~2 minute readSOFTWARE REVIEWS
Beyond Zork
Amiga, 128K Apple, 512K Atari ST, C 128, 192K IBM PC,
512K Macintosh
PUBLISHER: Infocom
PRICE: $45-$5O
In the beginning there was Zork, and it was good. And lo, Zork II rose up. and it was good as well. Never one to rest on its laurels, Infocom gave us Zork III, and it was great. But now something wondrous this way comes. Something that transcends its predecessors, something that goes beyond ... Beyond Zork.
Beyond Zork goes far beyond the ordinary text adventure. With the inclusion of role playing, humor, and many unique options, it forms a package that is hard to beat.
At the outset, each player creates a character by distributing a set number of "points" among six characteristics: endurance, strength, dexterity, intelligence, compassion, and luck. (Optionally, a pregenerated character can be chosen.) The player's final goal is to save the Southlands of Quendor from the wave of misfortune and evil sweeping over it. There is only one thing that can save the day â the fabled Coconut of Quendor.
On your quest you will encounter rich, detailed, text descriptions and thought-provoking puzzles. However, you will also have to battle monsters, garner treasure, and gain experience as you would in a role-playing game. Beyond Zork never quite takes itself seriously, and many humorous interjections are interspersed regularly. The game is easier than the previous Zorks in the sense that the problems are generally simpler, but death is still a very real threat, especially considering some of the monsters the player has to confront (dust bunnies, discipline crabs, a cruel puppet, and of course, grues).
Many new commands are available. The most interesting is "Undo," which, if your computer's memory allows, causes the last command you entered to become undone; it's as if you never typed it. Another good feature is that the program automatically maps where you've been and displays it on the screen.
Perhaps it's my imagination, but it seemed that Beyond Zork's vocabulary was smaller than that of other Infocom games. On a few occasions I had trouble communicating what I wanted to do, and sometimes had to give up on a particular course of action. But if that is the sacrifice that has to be made to incorporate the role-playing aspect, it's worth it.
Beyond Zork: let there be many more.
This article appeared in
Family Computing
Apr 1988
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
