Zork Grand Inquisitor

Product Details

Platform : Windows 95
Binding : Video Game
EAN : 5030917001178
Manufacturer : Activision
Manufacturer's age : 11years and up
Product Group : Video Games

ASIN : B00004VUCQ

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

Zork Grand Inquisitor is an adventure game in the tradition of the earlier, text-only Zork games: addictive, challenging and dryly funny. A gorgeous first-person perspective delivers a game experience much like Myst, only within the world of Zork and the Great Underground Empire.

You begin your adventuring career as a Suck-O-Matic sales representative, caught outside the town of Port Foozle after curfew. This in itself is a life-threatening situation, because the town is under martial law. The Inquisition has arrived to stamp out all magic, and petty rule infractions are punishable by death. Soon you've landed in even more hot water, finding a talking lantern and a book of spells. Travelling with this contraband, you encounter a number of bizarre characters and attempt to outwit the Inquisition on your quest to recover the three magic artefacts that will supposedly restore magic to the land.

Zork Grand Inquisitor features super design, great graphics and an interesting story, but its best feature is the famous Zork sense of humour. From the Grand Inquisitor's battle slogan--"I am the boss of you!"--to the snide comments your lantern makes when you get killed, this game will keep adventure fans laughing late into the night. Just be sure to keep a light on, lest you be eaten by a Grue. --Alyx Dellamonica

Product Description

You are a lone adventurer drawn into the Grand Inquisitor's attempt to attack magic, the very fabric of the Great Underground Empire. With a Flathead, a Brogmoid, a Griffin, and the Dungeon Master as your allies, you must retrieve the three enchanted treasures. Spells, maps, and special tools will help you on your quest to return magic to the empire. This fantasy adventure offers stunning graphics and music that introduce characters and places you'll be eager to visit again. Activision's new Z-Vision technology provides a complete 360-degree view of your surroundings, infusing every experience with incredible reality.

Manufacturer's Description

A power-mad tyrant known as the Grand Inquisitor has launched a pogrom against magic in order to bolster his own power. The short-sighted fool--by striking out at magic, he is destroying the very fabric of the Great Underground Empire.

Customer Reviews

Starts well - and gets better (2007-02-22)

When you laugh out loud at the loading screen when you are installing the game - it bodes well.The game doesn't disappoint.It starts as it means to go on - and get's better and better as you progress.And although you won't get eaten by a grue - this is the definitive Zork game of the series for me!

Cannot equal Zork Nemesis! (2003-11-08)

