FISCHER@Rutgers@sri-unix (10/27/82)
From: Ron <FISCHER@Rutgers> Wizardry is the slickest of the "kill da monsters, get da treasure" type of adventure games. It does have some puzzles which inject a need for mental effort, at key points. However the gross bulk of play is encountering and killing everything in sight; it is all hostile. It does not have text descriptions of locations. You only get to see a line drawing of a corridor running into the distance. Onto this line drawing pop symbolic representations of the various monsters you must kill. This sort of game appeals in the same way that simple minded D&D does, i.e. you are caught up in the complexities of the gaming system, not the gaming situation. So, instead of asking "real" questions about situations and motivations you wonder what is the most effective way to blast the next thing you meet to smithereens. Once you master the gaming system this becomes boring. This is an extremely biased opinion. I think the penultimate adventure game right now is "Deadline," by INFOCOM, the same people that wrote "Zork." In it you have to discover who commited a murder. There is a "deadline" of 12 hours in which to solve it. It is possible (in a simple way) to "talk" to the other non-player characters in the game. This sort of gaming seems to me to provide a richer and more varied experience than things like wizardry. (ron) -------