OVERVIEW
Space Quest 6 beings with Roger Wilco being demoted back to the rank of Janitor Second class after the events of Space Quest 5. Roger is also reassigned to duty on the SCS DeepShip 86. Shortly after being reassigned, the entire crew gets shore leave on the planet Polysorbate 60. Roger is beamed down to the planet poorly with half of his body underground, and the game begins.
PLOT
Space Quest 6 revolves around a plot from Sharpei, an elderly widow of a StarCon Admiral to live on forever. Her plot involved the stealing of a younger body and placing her consciousness into it. Roger Wilco is dragged into this plot against his will as the body to be used, but he is rescued at the last second by his friend and former love interest Stellar Santiago. In rescuing Roger, Stellar is presumably killed in an explosion, but in reality was kidnapped by Sharpei and is being used as her new body. After receiving a distress call from the supposedly dead Stellar, Roger is determined to find her and save her.
GAMEPLAY
Space Quest 6 is an unusual combination of traditional Sierra adventure game style and Lucas Arts adventure game styles. The menu system is the same as almost every Sierra game as are the context sensitive cursors for walk, touch, speak, etc. Unlike other Sierra games of the time though, these button options were onscreen at all time in the bottom corner, much like the "Talk to" or Move to" prompts in Lucas Arts games.
Players used items found throughout the environment to solve puzzles, usually through joke answers or through Roger lying and cheating. One example of this logic is Roger buying a bum liquor in exchange for cheat codes to a Stooge Fighter arcade game. There are also many pun solutions like a syringe of "Morphing" which Roger incorrectly assumes is "Morphine" and causes a person to change once they've been injected.
Unlike most traditional Sierra adventure games, Space Quest did not allow the player to "break" the game. In old Space Quest games, it was entirely possible to miss an item that would be needed later in the game, making it impossible to beat. The puzzles in Space Quest 6 however do not allow you to miss a vital piece. Typically this means that almost every item you need to solve a puzzle is either in the same room as the puzzle, or you are allowed to go back and find it before moving on. This is also treated like a joke as the final puzzle is solved with a rotting fish that Roger picks up at the very beginning of the game. At many times during the game, Roger loses his entire inventory, including the rotting fish. Before moving on to the next area, some character will throw it back to Roger screaming, "Hey! Here's your fish!" with no rhyme or reason as to why.
This does not mean it is impossible for Roger to die however. While not as chock full of possible deaths as the usual Quest game, there are still a number of memorable ways for Roger to be killed including being pulled inside out by a robot, being eaten alive by a giant tapeworm, or jumping into a pool of stomach acid. Unlike other Quest games however, you typically had to try hard to get yourself killed. Usually the game would give you a warning in the form of the incredibly sarcastic narrator. The narrator was constantly mocking Roger throughout the game, and Roger was even aware of the narrator's presence.
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