Here is a riddle for all you readers out there. What do you get when you take the stealth of Thief 2, the puzzles of Project Eden, the moves of Heavy Metal FAKK, the graphics of Quake 3, the adventure of Gothic and an epic storyline? Well, if you are thinking since this is a Zorro review that the answer is Zorro, then you are wrong. Truthfully, I just described the ambition of what Zorro wanted to be.

Zorro is a new 3rd person action adventure put out by Dreamcatcher. It is an ambitious game, and when I first started playing the game, I thought it was pretty good. My initial impressions were just that, and just like the girl that looks good at 300 yards, upon closer inspection you decide it is time for new glasses. Zorro is a game with a great engine, some lofty ambitions and terrible execution.

The first obstacle in the game is the control scheme. It is lousy. Joystick movement is absolute, meaning Zorro moves in the direction you push the stick. The problem is most sticks are not supported, so although you can use a predefined one, the buttons will be off, making combat impossible. No problem, just switch to the keyboard, right? No, keyboard movement is relative to where Zorro is facing, and you must turn him to go in different directions. This was awful movement as well. After two hours of rewriting the config files I was able to use my joystick for moving and the keyboard for combat. This worked great, and I was ready to dive into the game.

Zorro's first task was to sneak up on a sleeping guard. Well, easy enough, but when I got close to him, I pushed the whistle button instead of the knock out button. Oh well, growing pains on the controller. Combat then started, where 4 sword directions appeared on the screen. I pushed the arrow keys in those directions, Zorro swashbuckled and all was good. The guard went down after a couple rounds, Zorro made a cool Z and I was happy. I went off into the next room, and snuck over to a pillar. I was sure to knock this sleeping guard out. I look over into the first room, and the guard was getting up. He sounds the alarm, all hell breaks loose and I find myself reloading the game.

OK, I was determined to kill the guards. You can't. Stab em, kick em, shoot em in the head, it only knocks them out and only for a limited time. Wow, that was a dumb decision, but I thought, "Hey, I finished Thief 1 and 2, and I didn't killed that much, I can do this". I went into stealth Zorro mode, only to get into a severe fight with my camera, trying to line it up so I could see the enemy guard positions and myself sneaking at the same time. It wasn't going to happen.

OK, forget killer Zorro, forget stealth Zorro, it was time for run like Hell Zorro and grab the stuff you need to get past each room. Well, this actually worked. Combat was so simple, just pushing arrow keys in a Simon Says manner. I could slice, dice, grab and run to the next room. Well, it got me through the game, but the game wasn't all that fun using the method.

As for the adventure aspects of the game, there simply were not enough puzzles to keep it interesting. None of the puzzles in the game were overly original. Zorro had a wide variety of moves, but due to the poor camera controls and the level design, I never felt they were used as fully as Laura Croft would in any Tomb Raider title.

What aggravated me about the game is how easily it could have been a good game. The graphics are pretty good for a third person adventure game, and I thought they were appropriate for this game. The sound was nothing to complain about. The combat system, while simplistic, was no worse than any push the button to swing a sword system. The story wasn't half bad as well. Simple design decisions, like guards that only stay down for seconds really took the enjoyment away from what could have been a very worthy game to the Zorro license.

I am a big fan of the Zorro mythology, and I was really hoping that this game would get it right. The best Zorro game ever still reins supreme on the Commodore 64. I have heard Shadow of Zorro retails for about ten dollars, and for that price, it becomes almost a worthy purchase… almost…

Final Grade: D+

System Requirements:

Pentium II 400 MHz (minimum)
64 MB RAM
3D card
Windows9x
Sound card
CD-ROM