Reading Ernie’s post about Shenmue II got me thinking about Zork. The older dorks among you will undoubtedly remember that text-based treasure. It went something like this:

You are West of the house
look
You are standing West of a house
south
you are on a path, a house is to the North
east
you are in front of a house
look at house
The house is a small cottage with a door and window
open door
The door is locked
unlock door
You can’t do that here
you suck
You can’t do that here
shit
You can’t do that here

etc, etc, etc.

I remember thinking how much better playing Zork on my computer was than on my friends, because I had a color monitor instead of a monochrome, thereby rendering the text in brilliant white on blue instead of archaic amber on black.

As I play on my PS2 I often think about those awesome games of yore. Then again, no I don’t…