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"Lucasarts second adventure (after Maniac Mansion) is perhaps their greatest achievement."

Before there was Guybrush Threepwood and after there was Bernard Bernoulli, there was Zak McKracken. And what a world it was during that time. In the near future (of 1997; go figure), aliens who like to wear cowboy hats and nose glasses as disguises have taken to using a weird device that transmits a hum over phone lines. This hum has reduced the IQs of most people to dangerously low levels (basically, fruit bats can count higher than these people's intelligence quotients). Zak is somehow unaffected by these signals, as are his soon-to-be compadres Annie (who works at the Ancient Artifacts insititute), Melissa (a co-ed who has converted her bus into a space shuttle and flown to Mars), and Leslie (Melissa's friend, who has joined her on this excursion and is perhaps more outgoing). He discovers the Aliens' plan and begins his quest to rebuild another alien artifact (built by the 'good' aliens) that will stop the invasion once and for all. This quest will take him through every continent, from the lofty heights of Nepal, to the dark jungles of Mexico, and even to the sunken continent of Atlantis! Be careful, though: the bad aliens are not far behind and aren't exactly willing to let you succeed! The problem is: who's going to believe a tabloid journalist saved the planet when you can't even believe the headlines he writes?

GRAPHICS: 10
For a C64, these graphics are simply amazing. Characters are pretty well detailed, as are their surroundings. Sure, the PC version had far more detail, but this is a far less powered machine here! The nose glasses in the beginning dream sequence are a good example.

SOUND: 9
Music is well composed and far better than Maniac Mansion's despite the fact that it's beeps and boops most of the time. Sound effects are uninspired, but you can tell what each thing is supposed to be. Best sound effects are done by the two-headed squirrel (the tabloids are true!).

CONTROL: 10
Lucasarts invented the SCUMM system, and they should be damn proud of it. Even with a joystick the game is still very playable, as most work is done by point- and-click sentence building (it's a text adventure without the typing!). This was technology WAY ahead of its time, and man, was it welcome.

GAMEPLAY: 10
Like it's predecessor and successors, Zak is a wonderful combination of humor and puzzles. Most of the puzzles are quite tough, but there's still a lot you can do without solving anything (you travel the world! How can you NOT be doing something?). And the humor still makes me laugh. Although not as self- depreciating as the humor in Monkey Island, Zak still lets you know how much his job sucks by trying to think of a headline to go with the two-headed squirrel story. If you fly in the Bermuda Triangle during a portion of the game, you can get sucked up into the alien mothership, to which your pilot replies, "Man, I hate it when this happens!" Oh, and be sure to check the newspapers in the airport after you accomplish some tasks: they all have to do with something that you've recently done (If you kill the two-headed squirrel with something, the headline reports something along the lines of "Moron kills famed legend with golf club!" If you don't, it reads, "Two-headed squirrel devours Tacoma!")

If you liked Monkey Island, you'll like this. Guaranteed. That is, if you can find it. I've seen it in both a Lucasarts adventure collection and a bargain basement collection including Maniac Mansion, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and some Lord British game. Have fun!

P.S. If you are approached by men wearing cowboy hats and nose glasses after playing this game, don't accept their offer to go into their brain-scrambler.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99