Keeping it Loki

I just finished up defeating Loki, the final evil lord in the tremendously awesome early 90's Shareware PC adventure game "God of Thunder." I know Jeffro is very familiar with the game, but for others, the plot goes something like this:

You are a highly pixelated and compressed animated Thor, the Norse god of thunder (the mostly red blob pictured at right with the hammer in front of it). You have to navigate your way through three levels, defeating three different evil guys. Each level follows a different story line.

In Level 1, you, with only your powerful throwing hammer and some guidance from your orb-contained god-father, Odin, you must save a local village from the evil reign of lizard?/monster thing Jormagund, who similar to King Koopa Bowser from the Mario series, wears a crown (which covers his only weak spot.)

Along the way, you must solve some terribly interesting (and some just terrible) puzzles, most of which involve pushing rocks, blocks and other objects through virtual mazes to block cycloptic worms from shooting you with some (bullet? spit?) things that kills you, as well as battling various simple dangerous creatures, picking up jewels, magic items and interacting with, pillaging and using the villagers to get stuff you need for your final showdown with Jormagund.

The second and third levels are similar, though I think the puzzles in the first are superior to the others. In the second level, you must free the villagers from enslavement at the hand of Nognir, who forces them to work mining Teflor, a non-stick substance of some kind (Level Two is titled 'Non-stick Nognir'). In the third, you must defeat your own god-brother, Loki, who simply imprisons people for various minor offenses such as cussing, spitting, kissing your mother or father goodnight, and dropping ice cream cones on his foot.

None of the bad guys are terribly difficult to defeat. I just downloaded the game a few days ago and beat all three levels in a matter of hours spread over the days since. But it is still worth the free download (available here) because of its nice blend of spatial/logic puzzles and humorous tidbits with just enough highly unrealistic violence. I suppose you could purchase and register the game as well, if the makers are still a viable company (I don't know). Also notable is the electronic soundtrack, some of which sounds eerily similar to some tunes by rotating California hippie music ensemble Golden Shoulders, who I thrice saw perform live at IWU.

So if you're bored and/or feeling nostalgic for a time when the U.S. was making peace, not war, in the Middle East, Pepsi was crystal clear and video games were simpler, check it out. You won't be disappointed.