Return to Zork

I remember this movie with a feeling of nostalgia. It was one of the first games of it's kind where a player could actually interact with environments, conversate with other characters, solve puzzles, and take decisions.

I played it with my cousin and as I was young and English is not my first it was a bit frustrating when trying to solve the difficult puzzles.

Anyways, I enjoyed it big time. It allowed me to kill real persons ;) Seriously, I recently played it and I must admit it's not that good but for nostalgia's sake, I will defend it in the future.

I grew up with the Apple II computer in junior high. The original text adventure ZORK series was an all-time favorite of mine. I never played any ZORK games after ZORK III, like ZORK ZERO and BEYOND ZORK, though. After being away from the computer gaming world for a while, I got a new PC and then I saw RETURN TO ZORK on the shelf. Wow. Not knowing anything about it, it was already a must-have in my eyes. I took it home and played it right away. It was fantastic! It has the same sense of humor of the text adventures. Great graphics (for the year it came out), great storyline, just plain fun.

If there is one complaint, it's that RETURN TO ZORK is a point-and-click adventure. Puzzles are often easy to figure out because sometimes you can just start clicking things until you get it right, where in the original text games you had to really think about it, because you typed in your action. But even so, RETURN TO ZORK is great fun. It has a maze, as most adventure games had in the past, the I found impossible to figure out, so i bought the cheat guide.

This game may be a little old, and maybe even outdated, but it still remains one of the most impressive and downright entertaining computer games to play.

The storyline is lighthearted (with a few dark undertones thrown in for good measure), the characters are all lovable, and RETURN TO ZORK really gets you laughing sometimes. For a game that was produced in 1993, I would have to say that the graphics and sound are still very noteworthy, even by today's standards.

The plot is just wonderful. It has you wanting to see what unfolds next in the story of the Great Underground Empire, and is very addictive (which, in this case, is a good thing!).

RETURN TO ZORK also receives kudos for its musical score. WOW! It really moves you. Even the cheap MIDI files are impressive! The musical score for RTZ is by far one of the best for any computer game this decade.

The only area RTZ falls short in, are a couple of extremely-hard-to-solve puzzles. If it weren't for a cheat guide, this game would have taken me at least a year to beat -- and I'm not kidding. The most ridiculous of these puzzles has to be one of the three mazes, which are absurd, because there is no secret to solving them....you just have to figure out how to get through (this could take a lifetime). You'll DEFINITELY need a cheat guide to get through things like this.

All in all, though, RETURN TO ZORK is a game that makes you come back for more, and leaves you wishing you lived in that truly bizarre and comical world. And if you need further proof: I have played and beat this game about six times since 1993!

Highly recommended.