If you are a long-running fan of Zork then I guarantee you will love this game.If like me you come from a Myst background then this is probably not for you.We'll start with the good points. The strongest aspect of the game is the humour. Largely based on satiricalthemes, ironic cliché, sarky comments and varied references to popular culturethe humour is worked very well into the game. Occasionally it gets pointlesslytoo much, and can inhibit gameplay but generally they know when to stop. The most clever part of the game is the Hades parody-those unnecessarilycomplicated phone instructions (in true zorkian style!!) 'delivering you to yourfinal destination;' a skeleton-rowed boat ride across to the gates of Hell, with a666 letterbox and two-headed guard, all for only two pennies. This is certainlythe most successful aspect of Zork Grand Inquisitor. I also like the element of casting spells because it adds a trivial aspect, butit could have been even better if the player was able to look at a situation, thendecide what is needed, and actually have freedom in designing a spell to workout the problem. This would add another dimension to puzzle--solving. Unfortunately, these unique aspects that make this game individual, are letdown by the poor quality in the essential elements of adventure games. First, the environments of the game are not at all immersive or convincingbecause it is like looking at a disjointed series of images. You cannot walk in astraight procession of steps, instead you leap from one scene to another. An example of this is back at the beginning of the game where a signpostindicates a path leading to Port Foozle. When you click on it before you knowwhere you are, you are in the middle of the town! This can be frustrating because sometimes you can walk into areas whereyou really did not mean to go, and subsequently you kill yourself. Other areasare just static scenery, and you cannot interact with it at all so you feel trappedin the game. You cannot really get much out of your surroundings. Many of the scenes are very far-fetched and contain no detail, such as thesea-scene with the giant dragon. They contain no depth or atmosphere that's amatch to the scenes in its predecessor. There is not enough to look at. The music does help to create a mood within the setting. It does help youassociate with the locations you are in, particularly the music in the Gue. Techand the Crossroads, but it is not very well sequenced in some parts, such as inHades where you just here the same rock phrase over and over again. The graphics are also very poor quality. Sometimes, the whole balance ofcolour can change, when you focus in on something. Most of the graphics arejust blurred and unclear. Secondly, the puzzles are just meaningless!! There is no logic or reason tothem. It is more a question of carrying out a correct series of actions otherwisethe results can be fatal. The puzzle inside the dragon's mouth comes to mind. Surely it would be better if the puzzles were something we can relate to. Idon't usually end up inside a dragon's mouth with two inflatables stuffed up itsnostrils with a giant tooth, a rope, and a coconut! Would you have a clue what to do? The puzzles were frustrating to solve because you had to keep going overthem again, and I often had to look up in the hints. Even the puzzles that I hadsolved did not give me satisfaction because I didn't feel it had let me work at itproperly and it was more of a guessing game. It would have been better, if you had to pick up clues lying around. In thisway, there would have been more opportunity for added story line. Which leads me on to my third problem. There is simply not enough storyline. The thing I loved about Zork Nemesis, was the amount of subplots addedto enrichen the gaming experience, so I could go back and discover somethingnew every time. I just didn't get this with Zork Grand Inquisitor, it just seemedempty. Some of the concepts of the existing storyline are unexplainable. How cana coconut, a skull and a cube help to restore magic? How do they represent thethree levels of high, deep and middle magic? Questions haven't been answeredbecause the game does not communicate enough to the player, which probablymeans that the game is not based on sufficient background. It would have been much better if the game supported the storyline, ratherthan the storyline supporting the game. By the way what did happen to Lucienand Alexandria at the end of Zork Nemesis? This game does not look on that. Fourthly, some of the characters just do not seem real. The dragon and theBrog are just computer-generated 3D models with no texture or rendering, andthey look very odd when set against the background. There are also characters that just look like 2D photos stuck into the scenewho look the same from all angles. An couple of examples is in the bar of PortFoozle in the past. Worse still, when you click on them, you just hear them saysomething but they don't actually animate. This greatly reduces the quality of agame. From having played Zork Nemesis and buying this as the sequel I have tosay I was disappointed with Zork Grand Inquisitor. It lacks in the qualities thatan adventure should have; immersion, exploration, puzzle-solving, story, depthand appeal. If you have played Zork Nemesis, don't be expecting something quite thatgrand and inspiring. Zork Grand Inquisitor is not really worthy as a sequel andit doesn't really equal how much I got out of Zork Nemesis. Maybe Zork Grand Inquisitor would be better as a comedy game in whichit would be more successful in that genre-because the humour did work. If youare a long running Zork fan then you'll probably think Zork Nemesis wasn't upto your expectations, and you'll love this game. So get it, if that is you. But if you are a serious adventurer then I really do not recommend this. It'sdisappointing for an adventure game, and you'd be better off sticking to Myst.** Rory.

Grand Inquisitor - A True ZORK (2001-02-12)

Unlike NEMESIS (which was certainly an excellent game) which wasn't really a ZORK game in anything but the title, The Grand Inquisitor returns to the humour of the earlier text based ZORKs. Great Graphics, head scratching puzzles and an idiot proof user interface allow you got get properly immersed in this game. Well done Activision!!! What's next in the ZORK line up?

GREAT GAME (2000-10-22)

This is just the type of game which the discerning gamer will just love! It combines slapstick comedy with mind bending puzzles, which go hand in hand to provide an absoutely fantastic gaming experience. In short if you don't have this game in your collection you are missing out!!!!!

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