Entire Ultima Series Available (Low Price!)

http://www.gog.com/en/promo/ultima_series_promo

If you go to Great Old Games you can purchase the entire series of Ultima games (I-IX and Underworld I+II) for under 20 dollars!

If you are not familiar with this website, it is basically a store front for you to purchase all your favorite classic DOS/Windows games.

The advantage of buying the games from this website rather than downloading them from an abandonware site is that these games come patched and ready to work on modern operating systems with little fuss and without having to make a lot of system configurations.

Some of these old games can be very complicated or difficult to run on modern computers but these guys have done all the hard work for you so that you can just enjoy playing your old favorites. Everything is DRM free.

Most of the games also include pdf copies of the original manuals, play guides, and maps that originally came with the games.

This Ultima sale is only available for five more days so if you want the series, you should definitely pick it up!

There are some other games available too, although the selection isn't too large yet.

So basically their entire business model hinges on lazyness. Yes, everything they 'sell' is actually free, but there is less time spent finding patches and hacks to get them to work on current systems?










Thanks! That's cool as shit! I picked up Lords of the Realm II while I was at it.

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/starflight_1_2

This Ultima fan has also created a GOG compatible Ultimate Ultima Patch!

http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/category/ultima-patcher/

This all-in-one patch collects a number of fan-made patches which were designed to spruce up some of the older titles for modern computers. Biggest changes:

Ultima III's CGA tile graphics are bumped up to VGA and the original Apple II soundtrack for the game has been re-inserted into this PC version (which was originally released without the music). Some useful hotkeys were also added. Ultima IV has also been bumped up to VGA and the original soundtrack has been restored. The patch also corrects some potentially game-breaking bugs. Hot keys were also added to this game. Ultima V is already VGA compatible, but the soundtrack was restored for this version of the game to give you the complete gaming experience. Some other game-breaking bugs were fixed in the other games. If you pick up the Ultima Collection I definitely recommend getting this patch program as well.



I've gone through and tried all the games and they are still as good as I remember them. Quick reviews of the games:

Ultima I and II, though groundbreaking at the time of release, are too archaic now to really enjoy. They are very simple games and quite punishing unless you are willing to put serious time into level grinding. They are very stat-based games with little plot and few interesting characters to talk to. There are some wacky and amusing bits in Ultima II since it takes place all over space and time, but its probably not worth the effort.

Ultima III is much more playable but the interface still seems ancient by today's standards. But it has a cool story and was an extremely innovative and influential game in its time. It was a direct inspiration for The Legend Of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Quest as well as nearly every western cRPG. It was the first Ultima game to have a party system and an actual plot and a cohesive game world. There is also some puzzle solving involved in this game and the final villain cannot be defeated simply by bashing it's brains in. This one isn't just a hack and slash game, there is some questing involved.

Ultimas IV-VII are awesome, as are the two Underworld games. Ultima V, IMO, is the pinnacle of classic computer RPGs. Definitely worth playing! Some of the best computer games ever made. Ultima VII was also an excellent game and many of today's developers (including the Elder Scrolls guys) cite it as a major influence.

Ultima VIII is somewhat disappointing (though still enjoyable) compared to the previous entries. By this time Electronic Arts had bought out Origin Systems and you can tell that corporate interference is starting to hurt the franchise. Ultima VIII scales back on some of the innovations from older Ultimas and there is less world interaction. The party system is gone and some questionable platforming elements have been added. On the other hand, the music and visuals are quite good and there is an interesting story buried here.

Ultima IX, on the other hand, is a disaster. It is a shame what EA did to Origin. They essentially forced them to release this game in a buggy and un-playable state and Ultima IX also has a lot of continuity issues with the older titles. Worth playing if you are completionist but many Ultima fans like to pretend it never happened. There is more on the troubled development history of Ultima IX on its wikipedia page.

The only Ultima game I played was Ultima VI. My cousin's cousin Walter had given it to him and installed it on his computer. We had no clue what the point was or anything, we were just running around trying to figure out how to get different guys on our team and explore new places (I think at one time we had a rat and a gargoyle on our team). We spent well over 100 hours playing that thing.

I still have no idea what the point of the game is, but I've got it now (had a buggy version a couple years ago, but it was on my netbook) and will try and check it out and play for real.

Well, you can always look at a walkthrough online and it will tell you where to go and what to do. But that's no fun!

Play it old school... talk to everyone, take notes, draw up maps, and essentially make up your own quest journal.

I strongly recommend skimming through the Compendium (the Ultima VI manual) as it gives you an overview of the landscape, the creatures you may encounter, and a history of the series up to that point. Should be available to download as a pdf file but I can send you a copy if you want.

Lord British will also ask you some questions directly out of the Compendium which are sort of an early form of copy protection. Or I can tell you the answers!

Basically, you start off in Lord British's castle. I tackle RPGs pretty methodically. I'll spend as much time as possible in Lord British's castle collecting information and then I'll move on to the closest city, Britain, and do the same thing there. Talk to everyone, visit all the shops and find out what is available to buy.

I would avoid exploring the dungeons under the castle until you've properly equipped your party. And you can join up with the mouse early in the game, but I would hold off on that for now. You will need her later in the game, but for now I'd leave her in the castle because she is a weak character and she could be killed prematurely before you can use her.

That should be a good start! The game is pretty open and non-linear so you can go whichever direction you want and do whatever you want. You can kill non-player characters if you want, but this could break the game and make it unwinnable... so if you decide you want to go on a killing/looting spree I would save the game first!

They have wc1 to 4 and privateer on that site. WC4 dvd version.

Was wondering when you were gonna show up!

Yes, at some point I plan to pick a lot more games from the site. Definitely want to get some old classics like:

Wing Commander 1-4
Quest For Glory 1-5
Space Quest 1-6
King's Quest 1-6
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Myst
Fallout 1-2
Planescape: Torment
Masters Of Orion 1-2
Empire Earth
Starflight 1-2
etc.


I really hope they add Ancient Art of War and Ancient Art Of War At Sea on there! Loved those games!

http://www.oldgames.sk/en/games.php?category=6

You can legally get all of them for free since they're now officially abandonware and thus under public license.

