Zork III

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"It all comes down to this", November 2, 2008
That was the tagline for the game - "It All Comes Down To This". The play on "Down" in a game that is set underground is not an accident - the previous Zork games had such (not really) memorable tags as "Your Greatest Adventure Lies Ahead - And Downwards" and "Your Next Step Downwards to Danger".

Funny thing is, those tags do fit the games like a charm. Zork I is indeed a discovery of a great (meaning "grand", and "big") adventure, and in that game, where you see the Great Underground Empire (henceforth known as GUE), you do start aboveground; you alternate between the caves and the forest; you are allowed some fresh air every now and again. But The point of the game is to take a deep breath, gather all your courage and venture ever downwards, towards your greatest adventure.

Zork II - "Your Next Step Downwards to Danger". Well, ok, so this tag isn't really perfect. It's more of a fantasy tag. Which is ok, because the game is still pretty much a fantasy game, much more so that Zork I. Whereas Zork I was about the cave exploration and discovery, Zork II hinges around magic, underground gardens (a beautiful sight!), senile wizards, demons, crystal balls and EAT ME cakes. So in that less literal sense, hey, the tag does work.

"It All Comes Down To This", now. It certainly does. It most certainly does.

There's a feeling throughout the Zork series that the games become less "light" and more condensed, and possibly more serious. The maps certainly become smaller, and the game certainly becomes more intense. Zork III is the shortest of the Zork trilogy. That doesn't stop it being very hard.

There is a definite feeling of decay on this one. Feeling of loss. Yes, we've had two whole games letting us know we were exploring the remains of a huge underground empire, but it was exciting on the first two. It was discovery. It was exploration. It was a huge playground.

Now, for the first time, the game makes us think (ever so gently) about the great empire that was there, and is now long gone. The inhabitants of the empire are long gone. The land is bare. The crumbling aqueduct serves as a last reminder of the glory of the Flatheads' empire, as founded by Duncanthrax. You are still a sort of tomb raider, but now the keyword is "tomb" - the GUE is a massive grave.

And yet there are spots of amazing beauty, even throughout this darkness. Crossing the land of shadow to arrive at the underground shore of the Flathead Ocean... beholding the mighty acqueduct... seeing the one lush spot in the cave, where natural sunlight does filter in, creating a little patch of life... Descriptions are less terse on Zork III that they have been on the previous Zorks, and it's a good thing, because this is the first Zork that lives and breathes on its atmosphere. My final words about atmosphere, and then I shall say no more: the initial description of the brass lantern is -

"Your old friend, the brass lantern, is at your feet."

"Your old friend". When you first boot up the game it may seem like just a fancy way of putting it, but in fact it's the very first step in making this final trip to the GUE a bit more personal. You and that lamp have been through a lot, and have a lot still to go. You've put up with one another's limitations. You've stuck with each other. Indeed, you are surely old friends by now, ready to undertake one final voyage.

On that subject: time limits.

I'm sure there is a lightsource limit, but I didn't find it, because I found an alternate lightsource relatively early on, and there's quite a few illuminated spots. And there are no inventory limitations (w00t!). The game doesn't need them to be hard. Still, their absence is a clear indication that Infocom was unwilling to let the Zorkian world stagnate - in fact, each Zork installment has been different enough and innovative enough to be a fresh breath of air. Kudos to Infocom! (as if they haven't had enough by now)

There's another sort of limit, though. Yes, the very annoying "solve this puzzle first or you'll get stuck later". An earthquake which occurs within the first hundred moves opens up a path you couldn't previously cross... and closes a path which you have to solve a puzzle to get to. You might not even get there befpre the quake. As you can imagine, it's a huge restart-puzzle.

Still... like the other Zork games, it's a reflection of the time's game design. Modern players should merely be warned beforehand, sigh, and concentrate on solving that puzzle, so as to have plenty of time later on for the rest.

And what a "rest" it is! Gone is the senseless treasure-hunting, gone is the dreadful Wizard of Frobozz. You will have to hunt down a number of items, for a specific purpose. The items AND the purpose are insufficiently clued, and at several times you'll need to choose between two types of item - and the choice is not obvious at all, especially after playing Zork I/II, where the goal (or the means to achieve it) is to loot, loot, loot. Zork III tries to insert some characterization and feeling in a series which traditionally was all about killing trolls and getting treasure. The innovation bears fruit, and one wonders what they would have done with the current technology and the current views on IF design. And I'm talking about something more ambitious that "The Undiscovered Underground", which is a good game and a nice diversion... but hardly a representative of the Zork series. If anything, it's a representative of Zork Grand Inquisitor. But oh, how I digress...

