Games section

4. Review: »Simon the Sorcerer II«

The wizard returns

After seven years one of the most popular point and click adventures on the Amiga resumes.

Köln, WOA 2000, Saturday 3.00 pm: Simon II is offered for sale. After a long wait the sequel "Simon the Sorcerer" is available. The game is sold in a DVD high gloss cover. Inside there is the CD and a printed(!) handbook.

Seems to be professional, more investigation needed.

There have been some problems with Simon II: the negotiations for the licence dragged on, and the programming was hard work. The Amiga version is drawn from several source codes, mainly x68 Assembler DOS/Windows. But in the end Paul Burkey (Foundation) and Peter Muholland have succeeded, and thanks to them we have an Amiga version of this classic game.

To know whatīs going on, take a dip in the handbook: "Simon is a young boy who is teleported to a strange land by accident. There he has to manage a lot of adventures...etc and rescues several people etc and kills Sordid, the evil wizard, who, what a surprise, wants revenge from the grave." Simple enough plot, isnīt it? There are some jokes in the handbook like the title of the section on sound: "Make-this-damned-noise-low!-function", or the last sentence: "We hope you have a lot of fun playing this game, if you own a legal copy of Simon. If not, we hope you will hate every damned minute." Thatīs right.

Getting back to the storyline: The intro tells how Runt becomes an apprentice of Sordid. With his help, Sordid tries to retrieve Simon to return from the grave. Sordid sends a magical cupboard to Simon's dimension which transports Simon back to his dimension. Unfortunately Simon doesnīt land in Sordid's castle but in front of Calypso's shop (Simon saved Calypso in the first part). Calypso tells him that he needs BedFull to get back in his own dimension. Meanwhile Sordid sends out his monsters to catch Simon. The game begins.

More and more games these days demand better hardware. PPC and 3D graphic board are often obligatory, 64 MB RAM and a 4* CD-ROM is not enough. Not so Simon II. You just need AGA, 68030 CPU, CD-ROM and AHI (on the CD) and 16 MB. This shouldn't be a problem, should it? But extra RAM and graphic boards are supported. Installation is very easy, just click on the installer icon. You should make a directory for the game that can take 180 MB of data. Unfortunately there is no option for a part-installation for smaller harddrives, except starting Simon II directly from the CD.

So, now you know what the story is and if itīll run on your computer. If you are still interested in the game, read on: After starting the game an AHI sound mode and a screen mode (320*200, 8 bit) must be selected. If you do not select a screen mode, Simon II starts on the workbench! The game starts with an animation in which we see how Runt changes to Sordid. The graphics have, in my opinion, not changed. This isnīt a bad thing - the graphics of the first part were very good. Eyes spoiled by Heretic II and Earth 2140 will have to get used to the 320*200 screen but this is not difficult due to the great graphics.

This first film sequence is quite funny, but what follows then is a big laugh: the credits! The credits? Why should they be funny? As in the first part there is another intro running in the background during the text about the programmers. This intro shows Simon in conflict with a living broom. See for yourself who wins. And then the game starts.

Simon lands with his cupboard in front of Calypso's wizard shop. In a short sequence we learn what we have to do (if you donīt know it by now, you havenīt read attentively so far...) The screen is split into two parts. The bigger one is the playing-field: you see the landscape and can move with the mouse. If you click the mouse button Simon moves to that point. If this point is on the border of the screen or a path, our hero goes to the next screen, in the house etc. The other screen is the "brain" of Simon. Here you decide what he should do. There are eight pictures (in the first part of the game there were just words, now international symbols). For talking just click on the mouth and on the person Simon should talk to. For investigating things click on the magnifying glass, to take something, on the magnet. I think this should be clear. The handling is a bit fussy, often there is just one possible action. But it becomes familiar and anyone who played the first part won't be fazed. In the middle is the inventory where anything Simon finds on his journey is shown. These things can be investigated, used or given away. In the beginning we just have a post card, saving, loading and quitting. One can save at any time during the game. Although you cannot "die" it is important to save now and then.

You have to solve riddles by collecting things for use in the right place, and by talking to people. Most of the time there are three sentences from which you can choose. Because of the large number of characters (some old friends return from the first part) and many locations, Simon II is a big game. If you donīt know what to do in the game, there are some commercial solutions but the game is not that difficult so you should get it on your own. And you should have a sense of humour. You're searching for BedFull to get wings for your cupboard and if you do nothing for long enough, Simon becomes a little heap of bones.

Simon II is a great game. It is not as up to date as say, Nightlong, but nearly every Amiga user can play it and it costs only about half. But there are some niggles. There are bugs under OS 3.9, you cannot save the game, the intro doesnīt run correctly all the time and you have to select the AHI mode and screen mode all over again every time you start the game. There is a bugfix for these problems.

Test computer:

Amiga 1200
ZorroIV-Board
PPC603e/060
BVisionPPC
128MB Fast-RAM
40GB HD
20*IDE-CD-ROM
17" Zoll-Monitor

Lowest configuration: AGA, 68030, 16 MB RAM, CD-ROM drive

Recommended configuration: CGX, 68040+, more RAM, harddrive (180 MB)

Publisher and price: Epic Interactive, approx. 46 Euro

Internet:

http://www.shoecake.com/simon2.html (Simon II Support-Site)
http://www.epic-interactive.com

Rating:

Simon II is a well done sequel. It comes quite a long time after being published for the PC, so the graphics are not up to date. But it is a funny game just like the first part and it is worth playing - it will be difficult to stop playing.