Simon the Sorceror (AGA)

Title           Simon the Sorceror (AGA)
Category        Adventure
Players         1
Company		Adventure Soft
Compatibility   1 MB required / 2 MB and AGA required for enhanced version
Submission      Joona Palaste (palaste@cc.helsinki.fi) Profiled Reviewer

Review
The point-and-click adventure game category is one that both the Amiga and
PC computers are rich in. The games usually have gorgeous graphics and
interesting plots. As well as that, they take up loads and loads of disk
space. Simon the Sorceror is no exception.
  Most point-and-click adventures have come from either of two big
companies: Sierra On-Line or LucasFilm. Simon the Sorceror comes from a
newcomer company called Adventure Soft. Its style isn't much different from
LucasFilm's games, however.
  The story of the game is as follows: You are a normal teenage boy called
Simon, who is somehow transported to a magical world. There you find that
the good wizard Calypso has been kidnapped by the evil wizard Sordid. You
must locate and free Calypso in order to return to your own world. As you
might expect, there's lots of adventure, intrigue and humour in order.
  Simon the Sorceror comes in two varieties: normal and enhanced AGA
version. I have the enhanced version, which comes on 11 disks. This is a
lot, so installing to hard drive is definitely recommended, or else you're
in for a great deal of disk swapping.
  The adventure is intended to be humorous, so there's plenty of jokes.
Most of them are only average jokes, though, making the game not as funny
as a Douglas Adams book or a Monty Python movie might be. Some of the
jokes really are quite funny, but these are quite rare. This is something
almost like a MAD satire of a King's Quest game.
  What the game lacks in humour, it more than makes up in visual and aural
quality. Particularly in the enhanced version, the pictures and the
animation are almost photorealistic, with good use of colour. The music is
also quite good. The manual says it adapts to the story of the game, in
practice this means you get a couple of different tunes for different
places. They all sound about the same, but are still pleasing to listen to.
  Simon the Sorceror doesn't have any major faults as such. There are no
irritating bugs, the user interface is simple, it comes on standard
AmigaDOS disks, and there are even multiple places to save your game.
Reading this makes Simon the Sorceror sound almost like a perfect game.
It's not, however.
  The reason why Simon the Sorceror isn't perfect is its very nature as a
point-and-click adventure game. They are nowadays so large and complex,
and so frustratingly linear, that I can't imagine many people will take
the trouble of finding out the solution themselves, so they just get a
ready-made solution from a magazine or the Internet, and just play along
that.
  I had the patience to play through Space Quest I, II and III by myself,
but after that, I just played through Zak McKracken with a ready-made
solution and declared any further point-and-click adventure game as "more
of the same". I know this makes me sound biased, but I really dislike the
linearity of the games' plots. There is no genuine freedom to do whatever
I want, like there would be in strategy games, for example.
  But that's just me. If you like point-and-click adventure games,
particularly humorous ones, buy Simon the Sorceror. It might not be the
next Monkey Island or even the next Zak McKracken, but if you like the
category, it could be a fun experience.

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