Vivendi finally released the classic Sierra adventure game compilations (King's Quest Collection, Space Quest Collection, Leisure Suit Larry Collection, Police Quest Collection) discovered on an Internet forum more than a year ago.

Unlike previous releases of these compilations, the new ones run without problems on Windows XP systems without additional configuration.

Also unlike previous compilations, the new releases are bare bones. They include the games, electronic versions of previously printed instruction manuals and a paper installation instruction sheet. No extras, printed or electronic, such as "making of" documentaries, developer interviews or other fun bonuses like The Official Book of Leisure Suit Larry are included.

If printed documentation and extras were the only things missing from the new Sierra adventure compilations, there would be little about which to complain. Electronic instructions can be output to paper. Bonus features are nice, but you buy games for the games, right? The ability to play classic games on current computers without first jumping through hoops should have been enough to justify purchasing these collections.

Not only are the new compilations bare bones, they're not the full skeletons. Not every game from each series is included. Which explains why the boxes don't list which games are included.

Would you like to play Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail or King's Quest: Mask of Eternity? You're out of luck; the new Sierra compilations do not include games never released for DOS, and those games were never released for DOS, so they're not included. (2004's Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude isn't included either, but few will complain about that.)

Prefer the original, text parser-based versions of games to their enhanced, point'n'click-based remakes? Too bad. Any game that saw a remake has only the remake version included.

Want to play a spin-off such as Leisure Suit Larry's Casino or the SWAT series (of which the first two included Police Quest in their titles) or respective King's Quest or Leisure Suit Larry inspirations Wizard and the Princess or Softporn Adventure? Once again, you are out of luck. They were included in previous compilations, but you won't find them here.

Especially puzzling is the version of Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out in Leisure Suit Larry Collection. Other games that saw floppy disk and CD-ROM releases have only the CD-ROM versions included in the new compilations. Leisure Suit Larry 6 is the floppy disk version, which is missing voices and 75% of the pixels.

But what were you expecting for under $20 each.