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Anyway,
on to the plot, for want of better terminology. A long
time ago (though obviously not long enough), an evil
wizard (no cousin of mine, I assure you), stole from
you your true love, a beautiful princess. I hear you
evince surprise, and I agree -- why is it that evil
beings are always stealing beautiful female royalty
in adventures as opposed to some other goal worthy of
your troubles, such as sheep? However, back to the plot;
off you went, being rather upset about the theft, and
fought the wizard to win back the poor little rich damsel
-- and you succeeded. Not unnaturally, the defeated
wizard was a bit upset as well and decided to reverse
time (good thing he was a wizard and not a chartered
accountant), so now you have to go through the whole
rigmarole again. Of course, this time the evil old fellow
reckons he can beat you.
There
are various problems to be overcome and unfortunately
none of them are particularly original. There's a maze
(in the guise of a desert); the loss of all your hero's
equipment for no apparent reason, and you have to spend
half the game just looking for that . . . The list goes
on. Not one of the problems with which you are faced
is blessed with the faintest hint of ingenuity. For
the uninitiated in adventuring, they may hold some interest,
but with the plot being as painfully dull as it is,
Wizard and the Princess's future, even as a beginner's
game, looks far from rosy.
One
redeeming feature for many games of this type lies in
their graphics. It has been known for bored adventurers
to complete the game just because they wanted to see
what the next screen looked like, having been so impressed
with the last. Wizard and the Princess has graphic
qualities which are amazing only in that they have no
quality at all. Their embarrassing incongruity does
actually help retain interest in the game for a while,
but only for the laughter value.
When
a game as bad as this one has errors in it as well,
you can almost weep in sympathy for the people responsible.
Stifling the tears, I did find at least one occasion
where the computer confused east with west, which didn't
help create any credibility. The game's vocabulary is
small and input is only verb/noun -- Sierra obviously
thought the adventure offered enough without adding
any technical sophistication. To add insult to injury,
the graphics-text border has a bad screen glitch which
to me implies either programming incompetence or rushed
release. Neither is sufficient excuse. Finally, the
author couldn't even put in an interesting loading screen.
Wizard
and the Princess provides an interesting way to
mindlessly throw fifteen pounds right down the drain.
I should think you would be better off sending the money
to a charity such as the Caveless Trogs Society instead.
The author need not feel guilty about the time spent
on the game that way.
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