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Return to Zork has my vote!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: May 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I love this game! My best friend and I played it together, and we had so much fun trying to figure out the different puzzles and stuff. It has good graphics and haunting music, and it didn't let us down. I only wish more of the games were available from amazon, I'd buy them in a heartbeat!!!

Really dated graphics, but then it's really old!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: May 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Love the ZORK world. Have all of them and have played them. Like the sense of humor, love the puns. Remarkably, the text games actually stand the test of time better than Return to Zork with its clumbsy graphics and awkward play. Sometimes it's better to use one's imagination than to see and be disappointed. The story's still good, tho'

Illogical, inconsistent, practically unplayable

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 7
Date: July 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The best thing about this game is the music. It would be great if this was available on CD. The second best thing is the acting - the characters are likeable and interesting.

The second worst thing about this game is the graphics. The resolution is low (320x240 - it's an old game), and the environments are crudely built and lack detail.

The worst thing about this game is - the game itself. Now, Zork games are renowned for their wacky sense of humour and rather surreal puzzle solutions. This game, however, goes beyond wacky and into the far realms of utter crap. These are a few of my complaints:

-- MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT --

* Killing a non-player character generally ends the game - except when it doesn't. You must kill the three troll guards, but on the other hand you mustn't kill the troll king, even though he challenges you to try:
If you show him your sword, he pleads for his life and offers his necklace - but you can't actually get the necklace. Kill him, and he disappears, along with his necklace. What you must do is use the "threaten" icon in the conversation interface. He will then plead and offer the necklace exactly as above, except this time you will actually get the damned thing. The game logic here is faulty, to put it politely.
* Don't take the bra box - you will be called a thief, and lose the game. Instead, talk to the man in a nearby house, who will tell you to take the box as it is completely useless. Similar rules apply to the bat cage.
* But stealing IS okay when taking money and tickets from the cash register, or relieving Boos of his flask. Go figure.
* You must warm your hands before milking the cow. To do this you set fire to a clump of hay on a hay-strewn barn floor. Surely the logical result here would be barbequed cow?
* After you hitch a ride with a vulture, you can go to any location directly by clicking on your map - but the game doesn't tell you this, and you may well feel completely stuck.

Speaking of completely stuck, I am at the Citadel Bridge near the end, unable to cross. I think this is something to do with my being unable to take the Egg away from Canuk's hut. I have done everything noted in the walkthroughs but obviously not in the exact correct order. This bug has killed my game. Grrrr...

Pass this one up

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 7
Date: December 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This was an attempt to make a fully graphical Zork game in the tradition of Myst, and I think that while it had a few moments it was mostly a failure.

The good points: The music is nice and mapping the forests and swamps is pleasant work (I later found a map included in the game, d'oh.) The characters are kind of fun and the acting's decent. There are a couple of very funny moments.

The bad points: The graphics are lousy, but that can be forgiven. It's an old game, but the fact that they use video at the start of the game and lousy cartoony graphics the rest of the way is jarring. The story makes no sense. You're sent chasing after some villain who might or might not really be bad, and who might or might not be somebody you already talked to. The ending was a total WTF moment. The tasks are mostly unrelated to the quest at large and feel like busywork. The environment is very un-Zork-like. Playing the older games I always got a sense of an odd mixture of dungeons-and-dragons medieval settings and modern technology. This game looks like it's set in a farming town somewhere in the midwest. And the humor, aside from a few moments, mostly falls flat and feels like it's trying too hard.

Overall, I'd skip this one.

One of my favorites...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Since I saw this game getting bad reviews, I thought I'd defend it. This is one of my favorite games of all time and definitely the best FMV game of the 90s. I think it's the best Zork game overall. It has a great sense of humor, memorable characters and puzzles, and an excellent sense of history. There are lots of characters to interact with and different dialogue options, so it's not just an empty world to solve alien puzzles. Nothing like that.

The only complaints you might have are the graphics, which were actually good when the game was released. You can't fault a game for graphics over 10 years later. Second, the acting is really cheesy. Some of the worst acting in a game, maybe, and a funny thing is half the actors seem to be related since they have the same last name. But I found the cheesy acting funny and it was a big achievement back in the day since CD games with lots of video was a completely new concept.

The best part is definitely the introduction. If you're a fan of Zork games and played the first one, the introduction couldn't have set the stage any better. So all in all, definitely a 5 star game. Lots of adventure and mystery and maybe the most memorable lines in any game.

If I had to make a complaint, it would be that the game is pretty hard since you'll get stuck sometimes and not know what you're supposed to do next. And one particular puzzle can literaly be messed up in the first scene of the game without you even realizing it until you start wondering why you can't advance and you finally check a walkthrough.

I wish the sequels had been more like this version. I didn't like Nemesis and didn't even play it much. I could tell it was going to be a Myst clone. Grand Inquisitor was a better sequel but lacked the depth, interface, interaction, and length of Return to Zork.

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