(This is part of my journey playing through Space Quest II. You can follow the entire series on the Nostalgia Lane page.)

Unlike the first Space Quest, I have very limited memories of playing the 1987 sequel. I doubt that I even beat it (remember, this was in an era before internet walkthroughs and only some printed guides that were usually out of my financial reach) and only really recall the opening scene sweeping up on the space station.

Anyway, Space Quest II was a quickie, get-it-out-the-door sequel much like King’s Quest II was to its predecessor. The game looks much like Space Quest I, although the plot does start to pick up here.

As the opening exposition informs me, Roger has gone from being the Hero of Xenon to a forgotten janitor on board a space station. Because life sucks… again. That’s kind of a running theme in this series.

Ah, the purples, pinks, blues, and greens of the VGA! I honestly thought computers were all but incapable of getting past their love of these four colors from when I was a kid. Practically every game I played was purple-and-green.

Roger gets a call on his super-cool space watch. It not only does video chat, but gives a horoscope, the time, and temperature. Dang, it’s cold. Well, time to go clean up puke! Video games are awesome!

A cool touch is the ability to walk on the walls and ceiling, such as they are in space.

Once inside the station, Roger starts plundering the area for inventory items as any good adventure game character should. Legend has it that one very irate mom wrote to Sierra back in the day upset that this game contained a jock strap. It’s probably good that she didn’t play Leisure Suit Larry.

You know what? Now that I’m playing it and seeing these screens, I think I may have beaten this game after all back in the day. It’s definitely eerily familiar and I have a good hunch where the plot, so to speak, is going.

Down in the ship bay, Roger discovers that… it’s a trap! He’s beaten and kidnapped, and apparently no one up in the control room cares. What kind of security measures do they have on this station anyway?

Roger awakes to find himself face-to-face with Vohaul. Who’s Vohaul? He’s the guy who was behind the whole Sarien plot from Space Quest I, although you can’t be blamed for not knowing that until now, since the devs just put him in. He’s more than ticked at Roger and — as the game title suggests — he’s out for revenge. But death, death is too merciful, right? Better just stick Roger in the mines and hope that he doesn’t come back to mess up the bad guy’s plans. Yeah, that makes sense.

Oh, and Vohaul’s also going to unleash door-to-door life insurance salesmen on Xenon because, really, what’s more evil than that?