 n June of 1977, before teenagers were born, before The Simpsons, Cats or Sunny Delight, a couple of twisted guys at MIT put together a text-based adventure game that would one day be Zork. Under an ordinary White House lies the Great Underground Empire, a subterranean kingdom in which you, the adventurer, match wits with the game designer via an all-text interface. Twenty years, several companies, a myriad of technological advances and 12 related products later, we are presented with Zork Grand Inquisitor, a game that attempts to trace the spirit of Zork back to its roots. The two previous Zork titles, although more or less highly acclaimed, were widely criticized for having failed to do just that. Return to Zork, although mildly humorous and Zorkish, is very far removed from the history of the Great Underground Empire; and Zork Nemesis is a very dark slice of Zork, devoid of any humor – sinister and foreboding. Zork Grand Inquisitor lives up to its promise to deliver unto us the wacky soul of the earliest Zorks; even the full motion video doesn't hurt (much).
"Who is the boss of you? I AM THE BOSS OF YOU! Who is the boss of you? Me! I…AM THE BOSS OF YOU!" These words accompany the game's introductory 1940's style newsreel, a satire entitled "Propaganda On Parade." The year is 1067 GUE (which turns out to be 101 years after the end of Beyond Zork and Spellbreaker, 118 years after Zork Nemesis, and 580 before Return to Zork). Yannick, The Grand Inquisitor, has banned magic throughout the land. Since he embarrassingly failed magic courses at GUE Tech, he allowed the spoiled brat in him to declare that now no one may prestidigitate. Why? Because "I AM THE BOSS OF YOU," shouts Yannick. A curfew was established, the Underground sealed, and anyone caught in defiance of the smug little bastard is Totemized. We don't know exactly what that is, initially, but it involves scary looking machinery and we're told it hurts.
The LOUD WORDS of the Grand Inquisitor are also pumped through the public address system of Port Foozle as you arrive there selling Frobozz Electric Perma-Suck machines. As if being a Perma-Suck salesman isn't bad enough, you find that curfew starts in five seconds, no one in town will talk to you after curfew, the Inquisition is no fun, and the loudspeaker is very annoying. After a puzzle or two, you acquire [angels voices here] the Lantern, without which (as in any Zork game) you are consistently eaten by a grue. The lantern contains the spirit of Dalbozz, a Dungeon Master imprisoned there by Yannick. He becomes your right arm and alter-ego for the rest of the game.
With Dalbozz in your hand… at your side… OK, in your inventory, you are able to pursue the greater quest, which is to unseat the Grand Inquisitor and restore magic to the land. To do so you must enter the Great Underground Empire, master spellcasting and time travel, and find three artifacts that have been hidden in different eras by Yannick: The Coconut of Quendor ("sometimes ya feel like a nut…"), the Skull of Yoruck (if Hamlet will ever let go of it) and the Cube of Foundation (Asimov's childhood toy).
Most folks who have played the early Zorks will probably be satisfied with the game's visual translation. Descriptions of locations from the text adventures are nicely represented by their graphical counterparts (although it would have been admirable to see them in a higher resolution). The White House is properly barricaded, Hades bears its requisite "Abandon All Hope" sign and Flood Control Dam #3 is complete with colored buttons. While it's certain that everyone's imagination painted something completely different during the text games, and while there will probably be some who shout, "But where's the brown button at the dam?" (shoot them now), few will argue that the game suffers as a result of its graphical style. Au contraire. The look is a successful cross between slick and charming. The only exceptions occur during the (gulp) full-motion video sequences.
We seldom expect FMV characters to look quite at home in rendered environments. Here is no exception. They generally (but not always) look out of place graphically – but in spite of this, they work. The main reason for this is that the acting is very good. Both voice and digitized actors are generally of higher quality than usual across the board. In addition, they're funny. They're written funny and they play funny; so we have a good script combined with actors dead-on in their characterizations. Antharia Jack (a takeoff of Indiana Jones), who runs the Port Foozle Pawn Shop, is played brilliantly by Dirk Benedict (Starbuck on Battlestar Gallactica and Face on The A-Team). He is the most frequently encountered of the NPC's, and certainly the least forgettable. Rip Taylor, looking for all the world like a double for the Gatekeeper at Emerald City, is Yannick's henchman, Wartle. Y'Gael, blithe spirit of the underground from whom you acquire your spell book, is a wonderful character as well, a very savvy cross between Glinda and Fanny Brice.
Zork Grand Inquisitor's engine is similar to the one in Zork Nemesis – first person 360-degree rotation, with fixed paths. Navigation is also possible via teleportation stations at almost every location. Insert your map and poof! There you're not. Of course, if you're daring, you can travel the Great Underground Subway, which, when summoned, doesn't stop… it just slows down a bit and a mechanical hand grabs you off the platform. The puzzles are the comfortable, grass-roots kind, of varying difficulty, and also interspersed with humor.
Each of the artifacts must be claimed from another Zorkian era by a currently Totemized character. Send a Totem back through time and you are able to control a Griff, a Brogmoid or Lucy Flathead (with a 'do that has to be seen to be believed) in a mini-quest. There is the Little-Chess-Puzzle-That-Wasn't, and, unfortunately, the old "slip the paper under the door; poke the keyhole so that the key on the wrong side of the door falls onto the paper; then pull the paper (with the key!) back under the door" puzzle. (They couldn't have been serious about its inclusion. Or could they? Ah, history.) Ample clues are offered throughout the game so that no puzzle feels intuitively unsolvable. Interestingly enough, though, many puzzles are unsolvable as is, and require a leap of logic or…magick (hey, where'd that "K" come from?).
Spellcasting remains the center of a lot of the puzzle solving. You will find scrolls, which are then "gnustoed" into your spell book (provided they have been spell-checked). They have funny names like BEBURTT and SNAVIG, and do useful stuff like turn purple things invisible.
The story is linear, but not so restrictively that you feel too often trapped; and it is always possible to die here…whether you are eaten by a grue, or have walked into a bottomless pit, your fatality is lauded by a blank text screen onto which is typed the action that you foolishly attempted, followed by Zork's traditional **you have died** message: "Your score is 24 out of a possible 1000 giving you the rank of Unfathomable Jerk."
Finally two add-ons are offered as enhancements – a throw forward and a throwback. On the forward side is a multiplayer linked play option allowing players to solve with a partner. One player controls the game, and the other is able to watch and comment; fairly useless? Maybe, except perhaps to solicit online help. And on the retro side is a delightful text adventure, Zork: The Undiscovered Underground, a prequel to Grand Inquisitor, written by none other than Marc Blank (one of the creators of Zork) and Mike Berlyn (another Infocom writer), a really terrific bonus for those who loved and still love text adventures, an introduction to those who have never played them, and an anachronistic relic to others.
Zork Grand Inquisitor is a funny, solid, well crafted, well-written, well-acted adventure. All in all, it's a bit too short, and the three sub-quests (which really should present the bulk of activity, since their solutions ultimately solve the main quest) are terse and anticlimactic. Expanding on the ability to play three additional (and extremely engaging) characters would have really put this game over the top. Nonetheless, it has more going for it than many adventures on the shelf today, and for Zork players or the non-initiated, it's a must-do. After all, you get to play (and win) Strip Grue, Fire, Water (like Rock, Paper, Scissors), with Antharia Jack! And as his clothes drop slowly, piece by piece, you'll find… that the whole thing is censored. Oh well.
Requirements:
- Windows 95
- 90MHz Pentium or higher
- 16 MB RAM
- 2X CD-ROM
Multiplayer: 2 players via Internet, modem
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