In my review of Zork II I mentioned that the player needs to be able to visualize and experiment (otherwise he won't ever find out the solution to the Bank of Zork, or the use of that huge cloth bag by the volcano, or even what the pile of plastic in Zork I *is*). The game rewards visualization by nature of its better descriptions, and that visualization will be needed several times. The Temporizer puzzle, the Royal Puzzle (an amazing puzzle, one wouldn't think it could be pulled off in IF) and the mirror box...

...ah, the mirror box. You wouldn't think such a puzzle would work in IF. You'd think it has to be in a graphical environment. Well, the guys were experimenting, remember. And it's a great thing they did. It may be a bit clunky, but it's definitely possible. In fact, it is a section of the game highly reminiscent of any Myst apparatus.

In further fact, it's a trend common throughout the entire Zorkian series, and a defining trend in IF - experimentation, and uncovering the world/plot via experimentation, piecing it all together on your very own. I said that the goal and objects-to-gather were insufficiently clued. This is on purpose, and enhances the immersion, as you're really piecing it all together on your own.

Unfortunately, the true Zork experience - and this is true of Zork III especially - is impossible today. Solving the puzzles is relatively easy, the trick is in knowing what to do. For instance, everyone knows the fundamentals of the Royal Puzzle by now, and all that's left is the trivial (yes, trivial) task of navigating it. The *hard* bit is to recognize that first move within the puzzle, and then understand what you need to move where, and so on. It's easy to navigate the game knowing in advance, as everyone does, that there's a time limit in the form of a quake.

And modern players *need* that information, because time moved on, because people have less patience with unfairness and uncluedness, because people have less time to play games, because of a host of things, players *need* these select spoilers for these games (unless they're die-hard hardcore fans, in which case they've already played the game anyway). So we're really left with a watered-down version of Zork III. That's a shame, because the game is immensely rewarding... but on the other hand, if I had been playing it "hardcorey", I'd have ripped out all my hair by now, being a more modern IF player with very strict ideas on "forgiveness: cruel".

So bottom line, like all the Zork games, this is best enjoyed with the few select spoilers everyone already knows about anyway.

For such a short game, this review is running too long - and there's so much still to be said! Well, this will have to suffice: Zork III is not an easy game, and will tax your imagination in that nice, ticklish way it likes to be taxed, and previous Zork adventurers (who will have to redefine their thinking a bit) are likely to be faced with the greatest challenges. Which is as should be.

A difficult end to the trilogy, March 17, 2010
This game picks up where Zork 2 left off (minus your inventory- I really could have used that magic wand!). You're stumbling down an endless stair to a cavern where you find your old friend, the brass lantern.

This game departs a bit from the first 2 games, in that the object is not to find all the treasures and drop them in a case. You're still looking for all the treasures, but they aren't apparant as such, and the game is looking for certain behaviors from you.

One complaint on this game is that one of the puzzles (the most important one, you might argue) is timed, so in order to gain the permanent light source, and one of the treasures, you need to do the puzzle RIGHT AWAY, otherwise you render the game unwinnable. And in Zork 3, it is easy to make the game unwinnable and not realize it.

It was possible in Zork 1 and 2 also, though it was much more apprarant- if you died at the volcano and you left some treasures in the balloon- they were unreachable. In Zork 3, you need to decide at one point whether to go for a staff or treasure, how to respond to a mysterious viking ship, choose between to solutions to a shifting wall puzzle, decide what items to try to steal during a time travel puzzle, decide whether to kill someone attacking you or not (and the choice is not obvious),decide WHEN to do a puzzle involving teleportation- and the wrong selection on any of them makes the game unwinnable, and you never realize it as such unless you go back and do things the RIGHT way.

Now, I don't know that this is UNFAIR, because I like difficulty, I would only wish I knew what I was supposed to do before I screwed myself up. If you do what many people might and explore the entire world right away, you've already lost too much time.

That being said, some of the puzzles are freaking BRILLIANT! A puzzle where you need to slide a mirror is difficult to visualize, but very smart. The shifting room puzzle gave me that real "AHA" moment as well. The time travel puzzle makes sense when you think about it, it's just not exactly clear how time travel relates to the time machine itself. If you're a fan of Zork I and II then you shouldn't be really surprised by the solution of the mysterious ship puzzle, and you should relish the chance of being able to walk past some grues in the dark. (A feat you will repeat in Spellbreaker, and possibly in Sorcerer).

The game does tie up the trilogy nicely, provides a good ending point, and gives you the challenge you deserve, without bogging you down in inventory management (very much) or much of a light puzzle (if you run out of light you either missed the first puzzle or did something stupid, like entering a lake with a torch).

If you like Zork I and II you will like this as well, just be ready for a bit more serious a tone and more difficult puzzles.

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