Zork!

Ah, Zork...if one game reminds me of my youth, this is it. Back when DOS was as high tech as it got (and it seemed that IBM was the one calling all the shots, not Microsoft!), Zork was it as far as gaming. Yes, there were other games to play, and some of them brought me lots of enjoyment, but frankly, none of them could make me waste as much time staring at the screen as Zork could. Back then there was no web, so you couldn't very easily look up the answer if you got stuck - you actually had to puzzle your way out of each one of the roadblocks the game threw in front of you. Unfortunately the series went downhill quickly once graphics became a necessity (not that I didn't waste several hours on that 3D one, too - would have been a lot more impressive if The 7th Guest and Myst hadn't come out at around the same time and stomped it), but hey, it was a good run anyways.

Anyways, I know it seems quaint to suggest a text adventure now, what with physics processing units beefing up our consoles to ridiculous levels of realism and real time raytracing but a few years off the mainstream, but hey, it never hurts to look back at the games that enthralled us 20 years ago - you might be surprised how many of them are still great by today's standards!

Check out Play.vg's adventure section for Zork II and Zork III if you're itching for more after fighting through the first one - warning, you're in for quite a commitment of time if you start digging into this stuff!