GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 10/03/1996
- Updated on: 05/01/2000
- Released on: 07/31/1996
- Originally published on GameSpot: Infocom Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces (PC) Review
As the first company to design and release text-based adventure games, Infocom had a lock on solid adventure game design. Their games are indisputably among the most influential in the history of adventure gaming, with the Zork series, the Planetfall games, and the Enchanter trilogy being just a few of the notable entries in their now mythical catalog. Activision acquired Infocom in 1987, and have since made several attempts to cash in on the wealth of materials available. First, Activision released the three Lost Treasures of Infocom collections. Then the five original Zork games were released to bolster the success of Return to Zork. More recently, five separate collections of Infocom games were released, each categorized by genre (science fiction, mystery, adventure, etc.) and marketed under the dubious moniker "Interactive Fiction."
Now, Activision has finally gotten it right - or at least almost right. Nearly the entire Infocom catalog has been jammed onto a single CD-ROM, complete with extensive documentation and historical information. Unfortunately, the manuals and maps are stored as Adobe Acrobat files, which aren't nearly as useful as hard copies, and are occasionally impossible to read. In this collection, you get the hits (Zork), the misses (Plundered Hearts, anyone?), and the nearly-forgotten classics (Suspended, A Mind Forever Voyaging). You also get six new, albeit short, text-based games which hold their own rather well. The one thing you don't get, and this is a crying shame, is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - perhaps the best Infocom game to ever grace a monochrome monitor. (A lesser-known Infocom game, Shogun, has also been excluded.)
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