Coming a close second to Zork for the position of Infocom’s moast famous title, THHGTTG (hehe) is the adaption of Douglas Adam’s story of the same name. You play Arthur Dent, and your home (and planet) has been destroyed by a Vogon constructor fleet to make way for a hyper space by-pass. Rescued by your friend (who, unknown to you, is an alien) you will travel to alien worlds and into the past and future to discover the true nature of your, and mankinds, existance.

Most of the plot elements and great characters from the book have been transposed into the game, and it is this that is the game major shortcoming. Fans of the series will find little challenge in the game at all, everyone else will find some of the puzzles to be HIGHLY obscure and difficult.

This is a hard thing to disregard but if you can you will find THHGTTG to be a interesting game, utterly faithful to the original story.

Not one of my favourites, but I recommend it anyway.

Yeah! Horror stories – I love ‘em. I was weened on Lovecraft, clothed by King, taken to school by Koontz… erm… pushed over in the playground by Rice… yeaaaah.
Anyway, back to my point – I love horror stories (and before you start, yes I wear lots of black, no I am not a Goth.. so eat me!)

The Lurking Horror was Infocom’s only attempt at a game with a horror setting. The game itself is not too hard (though it does have some very obscure puzzles) and IMO has a great plot. You are a student at GUE tech (a name that will be familiar to fans of Zork) and one night you have an irrestible urge to explore the universities basement. Well, the actual story is much more interesting and well thought out, but to learn more you will have to play the game and not rely on the description of someone who has the writing skills of a mental patient.

The pace of the game works very well and the puzzles and plot blend together perfectly, the many memorable characters and twists in the game also add to the experience.

I enjoyed The Lurking Horror, it might not appeal to everyone but for a desensitised horror fanatic like me it was great.

Two um.. clawed, bleeding thumbs up!

(god I suck!)

Trinity is truly an epic story, starkly serious and mature throughout and, it must be said, beautiful and moving in places.

You play an American tourist in London when World War 3 erupts. Through a series of events you find yourself stepping through a magical portal into a world where the real and unreal combined. You will be transported through time and space to such locations as the New Mexico desert (the plot as a whole is about nuclear weapons).

The game wont appeal to everyone, some wont understand the story and its more metaphorical parts, some will be daunted by the difficulty of the puzzles in the game, but for everyone else Trinity will be a very rewarding experience.

An adult game in the sense that it has a more mature and complicated plot than most games, but one that is worth investing your time in if you are up to it.

Zork 2 is a continuation of the story from.. yes, you guessed it, Zork 1. I should point out here that although the series should be played in order, each part is independant of the rest, so you no experience of the first 2 games is needed to play Zork 3 for example.

The story : arrying on from the first game, you are exploring a region of the underground empire ruled by the powerfull (and senile) Wizard of Frobozz. Your goal? To deftat the wizard and gain control of his powers.

Almost everything that I wrote about parser and appearance for Zork 1 applies to Zork 2. Of the game’s faults I think the review on The Adventure Collective says it best :

Zork II has long been regarded as one of the most difficult game in the Zork series. The puzzles are devious, and clues are too scarce. The game also suffers two fundamental flaws in adventure game design–the “resurrection” fallacy and the “dead-end” fallacy. The resurrection fallacy states that an adventure game must never require the player to die or fail in the game in order to gain information that is subsequently required during the replay to complete it. Many puzzles, such as the ones involving the “dehydration” cakes, the brick, and the “shrinking” candy, are examples in which the solutions must either be guessed or deduced only after the player makes an incorrect choice and fail to complete the game.

In contrast, the dead-end fallacy refers to any situation whereby the player cannot finish a game because a puzzle or an item has been missed which the player now no longer can access. This leads the player down the long path of a dead-end. The player must then restore to an older saved game to replay the key sequences. Puzzles, such as the ones involving the red sphere, the “dehydration” cakes, the “shrinking” candy, and the matches, are such examples.

Personaly I prefer the first game in the trilogy to this one, but it’s still worth the 10 seconds that it’ll take for you to download it.

Zork 3 continues on directly from where Zork 2 left off. You find yourself in a heap at the bottom of some stairs where you recieve a vision of an old man who tells you to seek him out. See it’s back in to underground empire to find the man, and learn your fate.

Zork 3 differs from the first 2 games in that it has something of an underlining story, apart from that it is very familiar. Once again the game is parser driven/text only and once again it suffers from the same annoying flaws.

