I was standing in an open field West of a white house when I realized that nothing in my life would ever be the same again. I had found that happy marriage of literature, puzzles, and computer gaming that I didn’t know I had always wanted. Zork and the Infocom library are some of my favorite, most treasured gaming experiences. For games which are comprised primarily of words and require that you commit some of your own, there aren’t enough sufficient ones to adequately describe the joy these adventure games will provide. This collection of games is the best value in gaming today, in terms of quality of experience and overall content. They absolutely hold up. This collection will delight and absorb you, especially if you’re the kind of person who enjoys cleverness, unique humor, and that point in fiction where genre labels no longer matter because the story took you someplace special. Grab some graph paper and a pencil, relax, open up Zork, and settle in for hours of exploration and discovery. Just remember to keep a light source handy because in the dark there be Grue!
Stay a while and listen... I first played Diablo on the PlayStation. Heresy? Perhaps. I spent countless hours delving into the catacombs and caverns beneath the blighted monastery on the edge of Tristram. I hung out with Deckard Cain, talked shop with Griswold the blacksmith, and showed Wirt his leg once or twice to get a rise out of him. Seriously, though, this game provides one of the all time great hack and slash experiences. It offers the chance to play as one of three character classes (Warrior, Rogue, or Sorcerer) and explore a town of interesting characters who aid you on your quest through an incredibly deep and hellish dungeon. Bear in mind before you purchase the game that you are playing a dungeon crawler from the mid-90’s. In many ways it feels like it. The pacing can be annoying at times, and some of the audio for the dialogue might cause your frontal lobe to atrophy. There are some options you can tweak to diminish some of the annoyances, but in the end, playing this game today feels like you’re playing a bit of an artifact. Regardless of aged features or minor camp or the year this game was made, it is again one of the greatest dungeon crawler, hack and slash games you’ll ever play. If you can’t see past the forgivable flaws then you’re missing out on a wonderful gaming experience.
