I stumbled upon SpaceQuest.net the other day. They have all of the old Space Quest games available for download, along with scans of all the manuals, box art, and other cool stuff. I’m not sure why I hadn’t discovered this before; it says it’s been online since ’98.

For those unfamiliar, Space Quest was one of the greats from the dying genre of games know as “adventure games”. The point was to guide your character through interesting stories, puzzles, and usually insults. The best part about them was that they usually didn’t take themselves too seriously. Games today are so deadly serious, as if the premise of a space marine running around with a 4-foot vertical jump while carrying roughly 800 lbs. of weapons, ammo, and armor isn’t inherently ridiculous. It’s refreshing to go back and play games that have their tongue firmly in their cheek…

So is it legal? Given the lack of copyright notices and the fact that Sierra On-line was recently shut down, I’m gonna go with no. But really, who cares? It’s not like there’s anywhere (other than Ebay) I can go to give people money for Space Quest anymore, barring the copy of SQ4 I found in the moldy oldies bin at the local Circuit City.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go scrounge together an old 486…