King's Quest V: New Frontiers In Graphics and Sound

King's Quest V: New Frontiers In Graphics And Sound

When players with 256-color systems in- stall and load King's Quest V. the first thing they will probably notice is the as- tounding difference in the graphics. These rich, high-resolution backgrounds started life as full-color paintings by top Sierra artists, and the animation has been en- hanced with video capture techniques for added realism. Eight animated cartoon se- quences set the stage and enrich the plot. There's a feast for the ears, too, in the new King's Quest V, with a magnificent orchestrated soundtrack and dozens of

King's Quest V — EGA version

.NM" BJ

i

ma

* Sfc:

realistic sound effects supporting most major sound cards.

The Compact Disk version, due out in early 1991, features not only a longer soundtrack and more sound effects, but also digitized speech in place of the usual dialog boxes. All in all, this version has more the sound and feel of a feature film than that of a computer game.

One of the most unusual things about King's Quest V is the newly designed in- tuitive interface. Players will be able to instantly access a bank of icons that will enable them to perform a wide variety of game actions without the use of typed sentences.

"/ think the new interface is going to be a big plus," says Roberta. "You can do everything with the mouse, bill it lias all the control of the previous games, without the frustration of having to figure out the right words to type in when you know what you want to do."

The new game interface also includes "Intelligent Pathing' which allows charac- ters to find the most efficient route from one place to another onscreen without constant help from the player in order to avoid obstacles on the way.

Look for King's Quest V in a 16-color (EGA) version, and a 256-color (VGA) version in the fall of 1 990, and a 256-color (VGA) CD-ROM version with digitized speech, plus added music and sound in the spring of 1991.