"The Ultimate Graphics Adventure" AGA AMIGA CD-ROM & CD32 COMPATIBLE What had begun as a straightforward quest to banish the Shapeshifter Witch strange.and free the good wizard Calypso has become hideously Only this morning I was eaten by an amphibian whose table manners were quite apalling. As if that wasn't a sufficiently inconvenient start to the day, within minutes I was leered at by a rock which refused flatly to say a word. At my wit's end i consulted with a wise owl. In place of a clue he fed me a red herring. It was delicious but landed me in a pickle. Rather than completing my noble quest I found myself settling an industrial dispute between a despotic Troll and a herd of militant goats. My intuition began to tell me that there might be more to this magic forest than meets the eye. Later, I visited the fiery pit of Rondor (open weekdays and bank holidays 10-6) and considered it truly one of the finest of the thousands of sights man or Swampling could ever behold in this queer land. Sightseeing over, I am determined that tomorrow nothing shall distract me from ending my quest and fulfilling my sacred destiny (weather permitting). Probably one of mankind's oldest fantasies is to live in a place where magic really did exist--a place where witches could fly with their brooms, where giants lived in peace with the people and where wizards were as common as policemen nowadays in our world. It would be a place where the battle between good and evil always ended triumphantly for the good guys. Unfortunately there's no way to experience that in reality, but thanks to Adventure Soft, at least we can experience it in an adventure game. Akin to most adventure games released in 1993, Simon the Sorcerer features superb 256 colour AGAgraphics. The graphic artists really put their imaginations and talents to the test, resulting in probably the most fabulous and colorful graphics ever seen in a Point-n-Click adventure game. FEATURES Superb atmospheric music. Complete digitized speech and sound effects Speech by Chris Barrie (Mr Brittas) Stunning 256 Colour Animations Huge Locations Mad British Comedy! Bizarre People & Creatures to talk too! The game controls are based on probably the most commonly known control system to adventurers. A couple of icons sit at the bottom of the screen with the most important action verbs written on them, like Open, Pick Up, Move, etc. Naturally, this system assumes that the user has a mouse installed. LucasArts pioneered this type of system in their earlier adventure games many years ago, and in my opinion it is the best way to control a character to this day. It leaves much freedom for the imagination and doesn't degrade the game to a simple point 'n' click exercise. The designers visibly put a lot of thought into the gameplay and came up with a very clever and comfortable way for controlling Simon and implementing the basic save/load functions. At the start, in Calypso's cottage Simon finds a map and a postcard that will help him (and the player) carry out every important function needed in an adventure game. Using the postcard, the player can save or load a game or just quit. As Simon progresses further in the game and discovers more and more of the land, the map he found at Calypso's will automatically mark the more significant places he goes through. Later, by the use of this map he can easily come back to these places if he wants to. This mapping feature makes traveling throughout the game very comfortable and speeds up gameplay considerably. The way the player can control Simon is pretty standard. A 2D picture of the scene he is in is displayed, where he can be moved onscreen by clicking the left mouse button. If the player moves the mouse cursor over a hotspot (an object or person to interact with), its name appears above the action icons making the painful task of pixel hunting a bit easier. There are so many reasons why I consider this game one of the best adventure games ever made. The absolutely amazing graphics, the large number of songs (all of them beautifully written), the unbelievable humor, the incredibly long and crazy story, the clever puzzles are among the highlights. "Everything you'd ever want in an adventure game, you'll find in Simon the Sorcerer" THE REVIEW There isn't enough space to write about all of the things I love about this game in detail, so I'll just mention briefly the ones I love the most. The greatest feature of the game, in my opinion, is its story combined with the great puzzles. Although the initial idea of getting Simon into this new magical world is not too original, the writers have really built a great story on this clumsy effort. The puzzles are very original and can be solved in any order. In fact, the designers have taken special care preventing the player from ever getting stuck in a place due to forgetting to pick up an object somewhere before. A very important thing most designers forget is the main character itself. Luckily, this is not the case here. The long story and many conversations give the player plenty of time to get to know Simon in great detail, and find that he has an original personality and a great sense of humor as well. It's hilarious to see him explain things to the village folk with his "modern" mind at work. For example, the wizards in the tavern are supposed to be "disguised" as farmers, but even a blind man can see they are wizards. How does Simon convince them about this? "When I move my mouse pointer over you, it says 'Wizards'." Can't argue with that! Simon is just your average fourteen year old boy. One day while he is lazily laying on his bed doing his homework, his dog Chippy sneaks up to the attic and starts barking madly. After a while Simon decides to finally go and check out what's bothering Chippy. To his surprise he finds a suspicious looking old chest. Deciding that dancing around in the attic is not the socially accepted normal behavior for a chest made of wood, Simon gathers enough courage to open it and finds that there is nothing strange about the chest at all. However, he does find a long forgotten spellbook, aptly called "Ye Old Speelbook." Not exactly the curious type, he simply throws the book away. Yet, as it falls to the ground it opens on a very special page. Suddenly, a magic portal opens up and before our hero can stop him, Chippy casually strolls through it. With not much of a chance left, Simon follows his hairy friend into the portal and quickly finds himself in quite a predicament. Apparently, far away in a magical land, a couple of goblins were just preparing for a magic spell that would finally bring some food for them. It's only natural that when Simon shows up on the sacrificial table they gathered around, they think the spell has worked and they can all go home satisfied. An honest mistake, indeed! Soon Simon finds himself spending his spare time in a rather big cauldron in the company of some herbs and spices stewing away as the goblins intended. Luckily, the appearance of the fearsome Chippy scares the goblins enough to give Simon an opportunity to escape, and he's not about to let go of a chance like this. Making his way to the nearest village, Simon finds an open cottage with the biggest surprise of the evening: a letter addressed to him. He learns of an evil wizard named Sordid who plans to take over the world. All of the heroes, warriors and wizards of this world tried to stop him, but so far everybody has failed including the author of this letter--Calypso, the village druid. Simon has been summoned here to try to do what the others couldn't--foil Sordid's plans of world domination and save this land. Of course, saving the life of the other poor wizards and warriors would be nice too. Phew, what a nightmare. Or is it all just a dream?! "Ladies and gentleman, Simon the Sorcerer is definitely amongst the ten best adventure games of all times." RATED 95% (Average rating over numerous Amiga Magazines) INCLUDES MANUAL - SUPPLIED WITH COVERS IN JEWEL CASE AS SHOWN - IN MINT CONDITION SUITABLE FOR AMIGA 1200 and AMIGA CD32