SUPPLIER: Activision/Infocom
MACHINES: IBM PC; Atari ST; Amiga C-128
PRICE: £19.99 (C128), £24.99 (IBM, ST, Amiga)

With three worthy predecessors sharing its name, Beyond Zork should be a roaring success. But it is on entirely different game from any one of those famous three, written not by Lebling and Blank, but by Brian Moriarty, who brought us Wishbringer and Trinity.

Beyond Zork combines many of the features of role-playing type adventures, with the orthodox text adventure in a way that eliminates many of the features of the former that I find tedious. A role-playing game tends to consist of a series of rather drab dungeon-like locations inhabited by fierce monsters, and much of the game revolves around doing battle with them, rather than solving problems heightened by descriptive text.

In Beyond Zork, before play can commence, a character must be set up, choosing from a list of such attributes, and only time will tell whether there is a 'correct' balance of these for success. Meanwhile, I will put up with them, for what follows is, to my mind, a whole lot more interesting than a mere role-playing game. Charged with recovering the fabled Coconut of Quendor, you set out empty-handed, save for a sole zorkmid.

You may journey to nearby Miznia, take a ride on a skyway gondola and witness at first hand the incredibly dangerous jungle. Perhaps a visit to the Magick Shoppe would not be out of place, for the little old woman who runs it, has a wealth of information about all things magick. Strange, could swear I've seen her before, somewhere...

On the other hand, you might take a trip in the other direction, to the famous resort of Accardi-by-sea. There is another specialist shop here, where another knowledgeable little old lady will impart advice on all sorts of deadly weaponry.

Down at the Rusty Lantern, not a mile from where a sailor sits painting a picture of bygone days, there be bandits. Something very strange is being plotted around the blazing fire, and the locals are not at all keen on your presence. One false move, and you could find a dagger towards you.

And there be monsters. Apart from the inevitable grues, you will find rat-ants, crocodiles, a monkey-grinder, and a host of other nasties, including the incredibly resistant cruel puppet, who can annoy you to death with a mere twist of his body. When you come up against a monster, you are drawn into battle with it, by first wielding a weapon, and then attacking with it.

Beyond Zork is not only a different kind of adventure, it has a very different screen layout. A window at the top normally carries the text description of the current location, and to the right of this is a block map, showing locations in the vicinity that have already been visited, and all obvious exits.

How addictive is the game to play? I found it to be one of those rare games that I just kept on and on playing, completely ignoring the deadline for this review until the eleventh hour! After a few 'dodgy' titles from Infocom recently, it is nice to see them back on course, with what is bound to be among their top selling titles. Or will it? Being written in Interactive Fiction Plus, it requires a machine with at least 128k of memory - tough luck, C-64 owners!

Atari ST Diskette: £29.99
Amiga Diskette: £29.9
PC Diskette: £29.99
Commodore 128 Diskette: £24.99

The success of the Zork Trilogy is renowned throughout the adventuring world; selling nearly three million copies, it is one of the most popular entertainment software products ever. Infocom has decided to cash in on this success and recreate the Zorkian universe, and in so doing make it 'bigger and better' than before. Beyond Zork combines the puzzles and prose that have become Infocom's trademark with the combat and character building elements of role-playing games.

It is a dark time for the Kingdom of Ouendor, the Wizards have all disappeared, the Enchanters' Guild is in ruins and the villages lie abandoned. The streets and wastelands of Quendor are haunted by vicious monsters and, because you have loaded up the game, it is up to you to unravel the meaning behind these ominous events.

The first surprise in Beyond Zork is the existence of a very attractive title screen: unusual for Infocom, it depicts the sun rising behind a brick monument of the name Zork. Once loaded there are many more changes to familiarise yourself with. The screen display is defaulted to show a window, top left, which either offers location descriptions, your character's possessions or attributes. Right of this is an updating-map feature showing the immediate surrounding area plus exits from the current location. The bottom of the screen allows for text input and event descriptions. Should this new format not appeal to hardened Infocom fans, the 'old ways can be called up by inputting the Mode command to change the screen to Infocom's more standard game.

In fact Beyond Zork includes a number of useful commands: Colour changes on-screen colours; Name allows you to rename objects and characters; Undo takes you one step back should a wrong move be made (not on the Commodore 128 though). The power of the Infocom parser does not suffer from these extras, and the text descriptions are as screen-filling as ever.

ROLE'S CHOICE

Once you are used to the strange new layout, the enhancements therein actually add to the gameplay. You may either play a preset character or create one of your own and decide the characteristics - strength, luck etc - yourself. The scenario is a little strange - subtitled The Coconut Of Quendor - and is full of unusual creatures all of whom seem bent on your destruction.

Movement around the land is fairly easy at first, although there are many deaths awaiting the unwary adventurer. One small drawback: the fact that you have a table of characteristics requiring constant vigilance keeps pulling you back from this land of magic and mystery to something more akin to the real world. It is hard to stay mentally in Quendor when a bar chart has to be carefully monitored to ensure survival. Having said that, I like this new style of game, the changes made to the Infocom format are neat and work very well. The inclusion of the role-playing elements add just a little more spice to the standard text adventure, and with that extra sprinkling of realism, Infocom are really cooking.