Return to Zork

Playing Return to Zork is quite literally a return to my childhood. I loved this game immensely as a child and even more so now as an adult. The puzzles are still challenging, the characters are still memorable and the story is still incredibly engaging. On my personal list of all time favorite games, Return to Zork ranks in the top 5. For those of you who have not been able to delve in the underground empire, please do so. You won't be dissappointed. Maybe a tad frustrated though =)

I have a lot of nostalgia for this game from when I first played it as a kid. I wasn't quite old enough to have played the old purely text-based Zork games, so this was my entry point. It definitely was a unique entry into the point and click adventure genre. It has an element of puzzle-solving and a kind of creepy, quirky vibe that stuck with me. And some ridiculous humor. The soundtrack was haunting and is memorable to me. Also, as primitive and grainy as it may seem now, at the time this and Myst basically were cutting edge graphics. Of course, like a lot of older games of a similar enough genre, there are numerous ways one can simply die by making the wrong decision. I remember bringing the game up to an older gamer friend of mine and he never got past a rather early point in the game (trying not to spoil) because it was insta-death and there seemed to be nothing else to do. That can definitely be annoyance with old games of this nature, though it also has a certain charm to it, in that you really had to do some trial and error to get through them.

Course ya do. Awesome!

Don't know how to describe the vibe/aesthetic in this game, so utterly bizarre. I remember as a kid, the graphics alone blew my mind. But there's a significant lack of... anything at the core of this game. Feels more like a video some local actors made as a joke. Cannot imagine how one "gets into" this experience. Between the ages of 11-14, I loved it.

When I got my first windows 95 PC I started purchasing the Zork series I recieved this one as a present but never managed to pass one point If I remember rightly it was to do with a talking / singing tree but at that point something seemed to go badly wrong never figured out if it was something I had done earlier in the game or a bug so, I never got to complete it in those days a computer seemed almost mystical and I knew nothing about using the internet to find answers. I think I still have the original disk somewhere along with Grand Inquisitor. I shall buy this version just to try and complete it