Anthony's Film Review - Zork: Grand Inquisitor (Video Game, 1997)

The last of the Zork graphical adventures is a simple yet fun gaming experience...

The Zork series has straddled two eras of computer games spanning roughly two decades. For many years, Zork was a series of text-based computer games, with nothing but text on the screen to describe the world the player is inhabiting. This was followed by the Zork graphical adventures featuring images, sounds, and music. There was Return to Zork in 1993, featuring a mix of wonder and mild humor in a somewhat darkened world. Three years later, Zork Nemesis presented a much darker story that is essentially devoid of the humor and light Zork is known for. Then there's Zork: Grand Inquisitor, which is a 180-degree turn from Zork Nemesis and feels sillier than Return to Zork, which true Zork fans might appreciate.

The premise of this Zork game is actually quite interesting. Not only is there a significant advancement in technology, but also an anti-magic dictator known as the Grand Inquisitor rises to power. Under his rule, magic is outlawed and banned. And he tells people to shun magic, shun emotion, shun other things, and then shun shunning. Then he says, "Who is the boss of you? ME! I am the boss of you! I am the boss of you! I am the boss of you!" Obviously, he is the antagonist in this game. He also has a frightening way to punish people that is like execution: totemizing. Basically, imagine yourself being stuffed into a handheld disk, permanently. Yeah, it's very unpleasant.

The gameplay is similar to that of Zork Nemesis. The player explores the game world from a first-person perspective, with the ability to rotate 360 degrees left or right to look all around and to zoom in on certain objects. The player also carries an inventory of items picked up along the way to use later. Then there's a book of spells that are also used for solving puzzles. Examples of spell functions include opening locked doors, making vegetation grow, creating bridges over water, and turning purple things invisible (no kidding). These are the tools that the player has to explore the world and solve situational puzzles.

The story is really simple. You are an Ageless, Faceless, Gender-Neutral, Culturally-Ambiguous Adventure Person (AFGNCAAP) who goes on a quest to restore magic to the Great Underground Empire of Zork. To do so, you need to find three legendary objects: a coconut, a cube, and a skull. Your companion is Balboz, the spirit of a wizard now trapped in a lantern. You also encounter a few other interesting characters, like a totemized dragon and a man named Antharia Jack who is essentially a mildly goofy version of Indiana Jones. But for the most part, you are spending most of the time exploring on your own, with Balboz sometimes giving you hints. In fact, the geography is surprisingly limited in this game. There are really just a handful of places that you are exploring, including a magic school, a subway, and Hades.

I had plenty of fun with this game. The puzzles are quite clever, and I enjoyed examining locations and items closely to figure out how to solve particular puzzles. I will admit that I ended up consulting an online hint guide three times, including the first time when I got so stuck for days. Still, I had fun. The amount of time you'll spend playing this game from beginning to end can be pretty short if you are a very clever adventure gamer, or longer if you're not. No matter what, this is definitely an adventure game that fans of the genre will enjoy.

Zork: Grand Inquisitor would be the final Zork game of the series. The ending of the game is quick, but still a fitting way to wrap it all up. I do think it's better than Zork Nemesis. Whether I think it's better than Return to Zork, I'm not sure. It probably doesn't matter, though. The important thing is that Zork: Grand Inquisitor is a fun adventure game and a nice entry in the Zork series. It's not the greatest game ever, nor anywhere near the worst game ever. It's simply a fun game.

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about Zork: Grand Inquisitor, visit the Internet Movie Database and Moby Games.