I played this one a LOT on the commodore 128

http://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/bards-tale-1-tales-of-the-unknown/

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - one of the greatest games of all time.

Well... I've been putting quite a bit of time into each of the main Ultima games recently, and I think I'm gonna use this thread to share my thoughts on each of the games. As good a place as any!

I'm gonna try and do a write-up/review for each of the prinicipal games in the series, and in particular I'm going to focus on the evolution of the series over the years and from one installment to the next. To that end, I will be attaching screenshots (not mine, taken from the web) to each review. This should more easily convey how the series has changed and grown over the years.

I will not be reviewing any of the 'side' Ultima games that take place outside of the main series. That isn't to say these aren't good games... but I just want to focus on the principle titles for now. This includes the two Worlds Of Ultima games (The Savage Empire and Martian Dreams) and the two Ultima Underworld games (The Stygian Abyss and Labyrinth Of Worlds). I may touch upon them briefly in my reviews of the later games. Excellent games, by the way! Worth playing. These four games are also available on GOG.

I will not be reviewing the various console ports of the Ultima games. They aren't that good, for one thing. They share the same plots as the computer versions, but the technical limitations of these consoles and the limited number of buttons available on the controllers make these games a chore to play. I also will not be reviewing the two Runes Of Virtue games made for the Nintendo Game Boy. They are not considered canonical and, more importantly, I've never played them!

And I will also not be reviewing Ultima IX: Ascension, for a number of reasons. I may go into that more after I finish reviewing the other games.

These are the games I WILL be reviewing (eventually):


Ultima I: The First Age Of Darkness (1981)
Ultima II: Revenge Of The Enchantress (1982)
Ultima III: Exodus (1983)
Ultima IV: Quest Of The Avatar (1985)
Ultima V: Warriors Of Destiny (1988)
Ultima VI: The False Prophet (1990)
Ultima VII part 1: The Black Gate (1992)
Ultima VII part 2: The Serpent Isle (1993)
Ultima VIII: Pagan (1994)


And here is some cool box art from those games!

ULTIMA 0 (1979)

So, before I begin talking about the Ultima games and how they have evolved over time, I feel it necessary to start the discussion off with a little known game from 1979 called Akalabeth: World Of Doom. This was one of the earliest computer programs written by Richard Garriot (creator of Ultima) and it actually just started out as hobby. Garriot was an avid D&D player and this game was one of his attempts to adapt the pen-and-paper game to personal computer systems which had come out recently.

But the game was quite advanced for its time, so Richard Garriot decided to have it published and released. It proved very popular in those early days of home computing and netted Richard Garriot enough income for him to consider doing this full time. This game was one of the earliest known computer RPGs. By today's standards it is an extremely simple game, and anyone with a basic knowledge of computer programming could probably re-create it. But it did set up the basic template which would be followed by every game in the Ultima series, as well as every computer or console RPG ever made.

As you can see in the screenshots, all the graphics in the game are made up of black and white lines. The overworld is a 3x3 grid presented from a top down perspective with your character represented by a cross. There isn't really anything in the overworld to explore. You visit a castle, a shop, or a dungeon. When entering the dungeon, the perspective changes to a vector graphic first person view and the enemies you encounter are line-based sprites.

There isn't much of a plot to the game. Whatever backstory there is only exists in the accompanying documentation. However it does feature the same characters found in Ultima I and for that reason it has retroactively been considered a part of the series (Ultima 0). In the fictional land of Akalabeth, a local king named Lord British strives against an evil wizard named Mondain. You are a knight with a very simple task. Go kill a particular monster sent out by Mondain to terrorize the land. When this is completed, you go back to the king and he gives you a new mission to kill an even stronger variety of monster. And so on. You don't fight the wizard himself... I suppose they were saving that for the next game!

There is no character creation. You character statistics and even the layout of the dungeons are completely random. Before battling foes, you stop at a shop to buy food and equipment. There are no NPCs to talk to, no quest items to find, and no objectives other than to kill whatever monster Lord British tells you to kill. It was your standard dungeon hack n' slash, although at the time there was nothing else like it. You cannot save your game. As you go deeper and deeper into the dungeon, you fight increasingly stronger enemies and the dungeons are, in fact, infinitely deep. But you need only kill ten creatures, the last and strongest of which is a Balrog. After you kill the Balrog, you get some text congratulating you on a job well done.

While exploring the dungeon, you can find treasure chests which supply you with more gold. Thieves will steal your equipment and Gremlins will try to steal your food. Magic amulets allow you cast some spells. One even transforms you into a super strong Lizard Man. Food rationing is probably the biggest challenge in the game. Every step you take consumes food and if all your food is consumed you die.

And that's about all there is to the game. It isn't available on GOG but I'm sure there are any number of places you could download it. The only reason I even bring the game up here is to show how much more advanced the next one is. Relatively speaking, of course.

Do a wing commander review.

ULTIMA I (1981)

This game, originally just titled as Ultima, began development shortly after the unexpected success of Akalabeth. The previous game was just a hobby for Richard Garriot, but he began to take things much more seriously with this entry. This game was a quantum leap forward in almost every way. This was a much larger and much more fully realized gaming experience. Almost the entirety of the Akalabeth program existed as a subroutine within Ultima, which gives you an idea of how much more ambitious this game was.

Akalabeth was primarily a dungeon hack, and this game also included dungeon grinding as a important part of the experience. The black and white, first-person dungeons returned and you still engaged in combat in much the same way you did before. But that was just a small part of this game.

The overworld was now a fully realized world with castles, towns, dungeons, moutains, forests, oceans, and continents. Towns were filled with people and monsters roamed the countryside. You could now engage in combat outside on the overworld map. This new overworld made use of tile graphics and even included some color (as you can see in the screenshot below). Towns and castles were not very detailed, however, and were entirely compressed within a single screen. Many of these towns and castles were identical to each other, aside from the names. You couldn't really converse with anyone besides the merchants and the kings.

