Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe

The Good
Simon the Sorcerer 2's subtitle, The Lion, The Wizard & The Wardrobe is a parody of the title used in C.S. Lewis's books. The game starts out with Sordid transporting a wardrobe into Simon's home, which is designed to bring Simon to Sordid's world. Simon happily enters this wardrobe, but due to a malfunction on Sordid's part, it lands in front of Calypso's Magike (sic) Emporium. He later finds out that in order to get back home again, he must find some mucusade somewhere far away.

Anyone who is new to Simon 2 will find out that Simon is now grown up, from the young lad in the first episode to now a wizard wearing a pony tail and red wizard's outfit, and he is now got an attitude problem. You see, throughout the game, he makes rude and offensive comments to everyone who he speaks to. My favorite line of Simon's is when he says “You see that dog poo? That's you, that is. That's your favorite food.” to the dude at the magic competition. I admire people who are rude. In fact, when I started calling myself “Black Wolf”, my aim was to be rude as I can, to both submitters and approvers.

The graphics in Simon 2 are beautiful and are a bit detailed than those of the first episode. Sordid's Tower of Doom looks magnificent when surrounded by lava, which light up the dark areas of its exterior. The game's map presents a bird's-eye view of the city, which looks excellent. The map is too big to fit on one screen, so it can be scrolled left to right to see even more beautiful scenery. My favorite area is the one near the end of the game.

The interface is clean and it isn't cluttered with commands that fill up half of the screen. The eight icons (four on each side) are drawn nicely and are obvious what their function is. The icons are separated by the inventory. The arrows which you use to scroll vertically through the inventory are on each side, rather on the right like the last episode.

There is a lot of humor in the game, and most of them are delivered by Simon and the other characters. I enjoyed listening to the guy that looks like the member of the A-Team (“Whataya want, fool?”). Speaking of the characters, some of them, including Sordid, Calypso, Swampling, and the woodworms, are voiced by the same people that did the last episode. It's a bit of a pity that Simon is voiced by a different actor this time, but I assume that as he was passing through his teenage years, his voice broke so that he sounded like a man, rather than a boy.

The game's soundtrack is well done. In my opinion, the music is excellent when played with MPU-401, rather than Sound Blaster. The sounds are what you expect from a LucasArts game. The ending to Simon 2 is quite humorous than all the funny endings that I watched so far.

The Bad
Unlike the first episode, there is no map card in your inventory this time, which you click to bring up the map. You are expected to walk two or three screens out of the area just to bring up the map. I found this a bit tedious and I was not sure if I took the right path out of the area so that the map would be displayed.

Like the first episode, all the recent items that you picked up are located at the top of the inventory, and not the bottom like they should.

The Bottom Line
Simon 2 applies to everyone. All your favorite characters from the first episode are back, and they have the same voices, except for Simon, and all characters act and look the same. The only exception is Simon had a makeover. Not only is he a wizard wearing a pony tail and a red outfit, but he also has some attitude. The sound and graphics are great, and the humor is typical to that of the first episode.