Space Quest 5 remains a guilty pleasure of cheap gags and wish fulfilment.
"BABY BORN WITH ONLY ONE HEAD!” screams the cover of the Galactic Enquirer. Fascinating. And it must be true! If you can't trust the parody newspaper from a comedy sci-fi game, what can you trust?
Galactic Enquirer was one of those: a 22-page introduction to Space Quest V's story, universe, and characters that quickly set the tone of the adventure ahead. You get wacky pet pix of shaved Tribbles, spaced-out horoscopes, and best of all, there were zany transporter bloopers.
But that's OK. They're cheap gags, and they don't pretend to be anything else. Space Quest was always Sierra's “throw-it-in” series, where you'd find the Blues Brothers on one screen and a Toys R Us parody next door, and usually getting away with it despite never being that great.
The most important change, though, was that while previous games had occasionally given you a ship to get from point A to point B, Space Quest V finally promoted its long-suffering janitor hero Roger Wilco to Captain complete with a crew, a mission, and a bright-red shirt to hide his inevitable bloody injuries. Sierra designers always did love their comedy death scenes.