- Zork II, Infocom’s second game, is a treasure hunt in the vein of its predecessor. Still in the Great Underground Empire and armed with your brass lantern and elvish sword, you must find ten treasures while dealing with the capricious Wizard of Frobozz. Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz is a text adventure, a sequel to the.
- Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz (aka Zork II: Le Magicien de Frobozz, Zork 2), a really nice adventure game sold in 1984 for DOS, is available and ready to be played again! Also available on Commodore 64, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST and Apple II, time to play an interactive fiction, fantasy and puzzle elements video game title.
*Compressed with ZIP. Free Unzip tools are available for most systems at www.info-zip.org. |
And indeed it works in the DOS version of Zork/II/III (that GoG uses). If you are using another version (Apple or Commodore) then you would have to look up how the emulator uses a modern 101key keyboard. On C64 emulators, it is usually shift-2 (which is what it was on the original C64 keyboard layout).
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(based on 81 ratings) About the StoryThe Wizard appears, floating nonchalantly in the air beside you. He grins sideways at you. Game Details Language: English (en) Current Version: Unknown License: Commercial Development System: ZIL Forgiveness Rating: Cruel
Sequel to Zork I, by Marc Blank and Dave Lebling Adapted from Zork, by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling Spoofs: Pork 2: The Gizzard of Showbiz, by Bill Larkins Followed by sequel Zork III, by Dave Lebling, Marc BlankRevenge of the Thing-Fish, by Jan Åberg |
Editorial Reviews
Adventure Classic Gaming
Gameplay follows the tradition set by the previous game of the trilogy. It is totally absorbing. You meet the Wizard of Frobozz very early on when he tries to prevent you from completing your quest. He also appears at random places throughout the game and casts various spells at you that can delay you considerably, but it is well worth noting the names of them. [...] From the perspective of an adventure gamer with a passion for interactive fiction, I really enjoy the complexity of some of the puzzles. They require an awful lot of thinking!
-- Karen Tyers
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SPAG
Zork II picks up where its predecessor left off in many ways -- the beginning deposits you inside the barrow that had marked the end of Zork I, your trusty lamp and sword are by your side, and your mission seems at the outset to be more treasure-gathering. But Zork II parts company with the first of the series in a variety of important ways as the game progresses -- that sword is useful, but in a way far more interesting than hack-and-slash -- and the changes suggest that the folks at Infocom were interested less in putting out more of the same than in refining their product and heightening ths challenge.
-- Duncan Stevens
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SynTax
As usual in Infocom games there are plenty of puzzles, some easy and some very tricky. You meet many characters including a princess, (who is helpful), a dragon, a lizard's head embedded in a wall, (I never managed to locate his body) and a dog with three heads - a real pet once you give him what he wants.
-- Joan Dunn
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Most Helpful Member Reviews
Zork 2019
The second installment in this landmark text series is a definite improvement over the original, though still has some maddening features that would never be tolerated today.
Rather than just collecting treasures, your goal is to face the evil wizard. Thus, the story has more inherent conflict and gives it more weight. The map is also more manageable, with no mazes (though there are some tricky room exits). Some of the puzzles are very clever, my favorites being the carousel room and the bank vault. Unfortunately, one requires familiarity with baseball, which isn’t fun for non-American players.
Probably my favorite of the three entries, though still not terribly satisfying with minimal plot and some obtuse puzzles.
Zork 2 Game Solution
Related reviews: Infocom, more than 10 hours
Zork II incorporates my favorite puzzles from MIT Zork: the palantirs, the tea room, the round room, the robot, the volcano, the glacier room. The dragon (a callback to Adventure) was a fun challenge, and the two or three NPCs made the game quite fun. I enjoyed watching the wizard travel around zapping me.
I prefer Zork I's treasure drop off system, however. It was annoying having a huge pile of treasure, not knowing what to do with it.
I used a walkthrough on a few places (especially the oddly-angled room), because I wanted to see the whole game. Having completed MIT Zork before made some of the hardest puzzles trivial.
Zork 2 Play
I was a fan of Zork I since I played it at 10 years old on my grandmother's PC. I was excited to get into Zork II.
Now, after playing the Mainframe Dungeon, I see that Zork II is just a bunch of puzzles that wouldn't fit into Zork I anywhere, which is all fun.
You still have to manage your inventory, and it's difficult to get a permanent light source until most of the game's done anyway. (Spoiler - click to show)Once you get the wizard's wand, you can point it at an item and say 'Fluoresce' and the item will permanently glow. Or, if you take too long, the wizard may cast this spell on you, making it impossible to win the game.
This game does have some impossible puzzles, such as the infamous baseball puzzle, which set the standard for what not to do in a puzzle, and the bank puzzle, which is really ingenious but horribly under-clued. Then there's the spinning room, which can be more of a nuisance than anything. Most frustrating, however is the Wizard. If you remember how pissed you were in Zork I when the thief showed up and stole your torch, you'll really get mad at the wizard, who randomly shows up and casts spells on you, sometimes causing you instant death (such as making you go into a frenzy while on a cliff, or freezing you in place near a lit bomb), or sometimes wasting precious light (freezing you wastes time while the lamp counts down), or even stealing treasures from you.
As in previous Zorks, you can be brought back to life, but many times your death still makes the game unwinable.
However, this is what added to the appeal of Zork I. I fondly remember as a child becoming nervous when my lamp got a bit dimmer. Even more so now, with no torch to fall back on. And the randomization makes the game have just a little bit more replay value. I'd even go out on a limb and say this is the best of the three Zork games, in term of fun (and certainly challenge- anyone who bests the baseball puzzle without hints is a master of all IFs.)
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This is a list of the canonical Infocom games in order of release, as according to the Infocom Fact Sheet.
Polls
The following polls include votes for Zork II:Wandering NPCs by Fredrik
I have always been fascinated with games that have several wandering and independent NPCs, especially when you have the ability to try to order them around. This sets the stage for a game where no one session is like any other, and even...
Bugs that you can take advantage of by Fredrik
Bugs are an annoyance, usually, but in some rare cases, bugs can actually make the life of an adventurer easier. Some bugs can help you in certain situations, perhaps even to bypass puzzles, and they can sometimes provide positively...
Zork 2 Hints
Solved without Hints by joncgoodwin
I'm very interested in hearing truthful accounts of at least somewhat difficult games (or games that don't solve themselves at least) solved completely without recourse to hints, walkthroughs, etc.
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