Space Quest 2: Vohaul's Revenge (by Jubal)

[Jubal]

Space Quest 2: Vohaul's Revenge

Game Type: Abandonware
Genre: Single Player RPG

Link: http://www.spacequest.net/archives/sq2/

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Space Quest 2: Vohaul's Revenge is another abandonware fun-ride from the late 1980s where you walk around typing commands and trying not to die (and nevertheless dying frequently). Essentially the plot is that Sludge Vohaul, the evil genius behind the Sarien pirate attack in SQ1, has decided he wants revenge on you and your planet, and he has plans for both; you must firstly save yourself and then somehow manage to defeat Vohaul and save your people!

Firstly, the gameplay and mechanics: this game has a lower score than its predecessor on gameplay and overall, and that's deserved. There are a few key flaws: firstly, scenes where some obvious alternative commands were needed, such as the plunger on the wall which took me forever to get the wording right on. Secondly, too many points requiring non-intuitive gameplay. Space Quest games are essentially puzzle games with exploration and the odd minigame; there were too many points where aspects of the game required exhaustive looking around every scene rather than clever use of resources - the example par excellence is the small patch at the back of the screen in the swamp where the water gets deeper and you have to swim. If you don't find this indistinguishable patch of swamp that you had no reason to believe was there by blundering into it or you don't think to dive down when there, you fail to find a totally critical item that is necessary for the game later on. Also as downers compared to SQ1 there are several points where you need items that, if you failed to get them earlier, are now wholly unavailable to you, and the most annoying minigame needs to be played through twice which kicks the joy of completing it the first time out of you entirely. On the other hand, exploring the jungles is very good fun, there's a nice range of death traps, the Bearion minigame is pretty neat, and the gameplay (for my money) improves a lot once you get to Vohaul's asteroid base.

There is good news, however, and the first piece of it is simply that this is more Space Quest and that can't be a bad thing. If you liked one you will still enjoy two and the zany, quirky life of your hero can continue. The immersion score holds up, though the balance of reasons has shifted; in general Labion was for me a less interesting planet than Kerona in SQ1, mostly because of the lack of interesting other characters. The Hunter is only seen briefly, and the Pinkunz at least deserved some sort of more varied /in depth stuff in their settlement location rather than two lines of speech as a species. The Pinkunz are also literally the only non-hostiles in the game (possibly excepting the Terror Beast, but that can definitely kill you a lot too). The reason the immersion score holds up is that SQ2 is still very funny and has a few moments of brilliance - the method by which the Labion Terror Beast is defeated being an excellent example - that in terms of humour make it worthwhile. Also the janitorial trope gets played with more when you get to Vohaul's base, which is a nice touch.

So a solid three overall; not bad for a game over a quarter of a century old, if a little less good than its predecessor. This second episode in the adventures of a space janitor was good fun, and worth playing - but perhaps keep a walkthrough to hand to sort out the really non-intuitive bits!

[Jubal]

Not that anyone read the first two, but I'm going to be reviewing SQ3 once I'm done playing it.

[Tom]

How many space quests are there? Also, are they free?

[Jubal]

They are abandonware - which is to say you can't buy them, the manufacturer no longer cares about them, and they are readily available if you google "Space Quest Download" (but we avoid publicly linking downloads because technically someone still owns the copyright). They're very worth getting hold of.

Also you'll need DosBox to play most games this age.

[Tom]

Okay, sounds good I'll have a look in to it