Quest for Glory 4 ½: So You Thought You Were a Hero is a game created in 2001 using Adventure Game Studio and uses the same interface as the later Sierra adventures. The game has strong language, extreme violence, sexual situations and other things unlike most Sierra games. The game is essentially a parody of the first game of the series. It satirizes the situations that the player found himself in, in the original games. The game is noted for being incredibly buggy.
Background[]
All is not well in the valley of Spielburg. Elsa has disappeared (again) and the sheriff has been murdered. The rest of the valley is in chaos and the influx of heroes has done little to calm the valley. Your job is not done. It's time to go back to Spielburg...
Characters[]
- Sir Richard (unofficial)
- Merv (unofficial)
- The Chief (unofficial)
- Red
- Betty
- Linda
- Larry (unofficial)
- Cletus
- Bill (unofficial)
- Bruno (unofficial)
- Clive
- Green Meep (unofficial)
- Rogue (unofficial)
- Bella (unofficial)
- Bagi
- Stan (giant)
- Brauggi (unofficial) (frost giant)
- Jim (unofficial) (treasure hunter)
- Bones (unofficial) (Bonehead)
- Cleo Williams
- Erik (unofficial)
- Brothers Jurgensen
- Mark Peterson
- Mr. O'Conner
- Patrick R. Hambroni the Third (Cro-Magnon leader)
- Walter Burnton, Throg, William Fitzpatrick (Cro-Magnon)
- Al
- Witch (unofficial)
- Slider
- Pirate Captain
- Priest
- Dryad (unofficial) (druid)
- Frank Gargoyle
- Elsa von Spielburg (unofficial)
- Barnard von Spielburg (unofficial)
- Henry the Hermit (unofficial)
- Erasmus (unofficial)
- Fenrus (unofficial)
- Butch Beefmeister (unofficial)
- Hilde
- Mrs. Beefmeister
- Coyote Ugly bartender
- Crusher (unofficial)
- Otto Von Goon (unofficial)
- Hippy (unofficial)
- Band Leader
- Amelia Appleberry (unofficial)
- Zara Shashina (unofficial)
- Fox (unofficial)
- Hero6
- Chris
- Michelle
- Starr
- John Wayne
- Robert E Lee
- Rasputen
- Gargamoil
- Asrael
- Jesus Christ
- God (unofficial)
- Charlie (unofficial)
- Elvis (unofficial)
- Dathan
- Abiram
- Moses
- Benaiah
- Jehoiada
- Joab
- Noah
- Shem
- Ham
- Japheth
- Eve
- Baal
- Bruiser
- Brawn
- Sally
- Willy
- Don
- Sir Robin
...and many assorted cameos from QFG1.
Behind the scenes[]
- The game includes limited nudity, language and crude humor. Many jokes are sexual or scatalogical in nature. The game includes a whore house, as well as several female characters who will have intercourse with the player character (including a returning character from QFG1). Only one of these sex scenes is actually shown on screen. In other cases the game only shows the photographs of real women stripping down (frontal nudity). Think Leisure Suit Larry style humor (in at least one instance the game actually refers to Leisure Suit Larry during one of these 'encounters'). They also parody the character 'flirtation' that occurs in most of the QFG games (Hilde, Dinarzad, Janna Jamil, Katrina, Budar, Nawar, Elsa, Erana). These encounters are optional to winning the game however (and only one sex scene actually appears on screen in an exaggerated 'Leisure Suit Larry' kinda of way).
- Some fans see the Hilde sexual encounter as being bestiality in nature.[2]
- Quite a bit of the game is a parody on Quest for Glory and other Sierra games. The loading screen parodies the piracy warning screens in the original Quest for Glory 1 VGA. Multiple characters break the fourth wall referring to the the game as a game, and the rest of the series as games. A picture in the Adventurer's Guild is the hero in EGA, and the hero can hardly believe he used to look that way. Another example is Erasmus mentions that the Hero will soon be traveling to Silmaria where he'll have to deal with the new universe of 3-D.