In the previous game your character was randomly generated. This time around you are more heavily involved in character creation. You can pick the character's name, gender, race, and class. Four races were available: Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Bobbit (quite obviously borrowed from Tolkien). Four classes were also available: Fighter, Thief, Cleric, and Wizard. Wizards could use certain spells that Clerics could not use. This meant you had to put a lot more thought into what sort of character you wanted to play with. Each combination of race and class helped to determine your starting statistics, although these could be increased later in the game.

Though there is more to do in Ultima, the game still has a pretty simple plot by today's standards. You learn from the documentation that Lord British has again called for a hero to vanquish evil. This time the events take place in a much larger world called Sosaria, made up of four continents. Each continent had its own castles, towns, and dungeons but not much else. In each of these castles, the king would send you on a quest to either vanquish monsters in a local dungeon or visit a local signpost (called shrines in later games). These kings would then raise your attributes or provide you with gems which were necessary to complete the game. You could visit merchants in these towns to buy food, weapons, armor, equipment, and transportation. Food rationing was still a major issue in this game. If you went out adventuring without enough food on hand, you could find yourself dying of starvation fairly quickly.

You could pay the bartender at the pub and he would basically tell you everything you needed to do in the game. In the backstory for this game, you learn that Lord British continues to struggle with the evil wizard Mondain. The wizard had created an artifact known as the Gem Of Immortality which has made him nearly invincible and which has allowed him to terrorize the countryside and unleash his evil minions upon Sosaria. You learn that he has even allied himself with malicious beings from distant stars (aliens!), and these beings now also threathen this world.

Your ultimate goal in this game is to destroy Mondain. But Mondain is nearly invincible. So you must locate a time machine, activate it with the gems provided by the kings, and use it to go back to a time when Mondain was not yet all-powerful. In order to gain access to the time machine you had to collect the aforementioned gems but you also had to travel to space and fight off fleets of invading aliens starships. This was a pretty odd departure for the game, which mostly stuck to fantasy tropes but I guess Star Wars was pretty popular at the time and maybe a Garriot wanted to throw a bit of sci-fi in there.

You can obtain the usual weapons like swords, axes, daggers, and bows but can also obtain phasers, blasters, and light swords (lightsabers). There are a number of modes of transportation available to you in this adventure. Horses, carts, rafts, frigates, air cars, rockets, and space fighters. Some of these vehicles had weapons you could fire. One notable thing about this game (and the next few games in the series) was that almost every key on your keyboard activated some sort of function in the game. 'A' lets you attack, 'B' lets you board a vessel, 'C' lets you cast a spell, and so on...

Once you get into space, you'll have to hyperjump to another star system, dock with a space station (top down view) and battle waves of alien fighters (first person view). This was actually necessary to complete the game. After you become a space ace, you have to return to Sosaria and speak with a castle princess. Any castle would work. But before you could speak with the princess, you had to free her from the jail (why was she in jail??). In order to do that you have to murder the jester and take the prison key of his body. Pretty weird. The princess tells you about the time machine, you go back in time, and you kill Mondain. Peace is restored to the land... at least until the next game! As an aside, you are never actually told in the game why you have to kill Mondain. You have to read the manual for that.

That's the entire plot in a nutshell. Most of the game is simply grinding through enemies in order to raise your statistics and hit points so that you have a fighting chance against Mondain. A pretty simple game, but quite revolutionary for the time. It got a great reception, sold very well, and is considered to be an important milestone in the history of computer role playing games. It was ported to a number of different systems and was even re-released in 1986 with some updated graphics. Ultima ][ was a no brainer.

ULTIMA II (1982)

Well, I'm not sure if anyone is even reading these, but onwards to Ultima II! This is probably the strangest entry in the series and it is often considered the black sheep of the Ultima games. Some fans have even labelled it as the worst game of the series, though I still think Ultima IX deserves that title. Although it improves on Ultima I in some ways, it is perhaps not the huge leap forward one would expect.

How to describe this game? I guess I'll start with the plot (which, again, is only found in the documentation and not in the game itself). In the first game you killed the wizard Mondain and brought an end to his dark reign. But violent upheavals shook the world and transformed it. He left behind an apprentice, a powerful enchantress named Minax, who wanted revenge against the world for the death of Mondain. Soon a new darkness would spread over the land and the brief period of peace would be shattered.

But this is where things get weird, and where the original documentation for the game provides no explanation. This second game does not take place on Sosaria at all. It takes place on Earth! But it is not exactly the Earth we know. Somehow, Minax caused the entire space-time continuum to fracture and so in this game you have to travel across the solar system and through multiple timelines in order to repair all the damage and destroy Minax. Later games imply that Sosaria still existed somewhere and also felt the effects of Minax's terror, but there is no mention of that here. In fact, given all the crazy time travel and alternate realities you visit, there is a strong possibility that none of the crazy events in this game ever happened (except for the killing of Minax, which is documented in later games)

And this game is very crazy! It's like Richard Garriot just dropped in every idea that popped into his head. There are different timelines you have to visit on Earth. The earliest era, known as the Time Of Legends, is where Minax resides and it is from here that she causes all the chaos. There is the Pangaea Era, a prehistoric era with one massive supercontinent. There is a medieval B.C. Era and a contemporary A.D. era. And then there is the futuristic Aftermath era, which takes place after a nuclear war (supposedly caused by Minax) has destroyed Earth's civilization. In the Aftermath Era you can find a rocket that will take you any of the planets in Earth's solar system: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, or Planet X. You can also travel to the Sun, but it will mean instant death (about the only thing that actually makes sense in the game).

This all sounds really cool. And the scope is certainly more ambitious than the first game. But there is actually very little difference between any of these Eras or planets and not much to do on many of them. You can find the same monsters everywhere and the same types of terrain. Even the outer planets are all just grassland and water. The NPCs you encounter in this game are completely random and don't seem to fit with whatever period of time they live in. The towns all look about the same, although some are extremely absurd and nonsensical. All offer pretty much the same medieval weapons although some futuristic weapons can also be found in random places. And dungeons return for this game (and towers, which are basically upside down dungeons) but there is no reason to visit any of them.

