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	Title: The Lost Treasures of Infocom
	Author: Gary Meredith
	Source: Game Players PC Entertainment, v5(4)
	Date: July 1992
	Transcription by Steve Derby
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Remember when super VGA and 486 processor speeds existed only in your
imagination? Or perhaps you recall, fondly or otherwise, those stomach-turning
shades of cyan and magenta that graced the lower-than-low-res CGA
screens of yesteryear. If you look back fondly on those days (or are
intrigued by the lore passed on by PC veterans), we've got the game —
well, actually *20* games — for you, priceless relics of the nascent
days of PC gaming.

With *The Lost Treasures of Infocom*, from ***Activision***, a score of
classics is backed into one rather weighty box, just waiting to be
discovered by a whole new legion of fans. Titles such as *Zork*,
*Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*, and *Moonmist* are among the
legends brough back to life after years of absence, and in a world
where games almost play themselves, these old do-it-yourself/imagine-it-yourself
creations may come as a shock to the uninitiated. It is, however,
a pleasant shock.

<img class="float-right" src="/public/img/articles/pcent-gamebytes-ltoi/hhgttg-screen-shot.jpg" alt="Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy screen shot">

You won't be bowled over by any technical innovations here. When
PC graphics were little more than a joke, Infocom chose to
concentrate on creating devilishly clever text adventures.
Like a good book, these games are different things to different
people. How you play a particular game depends much more on you
than on the whims of a game designer, and therein lies the charm
and entertainment of the Infocom stable.

As you play these games, though, you'll probably realize that
they have much more in common with their graphics-based
descendants than you might have imagined. There still remains
the major caveat of all adventure gaming, the necessity of
looking everywhere and talking to everyone. And running a
close second is the ever-popular admonition, to "save often."
Of course, lacking graphics, these games take a bit more
concentration, because you must create all the scenes in your
head.

With all the recent innovations in PC adventuring, it's easy
to forget how relatively sophisticated these games are. The
text parsers are amazingly good, and harder to trip up than
some later, supposedly more advanced graphic adventures.
Beyond that, *The Lost Treasures of Infocom* all share the
ability to hook you, so that you may end up playing far into
the night.

If it's been a while since you played a "can't switch it off"
game, perhaps you should consider your first trip, or maybe a
return visit, to the Great Underground Empire, or mysterious
Tresyllian Castle. And don't worry about that funny headache —
once you get your mental muscles back into shape after those
years of neglect, it should go away.