- Many of the games assets are ripped from other Sierra games such as the King's Quest series (KQ5 and KQ6) and Conquests of the Longbow. Other assets are ripped from other games such as the Secret of Monkey Island series or other sources.
- Bernard von Spielburg is the new Baron of Spielburg (as mentioned in QFGV). However he is captured by the pirates at the end. Elsa becomes the Baroness in the mean time, but the game mentions that she will be seen again in QFGV (hinting of her loss of power to her brother).
- Strangely Bruno is "hung for 15 minutes on a short rope" in this game, but he gets better in time for QFGV.
- It's possible to earn 515 points out of 500.
- The game's internal timeline appears to be linked to the Production timeline (Timeskip timeline). However it offsetting from the QFG1VGA release date 1992. There are several references within the game relating to the passage of time. The game takes place "sometime between QFG4 and QFG5". The game takes place in '02, 10 years after the Hero had graduated from the FACS in '92 (in the official published material this was about a month before QFG1). Hilde mentions that the last time she saw the hero, she promised the hero a date "in a year" and that she's is now ready to keep that promise. This could imply that the game takes place about a year after the first game. However, Sir Richard claims that the hero made a mess of Spielburg years ago, implying that several years have passed between QFG1 and QFG4½ (10 years if the reunion is any indication). Another guard in Spielburg castle also mentions the Hero's actions occured years before. A bulletin board asks for an exorcist with a minimum of 3 years experience (perhaps a nod to the hero going on adventures for three or more years between QFG1 and QFG4½). It takes the Hero a week to reach Spielburg from the the moment he left the Correspondence School Reunion. Baron Stefan von Spielburg death, Heinrich Pferdefedern death and Elsa von Spielburg disappearance occured the previous Spring about one year before the game.
Response[]
This game has mixed fan response, some either enjoy it and others dislike it.
- Infamous Adventures (King's Quest III VGA, Space Quest II VGA) has been asked if they made the game, to which they replied in their general FAQ; " No. But for kudos to them, it is a very funny game."[citation needed]
- The former Quest for Glory fansite, Quest for More Glory, did not permit any discussion on the topic of this game except within two specific threads.[citation needed] They enacted an actual policy, in June 2010, regarding the game's discussion. Previous to the enactment of this rule, posts by forum members were deleted or entirely edited, and members were given warnings against mentioning the game (and were threatened with bans for repeat offenses).[citation needed] As reported in PC gamer (including the risqué Centaur photo above) as of July 4, 2012, the administrator of Quest for More Glory reversed her policy allowing discussion of the game, reinstating the old policy of banning anyone for the slightest mention of the game.<[citation needed][1]
- The former Hero-U forums and Corey Cole allowed discussions of this game but had reasonable criticisms about it as well. He considers some of the humor to be malicious and questions the teams ripping sprites from Quest for Glory and other games (a practice many early Sierra fan game developers committed including the "Tierra" versions of KQ1, KQ2, and Infamous Adventures' KQ3, and various space quest fan games).[citation needed]
- Some forum discussions suggest that earlier versions were more racist and cruder than the later versions…
Technical Issues[]
This game is buggy. The dos version will not usually work in DosBox, VDMSound or other dos emulators. Apparently to use the DOS version in DosBox one must run the setup.bat file first and choosing the smallest resolution 320x200.
Then you need this file: https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/cwsdpmi.html
The version in the directory currently does not work right for this game. You need version 5 and above. This link is for 7a. With that it apparently works.
The rare Windows version will not install on modern computers without creating a workaround. To get the windows version to work, create a shortcut to QFG4.EXE, and add the line "--setup" at the end of the shortcut's Target field. This will load up the graphics and sound setup window. On modern machines switch the graphics to 640 x 480. For best results play in full screen mode. Once you have changed the settings then you can use the QFG4.EXE to enter the game.
External Links[]
- Game.Website
- Game Download at Adventure Game Studio
- Game Info at Curly's World of Freeware
- Walkthrough
- Quest for Glory 4 1/2 fanpage