Simon the Sorcerer

The Good
Simon is a teenage boy living at home with his parents. He gets distracted when his dog Chippy starts wandering out of his bedroom. He follows the dog up the ladder to the attic where Chippy discovers a book called Ye Olde Spellbooke and shows it to Simon, who, showing a lack of interest in it, decides to throw it on the floor. This causes a portal opens and Simon and the dog enter a new dimension. There, he realizes that he must rescue the wizard Calypso from the evil sorcerer Sordid.

In Simon the Sorcerer, you will meet characters that can help you or hinder you, and most of these characters are based on fantasy and myth. During your travels, you'll encounter goblins, dwarfs, trolls, devils, and witches – the same type of characters from The Lord of the Rings. I enjoyed the parodies from different fairy tales, including Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, and especially The Three Billy Goats Gruff, in which the troll refuses to be thrown into the water because the actual story says so.

Gamers who have played adventure games from LucasArts will feel comfortable with Simon's interface, which is split up into two sides. The left side consists of twelve commands. The most common ones are Walk To, Pick Up, Talk to, Open, and Use. The rest of the commands are unusual and consist of Consume, Wear, Remove, etc. Your inventory is displayed on the right side.

Simon uses 256-color VGA to display graphics. The game features amazing environments that include forests, snowy mountains, swamps, and castles. The characters and the different objects that you have to manipulate are well done. I can even say that the graphics are even better than those in a LucasArts game.

There is humor in the game. Since it is impossible to die in Simon, you are free to experiment with the commands and use those with objects in each scene, and it is likely that whenever you do so, Simon will produce a somewhat funny response. For example, farm animals such as pigs and ducks can be seen throughout the game, and if you try to Talk to them, he will say “I'm not Dr. Doolittle, you know.” If you enter the dwarf cave, you are asked for a password by the head dwarf. If you get it wrong, he will keep on saying “No, try again.” until you get it right. Too bad you don't have that going on in real life.

The sound is excellent as well. Whether you play the game with MT-32 or Sound Blaster enabled, I enjoyed listening to almost all of the music, especially those that included some beats. The sound effects are slightly better than what you hear from a few adventure games. I enjoyed listening to a crow that sits on top of the well in the witch's house. The crow doesn't even produce a crow sound at all. The voices are great and the characters are funny to listen to.

The Bad
The main problem this game has concerns the inventory. For example:

• A postcard that you carry throughout the game allows you to save, load, and quit games. This is annoying if you have quite a number of items sitting in the inventory, resulting in the postcard being invisible unless you scroll down. The same can be said with the somewhat-ancient map that you use to travel between locations. I don't think that there was anything wrong with putting a huge button in the middle of the interface that is labeled “MAP”.
• When I ended up having heaps of shit sitting in inventory and decide to save and load a game, the scroll arrows were gone, and the only way that I could make them appear was to click on empty space.
• When you pick up items, they are added at the beginning of the inventory, rather than the end. This can be annoying when you are near the end but have to scroll to the beginning in order to use it on something on the screen.

Calypso is mentioned at the beginning of the game, as well as throughout. Yet, he doesn't make an appearance in the game; not at the beginning, not throughout, and not near the end. I only know his existence by voice. I had to play the second episode of the series to see what he looks like.

The Bottom Line
Simon the Sorcerer is an adventure game similar to the ones that were created by LucasArts around the same time Simon was made, which is 1993. It features nice graphics and sounds, and, if you have the CD-ROM version, the different characters are funny to listen to. Since you can't die in the game, the user is free to explore with different commands, and use those commands with items that are seen on screen, more often than not causing a funny response from Simon. The sequel is a bit better than the original and does away with the commands. The ending leads in to that sequel.

The Good
I played the german versions. First the floppy version without speech - and later the CD-ROM version with fully german speech. It was great! I think it were much more jokes in Simon the Sorcerer than in Monkey Island. And I love this guy with his freaky hat. Especially the animations of Simon are great. Also there are many hidden allusions to other adventures/games, for example the 3 sorcerers (3 pirates in monkey island).

The Bad
The puzzles are not always logical and the game is too slow. You walk and walk and walk .... that nerves. The map is also no great help. I have had more problems finding a location than solving the puzzles.

The Bottom Line
The game is funny - comparable with The Secret of Monkey Island or Sam'n Max: Hit the Road. It's a point&click adventure like the old Lucas Arts games - but that's no disadvantage!

The Good
Simon the Sorcerer 1 is a point n' click, graphic adventure game set in a fantasy world. Fans of the Monkey Island series or Disc World should love this game. Despite its age, it features some impressive animation, graphics and sound. The voice acting is terrific and be on the lookout for some funny British humor, parody and political satire.

The Bad
Die hard fans of point n' click, graphic adventure games might find the game a tad bit on the easy side. The game's ending is something of a let down, mainly because it was originally made for the old school computer disks.

The Bottom Line
Simon the Sorcerer 1 has the point n' click adventure gameplay that fans of Monkey Island will enjoy as well as some great British humor and satire that will remind gamers of Blazing Dragon or Disc World. It is not the hardest adventure game on the market, but is certainly one of the most enjoyable.