Summary
Historically important, but confusing and frustrating
The Good
The historical significance of the game is undeniable. While everyone were praising
Myst for "defining the genre", "Return to Zork" had much more weight and historical significance. Released during the glorious days of third-person comedy adventure, this game offered another alternative. It was an attempt to combine the unique feeling of the text
Zorks with first-person perspective, digitized graphics, and video-animated live characters - an attempt that worked very well.
Rooted in tradition, firmly connected to the classical Zorks, it still managed to adapt the new technology to the old genre. This was the game's biggest achievement. The difference in technical quality between early Zork and this title is astounding. It started, so to say, its own series of graphical Zorks, with
Nemesis and
Grand Inquisitor coming afterwards.
Some of the graphics and video sequences were really outstanding, I don't recall many games that did it well at that time. But this new "full motion" style didn't turn the game into an "interactive movie" without any gameplay. It retained the freedom of choice so typical for text adventures. There were many things you could try in the game, lots of possibilities to manipulate objects and drop them where you wanted to.
And it was certainly bizarre in its own "Zork-ish" way, with some weird characters, unusual locations, and unthinkable leaps of logic.
The Bad
For someone who grew up with
LucasArts' masterpieces, such as myself (I mean I was the one who grew up, not that I am a LucasArts' masterpiece), the game will probably look like one big mess. Unlike most other adventures of its time, you could get stuck very, very easily here. If you think getting stuck in
Sierra's adventures was bad, wait till you play this baby. You have a great choice and freedom of actions, which is very creative, but unfortunately, there is nobody to stop you if you do something wrong. And you
will do wrong things... all the time.
Normally, in adventure games the main character refuses to do a silly action by saying "I don't think I want to do this" or something like that. I think the idea was that here,
youare the main character and are fully responsible for all of your actions. Because of that, you will constantly lose objects by using them in the wrong place; mess up your chances of getting the required information or item from a character; wandering to wrong places at the wrong time, and so on. The amount of wrong actions you can do here is disproportional to the amount of correct actions that lead you to the goal. The game will be a constant exercise of reloading. Not to mention that the actions you have to perform have nothing to do with logic.
You can come almost to the end of the game and get stuck there, having forgotten to do something before. There is even a bug in the game that drove many players mad - something that prevents you from finishing the game even if you've done everything right. And there is an infuriating maze in the game that only adds to the already accumulated frustration.
This was my first
Zork game; maybe I missed some allusions to the series' legacy, but the setting didn't really attract me, the dialogues were more weird than humorous, and I couldn't figure out the meaning of the story. For comparison, I've played a bit of
Nemesis and completed
Grand Inquisitor; "Return to Zork" had neither the atmosphere of the former, nor the interesting setting and grotesque humor of the latter.
The Bottom Line
+ Historically significant
+ Technologically impressive
+ Freedom of action...
- ...which leaves you without any guidance
- 100,000 ways to get stuck
- Confusing in every way
- Unclear story line
"Return to Zork" certainly looked good and should have received the recognition it deserved for paving the way for full-motion first person adventure games. But in the long run, it didn't really make much sense. You spent most of your time getting stuck and trying to comprehend what was going on. For a much more polished and captivating Zork experience, try the excellent
Grand Inquisitor.
