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*What* were they thinking?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 03, 2008
Author: Amazon User

"Mask of Eternity" has thoroughly exemplified how _not_ to do a King's Quest. Sierra has left the beaten track to which we have become accustomed and have strayed into a jungle, in which they have hopelessly lost their way.

When did KQ become Lara Croft?? Though Roberta Williams did not call this #8 in the series in an attempt to not betray the fans, it has become known as such, but it doesn't matter. KQ is definitely ended here and with good reason. It is a weak, straggling story, badly constructed and throwing away many a good chance. The entire premise is too thin, the puzzles too slight, the construction and animation too crude, the music too dull and uninspired (though it has a couple nice tracks).

For years we were taught to solve puzzles through non-violent solutions, and resort to violence only when necessary. This game flies in the face of the established vogue and is a total disappointment. It's really a shame that what became the last of the series was the last because it wasn't true to form. The puzzles consist mostly of "look at the object and then figure out how to manipulate". The hero instantly resorts to theivery, justifies it and doesn't develop at all. He doesn't even have an ending; when the story is over, there is no ending where everything gets tied up and we talk about what it meant. It just ...ends, like an antique video game. As if the programmers didn't give this any thought. What becomes of Connor? Of Sarah? Of anyone? We don't know.

But by the end, we don't care anymore. This game should not have been released under the guise of a "King's Quest".

KQ fans, skip this game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game when it first came out, excited that there was another game to the King's Quest series. I've played all the games except 2 and 3, and love the story of King Graham and his family.

So this game introduced a new character. That's fine. But other than a brief appearance by King Graham in the intro and a flash of him in the finale, and the fact that the first "chapter" of the game takes place in Daventry, this bears no resemblance to the series I loved.

Ambiance - a large percentage of this game takes place in a dark, hard on the eyes environment.

Animation - People say this is good animation, but compared to the easily flowing cartoon quality of KQ7 and the animation used in Quest for Glory 5, this is pathetic. Most of the time your character is half walking in a wall. Yes, I downloaded the patch. But still when you walked alongside a wall or mountain, your foot or shoulder would go through it.

Controls - clunky and hard to manage. You have to use your arrow keys. Manipulating the character's movements is difficult. Then to fight, you have to use the mouse. Also the character doesn't seem to have any automatic avoidance of obstacles, particularly corners and protruding walls. To pick up an item, you have to put your weapon away. Then you have to take it out. To get things out of urns and barrels, you have to smash it with a weapon, put the weapon away, take the item, and then take the weapon back out. Also, gone are the shortcut keys to save as well as autosaving.

Interaction - what interaction? Half the fun of the earlier KQ games (especially 6 and 7) was interacting with other characters to find out hints and clues. Here you mostly wander around mazes to find the right rooms to find the right items. Even the monsters are limited. Kill them from one area, and you don't get any new ones next time you pass that way. In the first 2 levels there is minimal interaction - 3rd level you start to get some more.

Humor - except for some comments by some characters near the end, none. This is basically a dark story.

Plot - minimal. The basic concept - Daventry (and the world) is plunged into dark times by the destruction of the mask of eternity. Connor has to battle through several levels to find the pieces of the mask and return them to their proper place. That's it. The first 7 games could be turned into novels with rich stories. Until levels 5/6, you're really not interacting, not doing anything but fighting and finding what you need.

Music - it's OK. That's it. Nothing spectacular. Nothing memorable.

Sound Effects - annoying. Every time Connor pulled out the war hammer, there was a loud "oof". The same noise came every time he ran into a corner, a wall, or protruding item.

Overall - if you like the kind of game where you run through a maze, shoot baddies, and find objects, this is your game. If you're looking for a sequel to the rich history of the King's Quest series, skip this.

Personally, as I played this I kept comparing the game to Quest for Glory 5 and found that KQ8 paled in comparison. They tried to copy many of the game elements and failed miserably.

really is a classic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game was so much fun to play. I played it a good year or two before deciding to sell it. I was surprised at the great quality of the graphics considering when this game was made. Also, this game doesn't require very high computer specifications, so pretty much any computer can run this game, including my old compaq. What is better than the graphics is the game play. The worlds are HUGE, and there's just so much to explore, many unique creatures as well as items. The story line is very complex, and sometimes online walkthroughs can be handy to get through the quests. It's basically like you're a real person in the game, you really get pulled into it.
The only downfall is that the story doesn't exactly remind me of a "king's quest" game; maybe a different title would serve it better. Anywho, if you enjoy RPG's like the diablo series, WoW, or Nox, you will love this game. I'm surprised more people don't know about it. Many hours of great game play.

A very mixed uneven game.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is the last Kings Quest game to ever be released and it recieved alot of bad reviews from game fans.

This game has both ups and downs.

Ups - Great Graphics! stunning Nintendo 64 quality graphics.
- Alot of fun action in the game with alot of violence and enemies to kill.
- A new take up the realm of daventry.

Downs - Really has no relation to the royal family at all.
- Dosen't seem like a Kings Quest adventure game at all either.
- It appears that this game has really no story thats any good to speak of.
- The fighting isnt really a Kings Quest style game.

So all in all its a very fun game, and a very good game for what's inside of it.

But its a terrible Kings Quest game.

