Written and released by LucasFilms, Zak McKracken is fully titled: Zak McKracken and the Alien Mind Benders. It is a graphical adventure game that was released in the late eighties and is played from the third person perspective. It found its way to many formats besides DOS, possibly due to its popular science fiction theme. As is common with graphic adventures and other works of interactive fiction, the play of the game is mostly focused on puzzle solving.
While Zak McKracken is intended to be futuristic, it is set in the year 1997… ten years beyond its publication date and several years in the past by modern terms.
The storyline of the game follows Francis Zachary McKracken, who is a writer for the tabloid newspaper, the National Inquisitor. Along with Zak, the user will meet scientist Annie Laris, and two Yale students, Melissa China and Leslie Bennett. The one thing that all of the characters have in common is that they are all trying to prove that the alien Caponians have infiltrated society under cover of operating a phone company. Through this communications network, the aliens are slowly sapping the intelligence of the human earthlings. The heroes of the story are trying to prevent this from happening.
So how are they going to do this? As luck would have it, another alien race, the Skolarians, have left behind an ancient mechanism that has the capabilities
of repulsing the evil Caponians. Unfortunately, the machine was disassembled, and parts of it are scattered all over the planet. To make matters worse, there are some parts hidden away on Mars. The user will have to visit many places around the globe, find the parts of the machine and reassemble it before it is too late to save the world.
In his travels, the user will see some of the greatest and most mysterious wonders on Earth, many of which have already been linked to ancient astronomy and alien races. The gamer will go to the pyramids in Egypt, Stonehenge, the crop circle areas of South America, and the ancient civilizations of Mexico, as well as the lost city of Atlantis. There will be other surprises along the way, but those will be left in the bag…a real treat for Elvis fans.
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mind Benders is a neat little game with a lot of different environments and some interesting puzzles to solve. There are many characters with whom the user can interact, and the overall play of the game is challenging without being frustrating. It is a recommended download.