That is the biggest disappointment with this game. There are all these different places, but there is very little of interest to see or do anywhere. You don't even need to visit any of the other planets except for Planet X in order to complete the game. You don't need to visit any of the dungeons or towers. And you don't need to vist most of the towns. In fact, there is almost a complete absence of a plot in this game. You are never really told where to go or what you are supposed to be doing in this game.

But there are some significant improvements in this game. Although it brings back almost the same top-down tile based engine from the first game, there is a larger variety of sprites and graphics. Dungeons are still first person and black-and-white, but creatures inside the dungeons have gotten a significant graphical upgrade. They are now filled in with color. Towns and castles are no longer compressed within a single screen. They are large areas you can explore and move around in. There are NPCs in this game that you can actually speak to. Most of the them don't say anything useful or relevant to the plot (and some of the inhabitants of this game are quite absurd) but at least you can now interact with them. You can still create your own character, and you again pick from four different races and four different classes. Amusingly, your choice of gender also affects your starting statistics: male characters have increased strength and female characters have increased charisma (+10!)

Different modes of travel return in this game. You can pick up a horse, a frigate, a plane, or a rocket. You no longer engage in space combat, but instead you can take your rocket and explore different planets. In order to use some of these vessels, you must first obtain special items like a Blue Tassle for frigates or Tri-Lithium to power your rocket. The most significant additions in this game are the time gates (which, in later games, would become moon gates) These are mystical blue doors which dot the landscape and which appear and disappear at certain times. These gates are what allow you to jump back and forth through the different timelines.

There are only a couple things you are required to do in this game in order to beat it, which is probably a good thing since it is never clear what you are supposed to be doing. You mostly just stumble through the plot by accident. Although you can gets some hints from town oracles if you pay them a fee. Magic returns in this game, but the only places where you can use spells are the dungeons and towers. And since there is no reason to visit any of these places in the game, the magic is also pretty useless.

As in previous games, the bulk of the game consists of you leveling up your stats and hit points so that you can take on the evil enchantress. There is only one place you can raise stats and that is in the Hotel California, located in the town of New San Antonio in the 1990s. Lord British and his castle can be found in two different Eras, and he can raise your hit points but otherwise he is completely useless in the game. You have to obtain a weapon called the Quicksword (the only weapon that can harm Minax) and you have to obtain a Ring that allows you pass through her force fields. But in order to get the Ring, you need to first travel to Planet X and obtain a blessing from Father Antos. Then you go back to the Time Of Legends and start hacking away at Minax. She will teleport around her castle a few times, forcing you to chase her but if you keep it up you will eventually defeat her.

If you wander around the game world, you can find some pretty crazy places. On planet Uranus there is a town called New Jester... filled with crazy jesters who try to murder you. Planet Neptune has a town called Computer Camp, where you meet overworked computer programmers, an Orc, and a frustrated Richard Garriot complaining about deadlines. On Jupiter you can find the Village Of The Preppies. The town of Port Boniface has a Mc Donall's fast food joint. The Aftermath Era has a town called Pirate's Harbor where you find the rocket. You also find some odd locations like 'Da Red Skware' and 'Da KGB' as well as a Red Lobster. I guess the Commies won the war?

Although this game did improve on the engine in many ways, the game was also shipped with some annoying bugs that tainted the experience. The plot is not as clear and not as cohesive. And the world is a mishmash of random, crazy ideas. In some ways it was a step forward from Ultima I and in some ways it was a step backwards. Apparently Richard Garriot was inspired by the movie Time Bandits when he made this game. Later games would return the series to Sosaria and no mention is ever made of these crazy places and these crazy timelines. I think Garriot probably wanted to forget he ever made this game. Although it was a necessary technological transition towards the next game. Presumably the space-time continuum is restored to normal following Minax's death, although this will not be the last time we will hear of Mondain and Minax...

ULTIMA III (1983)

The previous games sold well enough and were pretty impressive products considering they were single-handedly written by Richard Garriot, a college student with very little formal programming experience. And they managed to gain the series a small cult following. But Ultima III was the game that really put Richard Garriot and the Ultima series on the map. All the advancements Garriot made in the previous game were perfected in this third installment and it went on to sell more copies than the other games combined. This game was also the first one published by Richard Garriot's own video game company, Origin Systems (the previous games were published by California Pacific and Sierra On-Line).

This game was a milestone in the history of computer RPGs and a ground-breaking achievement. It has also been cited as one of the influences for eastern console RPGs like The Legend Of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Quest. (The contemporary Wizardry series was also highly influential in the development of the RPG genre). The game was hugely popular in Japan and even inspired a manga series. This was the first Ultima game I remember seeing in the stores and I am sure sales were helped by that amazing box cover artwork (see a few posts above). This game started development on the Apple II but was very quickly ported to many other platforms, including a version made specifically for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Over the years, it has been ported to additional systems with more advanced graphics and even some mouse support.

There were a vast number of improvements and advancements made to this third game in the series and it probably helped that Garriot now had some help with the development of the game. First of all, this game had a full music soundtrack. Different musical compositions were created for every part of the game. The graphics were a huge step up as well. For the first time, the various character and monster sprites were animated and there was a more creative use of color. This game was also the first in the series to take into account your 'line of sight'. That is to say, certain areas of the game overworld were blacked out. You could only see what your character could see. If your character's view was blocked by a mountain, and the mountain is all you would see. The moon gates (similar to the time gates from Ultima II) make their first appearance in the series, and their appearances and destinations were tied to the phases of the world's two moons. Dungeons were still in the first-person view but they were now in full color, with more complex traps and more secrets to discover.

The world and game play systems have become much more complex and serious. The more absurd elements from Ultima II are gone, as well as all the science-fiction trappings. No more time travel, space travel, aliens, and future technology. This game is set in a pure swords-and-sorcery fantasy world (well, except for the twist ending). In terms of area, the game world is probably not as large as Ultima II but it feels a lot more cohesive and a lot less empty. The plot elements are more focused. This time around, you actually have to explore dungeons, visit towns, talk with NPCs and solve clues in order to advance in the game. The level grinding is still here, but there is also an actual plot. You don't get to have a running conversation with NPCs, but what they tell you is more likely to be useful for solving the game than the nonsensical stuff you heard from NPCs in the last game.

