Legends of Zork — online game review
The second victim of reboot weirdness if the Zork series, with the new browser based mmorpg outing, Legends of Zork. As with the Larry games, I was a fan of the original Zork games (up to Return to Zork), and spent countless hours exploring the Great Undergound Empire. If you haven’t played a Zork game, be sure to check out the wiki page, as well as original in your browser at ThcNet’s error page.
The multi-player browser game reinvention seemed promising at first. The basic description seemed to evoke Urban Dead play mechanics, only with better graphics and set in the world of Zork (If you haven’t checked out Urban Dead, do. It’s a zombie apocalypse browser rpg, and a decent amount of fun with the right people). And if that were the case, Legends of Zork might be an awesome game. But alas, the same reinventing process involved with the Leisure Suit Larry game seems to have happened here, only with a “casual web gamer” niche in mind.
Now, I could be wrong, but I find Zork’s North-South-East-West exploration and required manual-map drawing to be pretty casual already, but apparently the gamemaker’s felt otherwise. With Legends of Zork, the user only needs press one button: Explore. Everything else is done for them. Seriously. With a click of explore, a player will find they have ventured forth into a dangerous wood, battled a monster, won, and collected some booty. Click again, and they will find they have bested another beastie, ventured even further, and possibly lost a health point during their brief altercation. A player can click explore up to 30 times in one day, as clicks decrement the day’s allotted action points, though why anyone would continue to click with such an unrewarding experience, I’m not sure.
Granted, the game’s makers aren’t done with the game yet, but it doesn’t seem they have any inclination toward allowing the player to explore on their own, or even participate in the actual battles. In the meantime, you might want to check out Urban Dead, or even join me in Yserbius via INN Revival instead. For now, Legends of Zork is nothing worth checking out.
Bonus Return to Zork Videos
Ways to Die
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