ABOUT / GAMES / FAN GALLERY / THOUGHTS / ARCHIVES
Space Quest II
Vohaul's Revenge
Vohaul's Revenge is a good game. It's solidly in the middle of my Space Quest rankings, and I think a big part of that is that it suffers a bit from "we didn't plan out a sequel", even if everything about Sarien Encounter seems poised to have one (calling it Chapter One seems to have been fairly consistent).
I love the series as a whole, but it never really took an approach of trying to establish a cohesive universe, and everything seems designed loosely in a "wouldn't it be cool if" without trying to keep anything consistent beyond a surface level.
Regardless, this has a lot of things that get referenced later both by official titles and fans. It's a good time with some snappy writing, even if DecafJedi dunked on it saying "sometimes it seems more like Roberta Williams on a particularly funny day than the Two Guys from Andromeda." (Love you Jess)
GOOD GAG: You can cheat to win, and it gives you more than the maximum points. Good times.
FAVORITE DEATH: Climbing the sticky tree by the ramp on Labion and getting stuck to it. Just fun visuals to me. I like skeletons!
FAVORITE INVENTORY: Glowing Gem (AKA the hunk of Orium) is probably the most relevant that folks latch onto, and it's good, but I think the Plunger wins, because I really like the puzzle where you use it.
FAVORITE MINIGAME: There's... really only one or two things I'd qualify as arcade sequences at all in this game, and nothing I'd call a minigame. I suspect this was less a response to any feedback and more that the series was just beginning to establish itself as a multiple game thing. Or none fit. Or they didn't have time. Who knows? The closest is the Root Monster Maze, so it wins by default.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS: A lot of folks mention this, but being able to walk up the walls and along the ceiling right at the beginning of the game is really slick. I think my favorite thing is actually where you have to figure out how to carry the glowing gem so you can see, but your hands are occupied. PUT GEM IN MOUTH is both a rewarding puzzle to solve AND a hilarious call-back line to mention to other fans.
JERK MOVE: It's between the hidden instant death pit in the first Labion location, and the need to navigate around bushes to find locations that you wouldn't necessarily think are there. That second one I had already been trained by The Black Cauldron, so it didn't occur to me that it was rude until much later. So it's probably the instant death.
WEIRD BUT IT STUCK WITH ME: If you read the engraving on the control panel in the elevator in the Asteroid Fortress it says:
BOBCO LIFT DIVISION
A SUBSIDIARY OF BOBCO, INC.
UNIVERSALLY FAMOUS MAKERS
OF NAD'S HAMSTER TAPE.
and then some other stuff, but that "NAD'S HAMSTER TAPE" line is just very funny to me. It doesn't seem to be something anybody else remembers though.
SPACE QUEST-INESS RATING:As this was the second entry establishing a new series, it might not be entirely fair to do this, but this game doesn't feel as Space Quest-y as other entries. Quest Quest (The Adventure Game Podcast) rightfully pointed out that you spend a lot of time on Labion which doesn't really feel alien. That combined with the lack of arcade-y bits and just the flow of the puzzles make this feel a bit less than other entries. Although it does follow the general cadence of an SQ: A series of being imperiled and escaping, leading to the pro-active choice of being heroic.