The biggest advancement in the game is the introduction of a party system. You no longer travel alone. You now control a group of four adventurers that you must create yourself. This changes the gameplay almost entirely. Combat is now more strategic. In previous games, your character would run into an enemy and the two of you would trade blows until someone died. This time around, the action takes place in a whole new combat screen. You have to arrange your party members around the battlefield and face off against groups of enemies. Tactical considerations become more important. For example, weaker characters or characters with ranged weapons may want to stay in the rear while melee fighters will want to advance towards the front. Some party members can focus on traditional combat while other members could focus on offensive and defensive spell casting. Combat now takes much longer and is much more involved. (I should add that although the party system was new for the Ultima series, it had already been introduced in the first installment of the Wizardry games, back in 1981).

You now have five races and eleven different character classes to choose from! Your characters can either be Human, Elf, Dwarf, Bobbit, or Fuzzy. And you can pick from one of the four primary classes: Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Wizard; or from one of the hybrid classes: Ranger, Druid, Paladin, Lark, Illusionist, Barbarian, and Alchemist. Fighting classes can use a wider range of weapons and armor. Thief classes have special abilities to disarm traps and steal treasures, and different magic users can use different classes of spells. There were only ten spells available in previous games, but the magic system is also now far more developed in this game. There are 16 clerical spells (which tend to be more defensive or curative) and 16 wizard spells (which are more offensive). The makeup of your group will affect what special techniques are available for you in the game.

This new party system also affects the layout of the screen. the right side of the screen now contains vital statistics on each of your party members. You have to keep track of each adventurer's stats, hit points, gold, available food, physical condition, armaments, etc. You have to manage the food and weapons for each party member and you may be forced to rearrange their order or trade items back and forth from time to time. There is a lot more to keep track of now.

Again, various forms of transport are available. Horse, frigates, and the moon gates. Ship travel is very important in the game. You cannot buy ships, you will have to board and capture vessels from pirates. Once you gain control of a ship you can fire your cannons at enemies to destroy them and avoid combat. You will also need to use the ship to get to special locations. Just as in the last game, your party will need to locate various equipment and items to progress. Torches illuminate dungeons, keys open locked doors, and mystical gems provide maps of surrounding areas. Unlike Ultima II, you will have to explore a number of different dungeons and if you are not properly equipped your party can be quickly decimated. This is a pretty tough game and it can take a while to complete. There are a lot more plot related elements you must accomplish before your final battle.

The story for this game is similar to the story for the two previous games, although there are some twists and turns in the plot that keep it interesting. You have been summoned back to the land of Sosaria because a new evil threatens the land. A mysterious being called Exodus has covered the world in a new, third age of darkness. No one knows anything about this being except that it was created by Mondain and Minax to continue their dark works and that it lives on an inpenetrable Isle Of Fire which is guarded by the Great Earth Serpent.

The land of Sosaria has changed drastically since your last visit. Later games explain that Mondain's destruction and Minax's reality-warping caused large geological upheavals in the land. The four continents of Sosaria were ripped apart from each other through some mystical means and now only one continent remains. The others are completely unreachable (at least at this point in the series). The sole remaining continent of Sosaria has only one remaining monarch, Lord British, who is trying to unite the land while simultaneously repelling the evil forces of Exodus. You and your companions must travel the world of Sosaria and learn the secrets to destroying Exodus.

Aside from Lord British's castle, you must also visit a number of towns which dot the continent. Each town has its own unique characteristics and inhabitants. And sometimes clues discovered in one town will lead you to another town. There is even a hidden, magical city that only appears at a certain time of the day. If you take your ship down a whirlpool you will also discover a lost island called Ambrosia which contains shrines you must travel to in order to complete the game.

After properly equipping your party and leveling them up, you learn from clues in the game that you must explore the dungeons and find four Marks. Then you must find the lost island and meditate at shrines to receive the four Cards. You need to find a mystical being called the Time Lord who will explain what the Cards are used for. You have to dig for mystical weapons and armor that are your only defense against Exodus. Finally, you must learn the Word Of Power that will allow you to pass the Great Earth Serpent.

Once you reach the Isle Of Fire you will have to battle all of the demonic minions of Exodus. The castle itself will also attack you. The big twist to the game is that Exodus is not a man at all, but a highly complex, intelligent machine! (In later games, it is further elaborated that Exodus is a machine possessed by the psyche of a demon). In the game you never actually encounter the terrifying monster shown on the box cover. The four Cards are some sort of punch cards that you must insert into the machine in a specific order. This will shut down the machine and remove Exodus from the world.

This is a far more elaborate plot than previous games. The game is also quite a bit of fun once you get the hang of managing all the different party members and get the hang of the strategic battle system. The destruction of Exodus marks the end of the Triad Of Evil and the Ages Of Darkness, but not the end of the Ultima series, of course. The next game takes even larger technological leaps and explores ideas no RPG has ever explored before...

.

I'm currently trying to replay the three game Dragonlance saga of SSI's old gold box games as it is the one gold box series I never played back in the day. It seems a lot more challenging then I remember the other old box games, a lot more linear too (as in you must do A,B, then C in that order), and even with modified characters with max stats the game seems very hard to beat. In most of the other gold box games you don't start at 1st level so your characters were more powerful plus they are a lot less generous with magic items and even scrolls in Champions of Krynn so even my spell casters have a hard time coming up with enough good spells to cast.

That said, DJ Old Games (the website I linked to above) is a treasure trove of old games which are now on public license including the whole Ultima series.

ULTIMA IV (1985)

This game represents another quantum leap forward for the series. The first three games were retroactively lumped together as the 'Age Of Darkness'. And so this game begins a new trilogy called the 'Age Of Enlightenment'. It is relevant to consider how much the video game game industry had changed over these past two years.

