Zac McKracken And The Alien Mindbenders
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1998 Lucasarts
Back in the day PCs used to suck as far as games went. Technology has always advanced in the usual 18 month cycle as it does today. As a result of that in the early 1990s many PC users had a wide variety of computers with different components that had varying capabilities. How does one make a graphically intensive game in such a market? Easy: you don't. That's the main reason why a lot of PC games from the late 80's to mid 90's tended to be of the point and click adventure type. This environment forced developers to come up with games that didn't rely on cutesy side scrolling characters, blood and guts, or head explosions. As a result there are some extremely creative puzzle/adventure games that came out in this period that usually relied on intelligence to some degree.
This one however is not exactly one of the shining lights of the Lucasarts classic library. This is one of Lucasarts's first forays into video games along with Maniac Mansion (although I'm not sure which game came first.) There are hints in the game that is part of the same "universe" as Maniac Mansion, Zombie's Ate My Neighbors, Ghoul Patrol, and Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle. The innovative interface and quirky personality of the game has elevated it to the same cult status as the others in the series.
The plot follows our hero tabloid reporter Zac McKraken as he unravels an evil plot by aliens to take over the Earth by infiltrating the phone company. The aliens disguise themselves by wearing those Graucho Marx nose glasses (which the game came with, by the way.) This is an effective disguise though as they're passing some kind of signal through the phone lines thats causing a "stupidity epidemic" of some sort, which leads to lots of site gas and such (try reading the newspaper headlines outside of the various airports.) During this adventure Zac travels the world and visits various ancient sites including Stonehenge, Mayan temples, and the pyramids at Giza, eventually ending up on Mars in an attempt to create some kind of machine to thwart the aliens. By the end you can control four different characters and many of the puzzles involve one or more characters doing things simultaneously.
What made this game a big deal was the innovative "Verb" system game interface. Games before this relied on text parsing, so if you typed the wrong thing then too bad, game does not progress. Here we have several common verbs such as pick up, use, give to, walk, talk, etc. To do something just click on the appropriate action. A very simple and effective user interface that gives a lot more possibility than the usual adventure game "use" icon does.
Puzzles are of the "Pick up the baby dolphin, throw baby dolphin into the meatgrinder" type, pretty straightforward for the most part. However there are some that just defy logical description. There's a part where you dig open this cave that is guarded by a two-headed squirrel. You transverse a seemingly endless maze and finally get to an area with a fire pit in the ground. I sat there for what seemed like weeks back in the day trying to figure out what to do around this stupid thing. Thing is in the game you go visit a witch doctor in Kenya who does this dance and makes his fire pit flare up. So I try walking around the stupid fire pit five thousand times to no avail, finally resort to a hint book that gives me a totally different solution. It might have helped if there was some hint in the game as to the real solution (lighting a birds nest that you can't even see to pick up on fire) instead of a misleading phony-baloney hint that had nothing to do with where I was in the game. Then again, I was twelve at the time. I'm sure I could have figured it out if I'd played it for the first time today.
You can also get stuck in the game at certain points. Like when you first get to control the characters on Mars if you start the ignition switch they'll take off in their hippie bus-rocket ship and be out of the game. Of course this happened to me. That's what you're supposed to do in a game like this, mess with everything the game lets you mess with. You shouldn't be punished for that. Thing is there is no indication that the game is now essentially over, you get to continue playing until you hit the point where those characters are necessary - then it's game over, can not progress, start over moron. Lame.
Some people complain about that you can die in the game. When the hell did dying in an adventure game become such a big no-no? Hell, those Sierra adventure games offed you every five seconds for walking in a room the wrong way, no comparison with this game. There are like three ways to kill a character in this game, one is suffocating them to death on Mars (whereupon the character runs around and gives you like 45 seconds to put their helmet back on,) another is falling out of an airplane in the Bermuda triangle and not opening your parachute, the third is falling in the water without a flotation device. In each case you are given ample warning and opportunity to avoid the death. If anything it needs a little bit more danger in it.
Graphics, uh... 16 colors never looked so bad. Zac's legs are the only things that seem to animate on him. The only other animation with the characters is when they talk. Throughout the game their arms stay firmly cemented to their sides, almost making them look like androids or something. Everything else is pretty simplistic, objects in the background represent what they should be good enough although it is hard sometimes to be able to tell what something is. This can lead to gameplay issues; Sometimes you would never know that group of blocky pixels in the background over your character's head is an object you can interact with unless you happen to move the mouse cursor over it (For instance, a bird's nest that you're supposed to light on fire, it would have helped if it actually looked like a stupid bird's nest and not like a lumpy pixalated pile of doggy doo-doo, plus he should say "Hey, how about I light this stupid bird's nest on fire instead of walking around the damn fire pit a billion times like a dumbass." Is that too much to ask Lucasarts?) The color palette is nice without being washed out or over glaring. To be fair there is a 256 color VGA version that looks a hell of a lot better, although considering the age of this game that version is just as hard to find as this one. What gameplay differences there are between versions I don't know.
Screenshot from the enhanced VGA version
What the game does have going for it is charm. Each character has their own personality and occasional little one liners. Objects in the background provide an endless stream of jokes and sight gags, and it is pretty fun to explore around aimlessly. That's what this type of game is about. The game came with a tabloid newspaper full of weird articles (with buried game hints inside) and a pair of nose glasses so you could disguise your alien self. Surprisingly after 18 years I still have both of these items.
The game is funny and challenging, although some of the puzzles might give you a splitting headache. Adventure game people and fans of the other games in the series will enjoy this one.
