Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders was Lucasfilm's second attempt at creating an humorous adventure game, and like Maniac Mansion, it was more successful that they continued in the adventure game franchise. Zak McKracken is a newspaper journalist who makes up stupid stories for The National Inquisitor.

Story: The game starts off a conversation with Zak and his boss. Zak wants to write his own book, but the boss gives him a ticket to Seattle to do two articles: one about campers that are being attacked by a two-headed squirrel, and the other about an UFO sighting on Mt. Rainier 50 years ago. That night, Zak dreams about a girl with a purple jumper, a strange machine, and a pair of nose and glasses chasing after him. He also dreams of a map, which he agrees that he has to draw somewhere.

Later, Zak finds out that some aliens have beamed down to Earth to transmit 60-cycle hums through the phone lines and making people stupid. Also, he finds out that his dream becomes true and he must build that machine, as well as getting the three crystals that power it, which will drive the aliens away from Earth, but even the aliens know about these crystals and don't want anyone to lay a finger on them.

Gameplay: Zak McKracken uses Lucasfilm's earlier SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) interface, which lists 15 commands at the bottom that include (but not limited to) PICK UP, READ, OPEN, CLOSE, PUT ON, TAKE OFF, TURN ON, TURN OFF, and WHAT IS (That last command is used to tell you what that thing is that you are pointing the crosshair over, since the game does not tell you what the object is until you click on it.) Below this is the inventory area. Those of you who have played Maniac Mansion would know that only four inventory items are displayed, with a blue arrow appearing when the user has over four, and clicking on them cycles between those items. The game can be played by using the joystick, keyboard, or mouse. Popular actions in Lucasfilm's adventure games such as Zak McKracken is where gamers select a command and then clicking on an object on the screen, but if they wanted to use an inventory item on an object, then all they have to do is click USE, click on the item to select it, then click on the object.

Zak McKracken is the second game to allow you to switch between characters throughout the game. Later on, you meet a girl from Zak's dream who tells you your mission. You can switch between her, and later, two other characters who are only be found on the red planet. You need to switch between them in order to perform certain actions, and the characters must last until the end of the game, and if one of them dies, the game cannot be completed. There will be times where you have to turn into an animal by using the crystals with something, since some objects may not be obtained just by walking up to them.

Zak McKracken is one of the longest adventure games that cannot be completed in a day. As Zak or the girl, you need to do things all over the globe, performing a variety of actions in San Francisco, Seattle, London, Kathmandu, Cairo, Lima, Kinshasa, and even the Bermuda Triangle and a spaceship. You can travel to locations by using the automated ticket machine at the airport, but you need to make sure that both characters have their CashCards handy. Some locations require you to dish out some documentation and input the code listed on a certain page. Also, to get to a certain place, you may need to stop off at a location in order to book a ticket to that place.

There is a lot of humor in this game. You can try stupid things that will make you get a good laugh. There are two things in the game that made me laugh. If you use one of the crystals on an animal, for example, Zak will feel dizzy and drop to the floor, alerting the aliens to the crystal's location. When they do, you'll be locked in a dungeon in their secret room where you'll lose your mind and make the 15 commands disappear one by one. However, once you get outside, you'll return back to normal. I also liked what you start a fire in Kathmandu to alert the town's guard, who will come to the fire and run around like a raving lunatic, rather than putting the fire out himself.

Graphics: Zak McKracken came in three versions: the low resolution version which had poor graphics as they came close to CGA. This version looks the same as the C64 version. The game was also released as a high resolution version, which looked identical to the Amiga and Atari ST version. Out of these two, I was lucky enough to have the high-res version. This version has much better graphics than the low-res version, making it more detailed and cartoony.

There is also the FM-Towns version. This version was on a CD-ROM, had 256 colors, and had excellent sound and included nice CD-Audio tracks. FM-Towns was only released in Japan, so was this version, but unfortunately, I was unlucky not to be born in Japan. The text will be japanese anyway, and I can't read Japanese text, but I'll learn the language very soon.

Music & Sound: Since Lucasfilm released Zak McKracken in 1987, and sound cards were not invented then, all of the game's sound comes through PC Speaker, but you might be put off by this if you can't stand its little beeps. The music is excellent, however, and is a lot better than the music in Sierra's old adventure games that only used the speaker. However, I have to say that my favorite music throughout the game has to be the music relating to the game's scene, the music at the airport, and the music relating to the game's ending. I played this game through ScummVM which greatly enhances the sound to make them not produce a single beep.

The Bad

All throughout the game, you have to use something from your inventory to play "join the dots" exactly the same way as it appears in a certain location in order to make a door open. Since it is likely to forget these, I was forced to write down what the drawings looks like. The problem is that if I wrote them down incorrectly, I had to revert to a previous saved game and tried writing them down again. Since there are so many of these games.

There are too many mazes in the game. It was easy to get lost and go around in circles and keep going to the same location when you know that you need to discover a different location. The ending is disappointing: just text and not enough pictures. I actually imagined what the ending will be like with pictures and a little bit of text. Even the ending to Maniac Mansion is far better than this one.

Of course, the game can be saved but only in a numbered slot. The game can also be restored from that slot. The problem with this is when you're at a specific location and save it, you can't give a description like you do in games that use the late SCUMM interface. ScummVM fixes this problem.