Infidel

Growing up on games like Pinball and Space Invaders and the like I had never before played an action adventure game like Infidel and when I actually bought it I had no clue what surprises lie inside the non descript Folio packaging the original game for the Commodore 64 came in. And after opening the folder and looking over the map and stone rubbing on paper that were made to look like old parchment paper that had been lost in the dessert for years, as well as a five page letter that didn't have much bearing on the game but still interesting to read none the less and this is all you have to go on.

So I couldn't wait to load the game and see just what this type of game was all about and from that night forward my world changed when it came to action/adventure games on the computer. Infidel may not be the best game for starters because some of the puzzles are more on the difficult side to figure out and solve but that was a huge part of why I liked this game so much. My friends and I would sit around at night and make our way through puzzle after puzzle trying to figure out where to go next and just how we would get there and many days at work or school our minds were preoccupied with thoughts of how to survive the puzzle that killed us over and over the night, before although you will need some help finding the location to the pyramid because those were contained on the parchment map that came with the original packaging of the game. But you can always go to Infocom's home page and use their "Invisi Clue" section for the game to get the location of the pyramid and where to dig otherwise you will just wonder around in the Egyptian dessert until you die from thirst.
I didn't find to many drawbacks to Infidel although the ending may not be the best for this type of game after you spend many hours trying to solve the puzzles but just getting to the end will keep your brain occupied for hours. And an adventure game like this makes you remember what it was like to be a kid and had to use your imagination to put yourself in situations like the ones that present themselves in Infidel. Since it is one of the rare games you can come across nowadays that doesn't have any fancy graphics or pictures it only requires some brain power and imagination to play. The only other part about the game that I didn't like doing over and over through out the game was having to stop and re-fuel and light the torch once you were underground inside the pyramid but that did play into the amount of items and deciding just what items to keep and carry with you without exceeding your limit load.
So all in all if you like adventure games like Infocom is famous for producing you will most likely love Infidel. I know for me it changed my gaming world forever many years ago and after I finished Infidel I couldn't wait to move onto some of their other games like the Zork trilogy.