A decent enough game, and a worthy addition to the series (if you’ve played the first two then you know you are going to get this – so go for it )

It’s very hard to review a text only game over 20 years after it’s creation. With todays uber-mammy-jammy 3D graphics and superduper interactive digital surround sound doodahs (no, I have no clue what I’m on about) giving an opinion on such a game with an open mind is hard to say the least, so to begin I want to quote a short review from 1983:

The Zork trilogy, which chronicles happenings in a vast realm known as the Underground Empire, is the most famous of the all-text adventure games. Fantastic creatures, magic spells, and diabolical traps abound at every turn, and each room or area is described in long paragraphs of rich detail, helping the player visualize the setting.

In the first saga, titled The Great Underground Empire, the player begins outside a strange house that holds the hidden portal to the underground. Once below, the adventurer will rarely see daylight again until he finishes Zork III. Inside the house may be found a lamp and an ancient elfin sword. Whenever the computer tells you the sword is emitting a blue light, watch out: Dangerous creatures are around.

The intermediate level Zork II: The Wizard of Frozzbozz [sic] goes ever deeper into the underground realm, and the adventurer must now deal with dragons, unicorns, and a carousel of spinning death. Randomly appearing throughout the dungeon is the Wizard of Frozzbozz himself, who casts spells that all begin with the letter F (freeze, float, fluoresce, etc.). In the third game, The Dungeon Master, which is geared for the expert level, the player is faced with very complicated riddles to solve and finally must duel with the dungeon master of the title.

Though interconnected, each part of the trilogy is solvable separately. Zork I, the simplest, is a great game for first-time adventurers. The second and third installments become progressively more difficult.

Created by Marc Blank and Dave Lebling, the Zork trilogy has set a national standard for excellence in puzzle design. It will delight the game player with many months of adventures.

Right, read that have you?
Mind sufficiently opened?
Then I shall begin.

A little bit of the games story to begin with I think. In Zork you play an adventurer/treasure hunter in the ruins of a great empire (and underground empire no less), equip yourself, find treasure (and bring it back to your trophy case), kill monsters, solve puzzles – all standard stuff nowadays really (damnit! didn’t want to say anything like that).

Ok, what you need to keep in mind is that Zork was released in 1982 – 20 years ago as I write this review. At the time the text parser was considered something of a revolution, and it does still hold up well compared to more recent IF (interactive fiction) games. The parser can handle complex strings of commands and prepositions (get the apple and the sword of pointy death). Visually the game is nothing to look at, just a scrolling screen of text – HOWEVER, this can be considered a bonus as it allows us to concentrate on the task at hand and allow your mind to form the visuals itself (hey it’s just like reading a book! … you know… book… one of those leafy paper things you retarded child).

Gameplay is mostly comprised of “use the correct object in the correct place” type puzzles, with a few needing to be solved in a certain order or at the correct time. There are one or two annoying mazes in the game and because there is no automapping feature this spoiled things a little for me, the game also has a tendency to kill you almost randomly – another of my pet hates.

Guess I should wrap this up eh? (watch and see how trite I can make this)

Well what can I say; it’s a classic, the first game of its type. PLUS, it has been released as freeware so you really have no excuse for not owning the game.

Thumbs up, highly recommended and all that jazz.

Just download it, ok?

Zork Quest 1 and 2 were part if Infocom’s interactive comicbook range (Infocomics) and neither have much to do with the Zork universe as it is told in the original games.

Zork Quest 1 revolves around you hunting for treasure in the ruins of a castle – somewhat like the original Zork except for the additions of graphics, sound and animation.

Of these new additions it is hard to say anything positive, if anything they detract from the story telling process, which is what makes Infocom adventures so good in the first place. The story itself is quite good, and it’s probably best if you see this as an Infocom adventure lite

Play this, then go and play some of the other Infocom games on the site, you’ll see what I mean.

Zork Quest 1 and 2 were part if Infocom’s interactive comicbook range (Infocomics) and neither have much to do with the Zork universe as it is told in the original games.

Zork Quest 2 carries on from where the first game left off. The land of Quendor is at last at peace, but a sorceress has stolen a powerful spellbook with which she intends to wreak havoc on the land. It is upto you and your band of brave heroes to stop her.

Of the graphics and sounds it is hard to say anything positive If anything they detract from the story telling process, which is what makes Infocom adventures so good in the first place. The story itself is quite good (much more interesting and longer than Zork Quest 1), and it’s probably best if you see this as an Infocom adventure lite

Play this, then go and play some of the other Infocom games on the site, you’ll see what I mean.