Remastered editions... the trademark of modern gaming? Or are they older than you think?

The answer is yes. Of course it's yes, otherwise this would be a very short video. Which it very noticeably isn't, as I cover the journey of Sierra and LucasArts in their attempts to update and refresh their games for a new audience. Find out how the plot of Leisure Suit Larry is 6 years older than you'd think, how the adventure game was revolutionised by a company that had almost gone broke, and maybe even learn a little bit about how the graphical in all those adventures was squashed down to fit vintage floppy disks.

And I realise that my life will never be quite what it was before I played damn near every game in the Leisure Suit Larry series.

Savegames from past the difficult bit:

0:00 Remastered and Expanded: The Definitive Edition
1:01 Point. Click. Remaster
1:18 The return of Ron
1:50 The (graphical) adventure begins
2:18 Not just an adventure with graphics
3:13 Suddenly... the PCjr!
3:47 Oh no, more technical details
8:04 That's a lot of games
8:55 We try to get this video demonetised
10:41 Mullet Hair Manny
11:35 George Lucas enters the scene
12:15 A game without a genre
12:42 What's wrong with Sierra anyway?
13:33 LucasArts and the case of the dubious acronym
14:37 Meanwhile in Coarsegold
15:04 The original retro demake
16:14 How many times do we need to release King's Quest?
18:00 Indiana Jones and the Run Length Encoded Image
19:31 No dithering in the corridors!
20:55 Looming problems
21:33 The version of Maniac Mansion you remember
21:54 The version of Zak McKracken you don't
22:50 VGA looms
24:00 And now the opposite... VGAnative games in EGA
25:00 Sierra gets VGA right first time
25:49 Adventure game sass fest
26:16 This is really just a lot of listing games
26:50 The remaster gets remastered
27:21 Trouble in remake town
28:00 The fans step in
28:53 The worst "Romancing The Stones" pun ever
30:07 Kings Quest 3 multiplied by 2
31:18 The point at which I've played too much LSL
32:14 Graphic adventures kill themselves
32:38 I kill remastered and definitive editions

Games featured:

Why must I do this to myself?

Mafia Definitive Edition
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
Space Quest 1 (SCI)
Thimbleweed Park
Grim Fandango (Remastered)
Mystery House (Apple II)
Kings Quest (PCjr booter)
Space Quest (AGI)
Police Quest (AGI)
Leisure Suit Larry (AGI)
Softporn (Apple II)
Maniac Mansion (EGA v1)
Kings Quest IV (SCI)
Kings Quest IV (AGI)
Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (EGA)
Space Quest III
Loom (EGA)
Maniac Mansion (EGA v2)
Zak McKracken (EGA v2)
Zak McKracken (FM Towns)
Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (VGA)
Loom (VGA)
The Secret of Monkey Island (VGA)
Monkey Island 2
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Kings Quest V
Space Quest IV
Police Quest 1 (SCI)
Leisure Suit Larry (SCI)
Kings Quest 1 VGA Remake
Kings Quest 2: Romancing The Stones
Kings Quest 3 (AGD Interactive)
Kings Quest 3 (Infamous Adventures)
Leisure Suit Larry 3
Leisure Suit Larry 6 (CDROM/SVGA)

FM Towns photo by Lee LeBlanc, licensed under CC 2.0 Attribution Generic

Comments are prereviewed to avoid spam. I aim to publish all comments, including dissent, but overly pedantic or negative ones may be moderated. Hearing about different experiences and what things were like in other countries adds a lot to the video! Please try to do so in a positive way while remembering that if I had to explain every minor international difference the video would be 3 hours long and boring, rather than 33 minutes long and boring. Failing that, at least make me laugh.

Bonus fact: In addition to all the PC remakes and remasters, there was also a separate version of Kings Quest for the Sega Master System which recreated all the graphics in tilemap form, and Kings Quest VI on the Amiga was rebuilt from the ground up in Revolution's Virtual Theatre engine due to the terrible performance of the SCI Amiga port.