![]() Simon may have a bit of growing up to do - he has yet to learn that asking personal questions of heavily armed warrior women is impolite, not to mention downright dangerous - but, rest assured, he doesn't do anything too drastic. Also, don't be put off by the fact that the main protagonist is a 12 year old. If you haven't yet had a look at Simon then do so now, it's well worth it, and especially as the sequel is almost upon us. It has its own brand of humour, and deserves praise in its own right. In the main it passed the test but, to be honest, this game stands on its own. The point and click interface will be familiar to anyone who has played the LucasArts' classics such as Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, and Simon was inevitably compared with these games when it was first released. That apart, Simon the Sorcerer is beautifully drawn giving the story a magical, fairy tale quality. But, thankfully, a map is provided so that once an area has been explored you can return to it with a simple click. Unfortunately the character movement is a little sluggish and there is no facility to speed it up. It is a surprisingly long game and the game world is quite large even by today's standards. The nose picking goblin is another matter, whilst it may appeal to younger players it may not have the same affect on more mature ones. His inventory is his all purpose wizard's hat, and it's amusing watching large objects such as a ladder and a pig just disappear inside. Think too long about a problem and Simon will whip out his walkman and patiently bop along until you are quite ready to start again. The difficulty lies in the convoluted nature of the individual quests, where several intertwining tasks need to be completed before you can move on. There is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and positively heaps of things to do, screens to explore and objects to manipulate. It is a game where you will see glimpses of many old fairy tales and some quite recent ones as well. The puzzles consist of a jumbled collection of mini-quests that can be solved by patient searching and talking to other characters. In the game your job is to aid Simon in his weighty quest. Hence he was magically zapped away to a land of fearsome goblins and yokel wizards where he was charged with the task of rescuing the good Wizard Calypso from the evil clutches of Sordid the Sorcerer. ![]() ![]() He's a twelve year old who made a wish at his birthday party that backfired. Now you don't need to, although it is disappointing that the text option has been lost in the process, especially for players who may have hearing difficulties.Īnyone who loves magical lands, and cute little people with pointy hats, will find Simon irresistible. It's even more noticeable because the voices rectify the one big problem that plagued the earlier version: that is, it was often very difficult to read the text against the brightly coloured screens. It's not that the original floppy version wasn't thoroughly entertaining, but having full speech makes the humour work much better. Chris Barrie (Red Dwarf and The Brittas Empire) as Simon does a wonderful job, and all the other voice acting is equally as good. So what is new about this version? Well now it sparkles with the sound of very funny and endearing voices that really bring the game alive. As its sequel will soon be available we thought it warranted a special look in this retrospective section of our reviews. ![]() Review by Rosemary Young (July, 1995) Simon the Sorcerer was first published in 1993 and has recently been re-released on CD-ROM. ![]()
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