ZX Computing


Return To Oz
By U. S. Gold
Spectrum 48K

 
Published in ZX Computing #31

Return To Oz

Yet another spin off from a film title and no, it's not about going back to Australia, but rather it involves that magical land of Yellow Brick Roads, Emerald Cities and the Wicked Witch of the West. Some time has passed since your first visit and you are desperate to return to see your friends, especially as you have a feeling that all is not quite as it should be with the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. The problem is, Aunt Em wants you to stay firmly put in Kansas and doesn't like you even mentioning Oz.

The game is a menu-driven graphic adventure that is designed to appeal especially to young children. There is nothing to type in apart from your name at the beginning and everything is controlled by just three keys - space to highlight a particular option from the menu, enter to select that option and shift to return to the main menu. There are six main options to choose from: Look, Talk, Search, Get, List and Leave. The list option (inventory) is further subdivided into Quit, Drop and Use. When you select an option, all the relevant items on the screen are highlighted and again, the space bar switches between them.

The main problem with the game is that the graphics are truly awful. Pictures of what you have found are small and not easily distinguished and items or areas that are supposedly highlighted remain indistinct and wishy-washy. There are also difficulties in using the space bar to highlight different objects but this may be a peculiarity of my rubber keyboard. Certainly, I found that I had to press the keys up to half a dozen times before the next item was highlighted and it would be all too easy to dismiss something as not significant because you couldn't select it.

The game is designed to make adventuring easy, but I found that it had just the opposite effect and my frustration increased considerably, the longer I played. As for the story, it follows the film closely but I think that you would have to be a real fan of the film to get much fun out of the game.

One final quibble. All over the packaging are notes crediting the Walt Disney organisation who produced the film but there is not a single mention of L. Frank Baum, the original author. Take my advice and go and read the book instead.