At the time the original games were published, there was was very little competition from other developers and the industry was still in its infancy. The only other significant role-playing series at this time was the Wizardry series, developed by Sir-Tech. And in 1983, the infamous video game industry crash caused consoles like the Atari 2600 to suffer a catastrophic loss of business. Computer games were still a niche. However by 1985 Nintendo had managed to re-ignite the console business. A number of popular console RPGs like The Legend Of Zelda, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star were just on the horizon. And new games like The Bard's Tale, Might & Magic, and Phantasie would help to expand the roster of RPGs on home computers.

But all these RPGs still had something in common. Like the early Ultima games, they all had very simple and direct end goals. Save the world by defeating the evil antagonist. Most RPGs today still have that same end goal. But Richard Garriot decided to go in a completely different direction with Ultima IV. Instead of a showdown with a bad guy, what if the whole point of the game was personal self-improvement? What if the challenge lay in upholding virtuous acts and solving moral quandries rather than just simply slaying any monsters that were thrown at you? To this end, Richard Garriot sat down and completely re-thought the basis for this next Ultima game. He developed a complex ethical system which would dicate every aspect of this new game.

We learn that after the destruction of Exodus, the world of Sosaria again suffered great geological upheavals which transformed the geography of the land. With the Ages Of Darkness behind them, Lord British finally united the world of Sosaria under his rule and the land was re-named Britannia. Lord British, concerned with his subjects spiritual well-being, put out a call for one individual to step forward and become a role-model and a symbol of virtue for the people. The ultimate goal of this game is to become the Avatar, the champion and embodiment of virtue. In order to do this you must demonstrate knowledge of the virtues and principles which underly this new ethical system and you must past a series of physical and mental trials. The Avatar would then go on to become the hero of all the later games in the series (later backstory retroactively stated that the Stranger who defeated Mondain, Minax, and Exodus was also the same individual who became the Avatar, thus linking all the games together).

In the game there are three guiding principles: Truth, Love, and Courage. Each principle is represented by a castle. From these principles come the eight virtues: Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Honor, Justice, Sacrifice, Humility, and Spirituality. Each of these virtues is represented by a town and a local shrine. The opposing vices are represented by eight dungeons which are located around the world.

Character creation is very unique in this game. You no longer pick a class or a race. In fact, from here on out in the series, your main character will always be a human (although you can still pick gender in some games). Their are eight professions or classes in this game: Mage, Bard, Fighter, Paladin, Druid, Tinker, Shepherd, and Ranger. Each of these classes correlates with the eight virtues above. And each class has certain starting statistics, simplifed in this game to strength, intelligence, and dexterity. Before you begin the journey, you get to watch a full introduction (a first for the series) that guides your character creation. You are summoned from your home and your quiet life by a mysterious gypsy. This gypsy will ask you a series of ethical questions which will determine not only your starting profession, but also what town you start the game in, and which companions can join your party. There are no right answers, you simply pick whichever answers most align with your personal beliefs. Once your character has been created, you enter a moongate and travel from your native Earth to the world of Britannia and your quest begins.

You start the game alone, but in each town there is a companion who will join you on your quest for enlightenment. These companions will become your friends and allies and they reappear as characters in future games of the series. These characters are Iolo the Bard, Shamino the Ranger, Dupre the Paladin, Geoffery the Fighter, Mariah the Mage, Jaana the Druid, Julia the Tinker, and Katrina the Shepherd. These eight characters accompany you on your quest to become the Avatar (although in the actual game you can only join with seven of these characters since your character takes up the eight slot). So you will eventually have a party of eight members, double the size of your party from Ultima III. How much of the game you wish to spend alone is entirely up to you. Although these companions will require their own weapons and armor (and use up your food faster), they can level up alongside you and can come in handy during difficult battles.

Leveling up in this game is also different from past games. You must still gain experience points through combat. But you must also attain a certain level of karma by doing good deeds or by demonstrating virtue. In previous games you could murder and steal without consequence (though if you were caught the town guards would beat the shit out of you). In this game you are still free to act as you wish, but if you are not virtuous your karma will decrease and you will never be able to complete the game. So you must not flee from battle with evil creatures, you must not steal, you must not murder friendly NPCs, you must give money to beggars, donate blood, demonstrate humility, act honorably, etc. Ultimately, the choice is yours. This was open-world gameplay a full decade before Grand Theft Auto.

One of the major advancements in this game is the way you interact with NPCs. Now you could actually have real conversations with the people who inhabit the world. You can ask questions of these people and they will provide answers. For example, if you ask someone what their 'job' is, they may tell you that they are a seeker of knowledge. You may then ask about 'seeker' or 'knowledge' and they may provide you with even more information and so on. This is vastly more complex than the transactions in previous games. Some of these characters may even pose their own ethical questions for you to answer. You must talk with all the characters in the game if you wish to learn about the virtues and if you wish to obtain the clues that will help you complete your quests. Of course you can always visit Lord British in his castle and he will raise your hit points if you have enough experience. In his castle you can also visit the Seer Hawkwind. He will tell you how far you are coming along in each of the virtues. Once you have reached a satisfactory level in a particular virtue, he will send you on a shrine quest to attain partial Avatarhood. In later games, you learn that this Seer is actually the mystical Time Lord from Ultima III.

You must accomplish quite a few things in this game. You must do good deeds and then meditate at the shrines to obtain your partial Avatarhood in the virtues. There is a secret mantra for each shrine. You must locate a rune for each virtue, hidden in the eight towns. You must travel through the dungeons (full color dungeons similar to Ultima III) and locate the eight colored stones. Dungeons now have special combat rooms in addition to random monster encounters. You must find and join with the eight companions. You must obtain quest items and special equipment and you must complete a number of side quests. Finally, you must travel into the largest dungeon of the game, a volcano known as the Stygian Abyss. Once you get to the lowest level of the dungeon, you must find the Codex Of Ultimate Wisdom, a mystical book with unknown origins. It will ask you a series of questions and when answered correctly you will become the Avatar and complete the game. No final boss to kill, although some of the last few dungeon rooms are wickedly tough.