Enjoyable and Hard

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I just wanted to say that I've played this game from start to finish with my son who is now 7, and my sister, and we loved it. It took us a couple months of playing it, but we all enjoyed it. It was a fun game to watch and kept us on the edge of our seats cause ya never knew what was going to happen next. It's both challenging and fun, and it's a game that you'll need TIME for, because it's intence. Save your game often, because when your character dies, you's start all over. The puzzles are hard/tricky at time, but don't give up! The walk through is rather fun to use when you get stuck. I used it and I'd like to go through and play the game again with it just to watch the story unfold! I loved this game and my son wants to play it now with me, again. The music is great and adds so much, as well as the sound affects. Some of it is rather creepy sounding. The ending was a little dissapointing because it was too short, but still it was good. I love to see a 9th one! :)

mask of eternit is an immersive and fun game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was not a big KQ fan before playing this game, so I was not biased in wanting Sierra to produce a game which lived up to my expectations of what a KQ game should or should not be. I'm sure the old games are great, but it's only fair to let this game stand on its own merits.

This game has excellent graphics for its day, but to see it in all its glory on today's computers you may need to use a Glide Wrapper. This is a program which emulates 3dfx graphics. 3dfx used to be a competitor of nvidia, but went out of business and nvidia bought their technologies. Anyway, without the Glide Wrapper, I couldn't get the game to play in anything other than 640x480 resolution with no anti-aliasing. With the 3dfx emulation, it looks great.

The game's sound does a lot to make the game more immersive. The music is generally very ominous. Indoors, you will sometimes be treated to a nice accoustic guitar. This is the only game I've ever played where somebody sitting in an adjacent room actually commented on how nice the music was. So, two thumbs up in this department.

One of the impressive things about this game is how realistically the main character, Connor, moves. Even my 10 year old son who has grown up playing 3d games on PS2 was impressed by this. To me it is reminiscent of some of the Prince of Persia games and also Tomb Raider. Like these games, it can be a little challenging sometimes to get the character to do exactly what you want, but it's worth the effort.

Some people complain about the puzzles in this game being too easy. However, I would say that for me I don't like the continuity of a story to be interrupted by having to spend too much time solving a puzzle, and I hate it when I have to resort to reading somebody else's walkthrough or hints. I know this is a personal preference type of thing.

Where I would have to agree the game may suffer a bit is plot. It's just not a plot-oriented game. Also, there aren't very many NPC's (non player characters) to interact with as most of the people in Daventry have turned to stone. However, there are other games out there that have been very successful even with very limited NPC's. Myst comes to mind. Of course, one of the things that made Myst interesting is that not only do you have to solve the puzzles, but the story is very interesting and mysterious as well. The story behind Mask of Eternity is perhaps a bit too simplistic.

Did this game kill the KQ series? Maybe. On the other hand, maybe living in the shadows of the previous games prevented Mask of Eternity from being more popular. Who knows? Oh, well. All good things must come to an end. Of course, I understand there is a group of fans working on a freeward KQ9, so maybe the series will live on after all.

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

this game is so awesome its a lota fun and i also skip the dying heart thing but i jump OVER the ghosts!!! every tme i play i find something new its just so awesome so awesome my fave weapon is the fire bow cause they burn to death it looks so cool.(i always cheat for it at beginning)

Kings Quest

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

im a smart kid so i dont find the puzzles all that hard and i like the combat. my fave place is either dimension of death or realm of the sun(i like mazes)tho to get the hammer thingy in the dimension oif death i just charge right through the ghosts with a shield potion which cuts my dimension time in about half since i dunt have to do the whole dying heart thing.the combats excellent tho on big fights like the one at the bridge of life i die easy so i use god mode(superconnor!) overall, its one of my favorite RPGs.

*An insult to previous KQ games

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: March 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I am not one to hate, but considering Roberta William's humble beginnings and her breakthrough titles such as previous King's Quest serious... I feel like this is a betrayal to adventure gaming in general. I could not believe that she would put her name to something like this until I read one of her interviews back in 1999 (http://www.justadventure.com/Interviews/Roberta_Williams/Roberta_Williams_Interview_3.shtm)

Apparently, she was trying to bring adventure gaming to a larger audience. However, as a King's Quest game, this is just a bad title. A few facts rather than rants:

1. This game features little to no connection to the original King Graham family and even less character development of the main hero. What is his name again?

2. The landscape does not resemble Daventry at all, and the overall game is usually pretty dark (no sunlight... dark corridors)

3. As a 3D action game, it gets tedious and repetitive shooting arrows and hacking monsters. Without a viable plot, there is nothing that really stands out from this title. Granted, the game had superior graphics and arguably sound at the time of its release, it terms of game play it offers nothing innovative.

4. There is very little humor, puzzle solving, or "adventure" aspects at all. The only adventure you will get is from going from level to level hacking monsters. Long gone is the excitement you feel when you enter a new colorful room and must talk to NPCs and explore items to assist you in your quests. It's like taking the orgasm out of sex.

5. The ending sucks, the title produced inferior sales compared to its predecessors, and either due to management change issues or this title, after KQ8 the franchise has effectively been killed off.

Sometimes I wonder if Sierra was developing another action game and just decided to add a few cut scenes and package the title as KQ8 for the sake of money. Because it definitely seems that way; this game ranks a negative -10 on my scale, even and as an action game it is mediocre at best.

Good job killing off a ground breaking series and brought the enjoyment of adventure gaming to millions.

Mom's point of view

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: January 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

My experience with this game is a love/hate thing. I had no experieience with shoot em kill em/ arcade type games and had to master shooting and jumping skills. Then, trying to find all the stuff - some in obscure places- without any cheats as we were not online and the cheat book was non existant - made me quit the game numerous times. I did finally get through it and have played it many times since. The real fun of this game was playing it with my child - we spent many happy hours trying to get to the next level and see the new realm. The graphics are so-so cartoonish and Graham is sort of dorky in a good way. We especially liked knocking him into things to hear him groan and have him belch. This is a cute game - nothing sophisticated or high tech. I think it's good for younger children, provided they have a walk through, otherwise they might get a little frustrated. It's a fun game and I highly recommend playing it, especially if you have a child to play it with!

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