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Space Quest IV
Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers
Here's where the biases of hardware are going to make things unfair.
My first experience with Space Quest IV, like with the previous three, was the Amiga release.
It's pretty bad.
Disk only, and a very weird choice where all of the colors of the 256 color version were reduced to a single desaturated palette, used in every scene.
So, it looked pretty hideous.
And it was the floppy release, so the golden tones of Gary Owens were not part of the experience either.
Great pack-in materials, and the writing was pretty perfect for my preteen self... but I was also aware enough to know (from copies of InterAction magazine and the images on the box itself) that this wasn't how the experience was supposed to be.
I did play it years later when we got a 486 and the Space Quest Collection and I really liked it then.
But as the years have moved on, and revisiting it with a more mature eye and mindset has revealed more design flaws, combined with that initial sub-standard experience, have really cemented Space Quest IV as a disappointment sandwich in my mind.
GOOD GAG: It's one of the first things, but "glancing up at the status bar" still gets a laugh out of me.
FAVORITE DEATH: Either flushing the SQIV icon in the Supercomputer, which isn't really a death (it just quits the game), or visiting Space Quest III's Ortega via the secret time code, and then melting on the surface if you step out.
FAVORITE INVENTORY: There aren't a lot of interesting inventory items in the game, but I do like the SQIV hintbook, continuing the meta-humor of time travel.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS: This entire game is pretty memorable, as I'm finding out while I write the notes for this page. I just wish it was more cohesive or more clever.
JERK MOVES: Having to write down the initial code from the Time Pod, as well as having the first guessed code always fail. Also the unstable ordnance. And the Pocket Pal Adapter needing to be investigated and then heading all the way back to purchase, for... not a lot of pay-off.
MISSED OPPORTUNITY: Traveling back to Space Quest I is, visually, an immediately funny gag. And then it stops making sense immediately.
Why is everything in the background square pixels now, With the slightest of extra details, while the sprite ships are still doubled? Why is the bartender still pixel-y? Why aren't the Monochrome Boys? Why not have Roger match?And on top of all that, you're really only there to get a box of matches that aren't fully necessary (the rotating laser path puzzle has visible emitters that you can use without lighting the cigar to make the beams visible).
SPACE QUEST-INESS RATING: While I'm not a big fan of this particular entry, and it's also a big departure in many ways: adding voice-acting, a larger role for the narrator, abstracting interactions into the cursor interface, and really shifting into something a bit less pulp/cartoon into something a step more mature/realistic, completely undercut by the non-seriousness, which is kind of an inversion of the previous entries, and then also giving Roger more personality... it also ultimately feels like the Two Guys ideal Space Quest entry.
But it doesn't have things I grew used to. It's tough to say. It's fully Space Quest, but not a great one.