There are a number of other improvements in the game engine. There is a full soundtrack again. This game was the first one in the series to take advantage of EGA graphics, which provides for a much larger color palette. Everything is more colorful and the world is more detailed. The world is also much larger than it was in the last game although not as pointlessly empty as the worlds in Ultima II. Combat is pretty similar to Ultima III but party management has been simplified. You manage food and gold for the entire party, rather than for each individual. You can still equip your party with various weapons and armor depending on their profession. And you can again travel by foot, horse, or ship. You will also have to travel in a hot-air balloon to reach certain locations. Moongates also return from the past game and they are again activated by the different phases of the world's two moons. One of the shrines is even located on a different plane of existence and can only be reached via moongate. Ship sailing is now made more complicated by wind's direction. How long your ship can last against attacks also depends on the ship's hull integrity.

The magic system is also more complex. There is no longer a division between clerical spells and wizard spells. But you are now required to mix up your own spells. You can either buy or locate the reagents used to make these spells. Each spell has its own combination of reagents: Ginseng, Garlic, Spider Silk, Sulfurous Ash, Blood Moss, Black Pearl, Mandrake Root, and Nightshade Cap. There are 26 spells available (each corresponding to a letter on the keyboard). All the game systems are just more refined this time around.

This game was even more popular than the last one and it again revolutionized the genre. It frequently shows up on many 'best of' lists and was even recently listed at #26 on IGN's 100 Best RPGs of All Time. Once you complete the game and become the Avatar, your character is transported back to Earth. But dark events will summon you back to Britannia for the next game, Ultima V! That one is my personal favorite...

ULTIMA V (1988)

Each of the first three games took about a year to develop. The fourth game took about two years to develop. Ultima V took three years to develop. As you might expect, based on that progression, the fifth game in the series takes another huge leap forward in pretty much every aspect. The graphics, the plot, the game engine, and the combat system are now so much more advanced and detailed. Even the musical pieces from the soundtrack are more complex.

In my opinion this game is the apex of the series. This is one of the most detailed, fully-realized, open-world gaming experiences I've ever played. Even today most RPGs cannot match the complexity of Ultima V. For example, look at the recently released Final Fantasy XIII. It's a beautiful, photorealistic game with amazing cinematic cutscenes... but it is a very linear game and you can't really interact with the world around you. The biggest difference between these later Ultima games and most other RPGs is the feeling that you are actually traveling through a real world. The game world doesn't exist for your sake, it exists in spite of you and without you. The only RPGs I've played that give you that same feeling are the Elder Scrolls games (which, in fact, were greatly inspired by Ultima). The game is so much more detailed than Ultima IV, I'm not even sure how to begin describing it.

But we'll start with the plot. The previous four games very nearly devoid of it. There was very little sense of a shared history between the games and there was no significant backstory for any of the games. You killed a big bad evil in the first three games and in the fourth you go on a quest for self-improvement. But this game continues directly from the last one and continues the story of Britannia and the adventures of the Avatar. You are summoned back to the world of Britannia under dark circumstances. The backstory is pretty complex and most of what I describe here comes straight from the introduction.

In Ultima IV you became the Avatar. And with your companions you journeyed into the Abyss and located the Codex Of Ultimate Wisdom, a mystical book which was said to be the source of all knowledge. You then returned to your native Earth. Lord British and the Great Council of Britannia decided to use their powerful magic to raise the Codex to the surface so that its knowledge could be shared with the rest of the people. And a new shrine was built to house the Codex. However, the raising of the Codex caused massive upheavals throughout the land (this seems to happen a lot in the series) and created a huge void under Britannia. A new subterranean world had opened up, the Underworld. Many evil creatures began to stream forth from the Underworld so the Great Council used their magic to seal the dungeons.

Lord British became curious about the Underworld and began an expedition to explore and map it. But he and his party never returned. In his absence a trusted lieutenant named Lord Blackthorn took over as interim ruler of the country. Then three mysterious, powerful wraith-like beings known as the Shadowlords appeared in Britannia. These terrifying creatures were personifications of Hatred, Cowardice, and Falsehood (the opposites of the three Principles). They would spread a dark corruption in every town they attacked and the people began to turn against each other. Lord Blackthorn also fell under the sway of the Shadowlords. He soon became twisted and evil and quickly turned the peaceful land into a totalitarian state. The Virtues of the Avatar were twisted into harsh and brutal Laws which were strictly enforced. Any who broke these Laws could be imprisoned or executed. The eight companions of the Avatar, as well as other individuals, created a secret group called the Resistance to oppose this new order. Although the companions were scattered and forced into hiding, they were successfully able to send a signal to the Avatar, summoning him back to Britannia. Upon his return the Avatar was greeted by his old companion Shamino. However his arrival did not go unnoticed and the Shadowlords soon attacked the companions. Although the Avatar was able to repel the Shadowlords, Shamino was struck down. The Avatar was able to bring his fallen companion to the hut of Iolo, another old companion from his previous adventure. After Iolo tells this backstory to the Avatar and heals Shamino, the three companions set off and the game begins.

You, as the Avatar, must journey through the oppressed state of Britannia and the dark, treacherous Underworld. You must contact the Resistance, infiltrate Blackthorn's inner circle, locate the crown jewels of Lord British, destroy the Shadowlords and descend into the depths of the world to find Lord British and restore him to the throne. You will have the opportunity to re-join with your eight companions from the previous game, as well as many new adventurers who have their own reasons for accompanying you. Character creation is similar to the system in Ultima IV. You may either transfer your character from Ultima IV or you may visit the gypsy and re-create your character by answering the philosophical questions posed by her. However you are no longer assigned to a particular class. From this point on in the series you are the Avatar, a unique character. The character creation only affects your starting stats. You start off the game in Iolo's Hut, with Shamino and Iolo already assigned as members of your party. You are limited to a party of six (including the Avatar) but there are 15 NPCs in the game who are willing to join with you. The class system has been simplfied. Your companions can be either fighter, mage, or bard. Fighters have more strength and can use better equipment. Mages have more intelligence and can use spells. Bards are a mix of both and have higher dexterity. Karma, again, is an important part of the game. Virtuous actions raise your karma and evil actions lower your karma. But this game has more shades of grey, and sometimes you may be forced to commit unfavorable acts to survive. Again, the choice is yours. Experience points and leveling up are the only way to increase your party stats.

