Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders

This is one of the very first LucasArts adventure games and also happens to be the one that single handedly started my "career" in the genre. I fell in love with this game at the very first sight and haven't fallen out of it since.

Story

Zak McKracken is a reporter working for a sleazy tabloid: The National Inquisitor. Why or who has chosen him to save the world, he'll never know but quite possibly he doesn't even care. What matters is that the alien mindbenders have unleashed a wave of stupidity over the Earth (wonder how we noticed, hmmm) and somebody's got to stop them. Fortunately, the members of an ancient civilization that used to be the protectors of this planet have left behind a machine that's capable of stopping the intruders, all we need to do is assemble it with the help of three other people who share our dream. (No, it's not about freedom, it's just a giant blue alien and as far as giant blue aliens go, it's not a terribly impressive one either but it'll have to do.)

Opinion

This is one of those few adventure games that require little praising (how lucky for me). One of those few we call "a classic".

There's no point in wasting time talking about music (there is none) or graphics and control because basically, what you see is what you get. Practically everything you need to know about the game is shown on the screenshots except for one thing. As chance would have it, it's the very thing that makes this game a classic and I'd have to be a hell of a lot better a writer to give you even the slightest idea how much fun this game is.

At first you start out by controlling Zak (and his faithful sidekick, Sushi :-D) but before long you'll find yourself controlling all four characters (and laughing your pants off). As you can imagine, being able to switch between four different characters gives quite a room for interesting puzzles so don't expect this game to be easy. You can die, you can get stuck and I guarantee you'll hate the mazes like hell but in return you can muck up the telephone company and pretty much do whatever you want. Now isn't that worth it?

One piece of advice before you leave: keep your karma clean.