If you know me — which you don’t, unless you’ve hidden a camera in my teddy bear — classic adventure games are pretty much the entire reason I got into gaming…and reading. Back in the day, before I could read (present status debatable), I’d play King’s Quest on my aunt and uncle’s PC Jr. trying desperately to open the door to the castle by typing “jgahgi gihdg” which looked alright to me but I guess the programmers didn’t think it was a viable alternative to “open door.” Crushed spirits led me to learn what I needed to best that door and from then on I knew where my heart belonged.

Many years after conquering the difficult task of opening a door, I would stumble upon an adventure game series that did not play by the normal rules. Mixing the standard formula with RPG character elements and combat, Sierra’s Quest for Glory series grabbed my attention, locked it in a cage and taunted me. I was completely smitten with the epic adventure, grand stories that mixed parts of classic fairy tales, mythology and folklore and of course, the off-beat humor. Players could even import their character into the sequels! What sort of black magic was this?!

The adventure game loving crew at AGDInteractive Studios have finally released their 8-years-in-the-making remake of the Arabian Nights-inspired second game in the Quest for Glory series: Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire. Being the only entry in the series to have never seen a graphical enhancement or point-and-click interface update, this is a very welcome addition to fans of the genre and, let’s face it, your keyboard will be happy from not getting punched in the mouth (I can pretend) due to word commands not being recognized. Unfortunately, your mouse may be taking up the slack.

I highly recommend fans new and old of either Quest for Glory, adventure gaming or even the stories of the Arabian Nights give this remake a whirl. Not only have they given the game a facelift, they’ve also re-written the music, went ahead and tweaked some annoying gameplay issues which likely resulted in the keyboard violence I mentioned before and made it all available for the low, low price of free. Once again for the cheap seats: FREE! Unfortunately, for those of us who roll with non-Intel MACs we’ll have to make due with our imaginations, and hope that the PC users will let us know how it is in the comments below.