travels to some interesting
locales throughout the game, including the large end section in a human body.
One of the problems with Space Quest VI is the degree of “freedom”
it gives the player later on in the game. Because the average puzzle involves
clicking on every single object in the screen, hoping you can pick it up, the
only solution to getting stuck in the game is to travel to every planet you’ve
been to and click on every object in every scene. Now that’s freedom! In
all fairness, Space Quest VI does handle death better than the previous
games. When Roger dies (which will happen a lot, trust me), you have the option
to replay the game from the point of death. The story in Space Quest VI
gets a C, and the puzzles get a C-.

The previous Space Quest
games have all had excellent graphics for their time. Space Quest VI, with
its SVGA graphics, breaks that tradition. While the backgrounds are always exotic
and look quite good, the characters look like they were drawn by a high school
art student. I guess the designers were going for a cartoony feel. They succeeded
at that, but the underdetailed and poorly animated sprites they used hardly are
appropriate for the subject matter. Sierra’s other adventure game that was released
at this time, Kings Quest 7, suffers from the same problem. While the backgrounds
and spaceships look nice, the sprites just kill the feel of the game. I give
the graphics a C.

Pretty much the only field where Space Quest VI
doesn’t disappoint is the sound. Like the fourth and fifth games in the series,
Space Quest VI has beautiful music that fits the tone of the current locale
perfectly. The voice acting is also above par. Gary Owens returns as the narrator,
though his chiding comments can get annoying after a while (the average human
can only stand “Excellent guess, Kreskin, excellent, but wrong” so many
times before being driven into a murderous rage). I give the sound an A-.

Space
Quest VI is probably the worst of the Space Quest series. Be that as
it may, diehard fans of Sierra adventures may like it. For the rest of you, keep
your fingers crossed that Sierra will make a Space Quest VII and learn
from their mistakes in VI.

Final Grade: C

System
Requirements:

PC:
DOS
6.0+
486, 25 MHz
8 MB RAM
5 MB free HD space
CD-ROM drive
Supported
sound card

Mac:
68040, PowerPC Mac
12
MB (8 MB available)
System 7.1 or higher
16 MB RAM required for Power Mac
native mode