Douglas's game of the week: Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders

Almost none of the members of VGF know about this game-Practically Zak and I are the only ones to know about this game. Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders was one of Lucasart's first overall games, and probably one of their best. This is the a point and click adventure game, but it still can be difficult at times, because they don't have their "No die" and "Can't mess up" Policies yet. Many games like this were somehow forgotten once Lucasarts went all Star-Wars crazy and started pumping out Star Wars crap after star wars crap after star wars crap, but eventually, they begun to put out games like Jedi Knight and Knights of the old republic. Before they went Star wars crazy, they created some of the best and underrated games of all time: Maniac Mansion, Loom, Secret of Monkey Island, and this game. Zak McKraken and Maniac Mansion really deserve sequels-They're what made them popular afterall!

This game is very old-It's almost 16 years old, so you'll have to excuse the graphics, but even for the time they're good. You can easily tell who is who and what the items are, and it can lead you to funny games. Mind you-LucasArts put quite a bit of humor in their pre-Star-wars-games, hence the insults in "Secret of Monkey Island" and the classic moment in Maniac Mansion where you can blow up Weird Ed's hamster. I still like the graphics, even though they're outdated.

This game has almost no sound whatsoever, the sound comes from the computer. Even though they lack variety, the theme at the start is really well done and put together. Everything else such as flushing a Toilet sounds some-what realistic. It'd be really bad if the Toilets made a "Doink"ing noise woudln't it? [img]graemlins/lol.gif[/img]

The game is very hillarious. Ranging Zak's funny headline Ideas such as "SLEAZY TABLOID REPORTER STRANGLES BOSS OVER LOUSY ASSIGNMENT" and "SABOTAGED SINK STIFLES SCREECHING STEWARDESS" to making a huge mess on the airplane. Who would have known Toilet Paper and an Egg could have made such a big mess? [img]graemlins/lol.gif[/img] The game might have you rolling on the floor with laughter at some parts.

The storyline isn't comical-It adds some serious storytelling also. The ancient ones choose 4 people, Zak, Annie, Melissa, and Leslie to save the world from the Caponians who will make everyone dumber than they are. To activate a device they left the humans (The ancient ones are aliens), Zak and Annie have to gather 3 crystals to get the device to work while Leslie and Melissa maintain control from Mars. Yes, Mars. The storyline is a pretty great one, but this was in the late 80's where stuff like this hasn't been used a million times such as the Post-apocolyptic plot used in Crystalis.

The game can be pretty hard, considering this is pre "No die" and "Can't Mess up". There are several moments in the game where you can get stuck, such as if you wash the breadcrumbs down the sink, then you're stuck. You have 4 characters, but if even one of them dies, then you'll have to start over. As you can see, you can get into some pretty nasty situations if you aren't careful enough.

I rarely give perfect scores to games, but I truthfully feel that Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders deserves a remake and possibly a sequel-Lucasarts seems to have gotten over their "Let's make a bunch of Crap-games based off of star wars!" spell, and if the next Sam and Max game is good enough, then maybe they'll remake their classic games for this generation to enjoy? this IS the age of remakes afterall. 10/10

Pros:
-Great graphics for its time
-Very hillarious
-Hillarious messages on your answering machine.
-Great controls

Cons:
-No sequel! Waaah!
-Can screw up easily