Your a jerk, if not an ass, I rest my case.
As I said before "hindsight is 20/20", it always changes people's opinions compared to what they might have originally thought of it. People's opinions change, that I can accept. But completely ignoring insight into the design process so you can take an alternative perspective is hardly fair to Roberta herself. She was as far as I'm concerned pretty honest about the troubles they had during the development process in the Talkspot interviews and others. She never claimed it was a "perfect", and she did admit several regrets she had about development (those have all been posted in the development page, as I recall). Infact she didn't claim King's Quest VII: Princeless Bride was perfect in those same interviews either. Infact I would say that they were pretty unbiased on the issue giving both what they thought were strenghts and what they thought were weaknesses in the game. They even had a third episode where they broke it down pretty detailed fashion, including much of the stuff Ken was alluding to. Unfortunately no one seems to have that episode anymore...
As for if its a "Roberta" game or not that comes down to opinions. In my opinion the fact that she wrote the script and dialogue in the game is enough for me.
There is more to making KQ games than just the story, true (and some say that wasn't necessarily Roberta's strong point). Such as art design, and music design. But in general starting with KQ5, those duties were handed off to other people, rather than Roberta herself.
It seems most of the stuff KQ5 on up are a team effort and not just Roberta herself. There are a handful of names that can essentially be put on the games for having left their own influences on the series. Mark Seibert left his mark on the games since KQ5. Hudgins, Hoyos, etc, left there mark on the games, etc.
As for Temple of Doom, it's one of my favorite movies ever. They had no reason to apologize for it... I think all three have their own strengths and weaknesses.
Now if they would apologize for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I would accept that... Seriously I can't take there comments seriously if they consider Crystal Skull to be superior to Temple of Doom... That's just crazy talk.
I don't know what Roberta thinks of KQ8 now in 2010; She hasn't as far as I'm aware done a formal interview since 2006. But like I said, she and Ken (via Ken's words) seem kind of ambivalent on it--They don't hate it, but they don't seem to love it either. I mean if Roberta ever comes out with an interview and discusses the game and her current perspective on it, we'll know for sure. As far KQVII, well, wasn't her comments on KQVII, if you're referring to Talkspot interviews, 4-5 years after it was released? It was kind of dead issue by then.
As far as whether it's a Roberta game or not, I'll take the source closest to her that we have on that, her husband. We don't know how much of the final game 'script' was written by her--Sure, she's credited for it in the final credits, but as we know from other KQ games, the credits can be kind of misleading.
And as for the dishonesty part: I don't consider corporate tactfulness to be the same as dishonesty. Misleading? Perhaps. Dishonesty? No. Like I said with the Ken thing, in '97 he was assuring us that the move to CUC was great, after having transfered out of the games division because the way CUC was doing things upset him so. It's why he said he was the CEO long after he later says he was in fact. It's corporate tact--He wasn't going to tell us, "Yes, Sierra fans, you're all screwed."
That's not a tactful comment. It'd be like talking crap about someone at their funeral, even if the stuff you're saying it's true. That's why at funerals you always hear people talking about how great this or that person was--Even if when they were alive the same people said what a moron he or she was.
It's not just Ken Williams who does this; Everyone in the field of business, both entertainment and not, does it. And often times it's the right thing to do at the time. You wouldn't get very far in business by selling pessimism unless pessimism is your product.
As for Temple of Doom, the official line as was stated by Spielberg many times was that Last Crusade was made as an apology for ToD; It's why it's so similar to Raiders in terms of plot elements (Christian artifact, Nazis as villains, tough 'heroine', design chase and landscape, scenes at Indy's college, Marcus Brody, Sallah, etc.) Spielberg and Lucas still kind of 'disown' ToD to this day.