Unlike Ultima IV, you can now drop and add whichever companions you want at any point in the game. You can even travel with no companions at all, although this makes the game much tougher. Each of these characters, in fact all the NPCs in the game, now have their own personalities, lives, and backstories. For example, one of the NPCs you can join with is actually a spy of Blackthorn and will attempt to betray you by stealing items or attacking you in battle. This is a huge advancement from the last game, when NPCs seemed to exist in the world only to provide you with information for your quest. Characters have relationships with other characters and stories to tell. Some characters may support the Resistance, some the Oppression, and some have their own agendas altogether. The conversation system is similar to the last game, but characters often have much more to say about themselves and the events happening around them. In previous Ultima games NPCs either wandered about aimlessly or remained fixed to a specific location. In this game every single NPC has their own unique daily schedule of activities. Most characters have a place to sleep, a place to work, a place to eat lunch, and a place to retire for the evening. As hours pass in the game, you can even follow characters around town as they go about their daily business. Sometimes it is necessary to catch a character at a certain time, or to follow a character to a certain location, or to wait for a shopkeeper to unlock their doors and open up the store during business hours. Some characters will say different things to you depending on the time of day or depending on what other characters have already said to you. This is an amazingly complex system that most RPGs don't even attempt to duplicate, even today. It makes the whole world seem more alive and more interesting. Time goes by in this game. Certain activities occur during the day while other activities occur at night. Hours, days, months, even years can go by as you play the game.

The geography of Britannia is about the same as in the last game but now much more detailed and varied. You can find grasslands, foothills, mountains, swamps, deserts, lava, shallow rivers and lakes, deep oceans, waterfalls, shrines, moongates, huts, villages, towns, castles, lighthouses, keeps, and dungeons. Towns and castles are dynamic places where each NPC carries out specific daily activities and fills a specific role in the town. You may encounter guards, jesters, children, beggars, shopkeepers, pirates, bards, mages, fighters, etc. One of the three Shadowlords will visit a different town each day. When you enter a town being visited by a Shadowlord the inhabitants may react to you in different ways. Depending on which Shadowlord is in town the NPCs may attack you, lie from you, steal from you, or run away from you. And if you get too close to the Shadowlord it will also attack you and most likely wipe out your entire party. You do not want to battle a Shadowlord, they are nearly invincible and will seriously fuck you up! However their movements can be predicted by using a telescope or a spyglass to do some stargazing. Each Shadowlord is represented by a comet and each town is represented by a planet. If you notice a comet and a planet in alignment, you might want to pass some time and visit that town on another day. You can also find all three Shadowlords in their hidden keep called Stonegate. You can visit the palace of Lord British or the palace of Lord Blackthorn. You have to be really careful in Blackthorn's palace. If you don't identify yourself as a member of Blackthorn's circle, you can be imprisoned and one of your companions will be permanently executed. If captured Blackthorn will attempt to torture you for important information. You can attack Blackthorn but he is impossible to kill and he will also probably wipe out your party. You can't even murder him in his sleep (which you can do to most other NPCs). If you give Blackthrone the mantra for one of the shrines you will find it destroyed the next time you visit it. Blackthorn's minions are also sadistic and cruel, although they may provide important info if you prove yourself to them.

The world and all the places in it are packed with details and filled with objects to interact with. The number of unique objects in the game is staggering, especially since Ultima IV had almost nothing you could interact with. Many buildings and castles even exist as multiple floors with basements and rooftops. Nearly every object in the game has its own individual tile graphic and you can interact with almost any object in the game. Some examples off the top of my head... you can drink from a fountain, play a piano, sleep in a bed, gaze through a telescope, sit in a chair, eat food off a table, open/close/lock/unlock doors, fire cannons, search through boxes/chests/barrels/trees, find hidden passages, meditate at shrines, pick crops from a field, make a wish at a well, get thrown into prison, free other prisoners, sleep at a hotel (and drop off companions), ride a horse, sail a skiff, sail a frigate, ride on a magic carpet, climb a mountain, see a mirage in the desert, find trolls under bridges, travel down whirlpools and waterfalls, become invisible, and even move some objects around (I've had fun blocking people with objects so they can't move!). Moongates also return in this game. Even resting up in this game is so entertaining. You can decide how many hours you want to sleep, and whether you want to sleep in a hotel, make your own camp outside, or just steal someone's bed. If you make camp, your bards will play a song for you before the party goes to sleep. You may be awoken in the middle of the night by a campfire vision of Lord British, who may provide information or level up your characters. Your party can also be ambushed by enemies at night, so finding rest indoors may often be wiser.

As the night grows deeper, your view of your surroundings becomes more limited. And exploring buildings without light sources can also limit your vision. Lighthouses actually provide you with light at night and can help keep you from crashing your ship into shallow waters. For the first time you can buy your own ship. Or you can capture a ship from pirates as in previous games. You can still fire cannons from your ship but you can now also separate a small skiff from your frigate which will allow you to explore shallow streams and lakes. Your frigate can only dock at harbors. You can now unfurl the sails and let your ship travel faster and without your control, although if you go too fast you could destroy your ship along a coastline. Items can be found which will strengthen your vessel, change the direction of the winds, or even plot your latitude and longitude. This may be necessary to find certain locations and determine your position. You can fire away at enemies with your cannons but if they get too close you will be forced into a battle screen and your party will have to individually battle the sea creatures. Ship to ship combat with pirates is also possible and sometimes easier than trying to blow the other ship out of the water with your cannons before they can do the same thing to you. If your ship is damaged you can rest up and repair your ship, though this may leave you vulnerable to attack in the open seas.

This game is the first one in the series to take advantage of VGA graphics so everything is more colorful, detailed, and animated. There are more NPCs, more varieties of monsters, different objects, different terrains, and more cutscenes. The dungeons are still in first person but dungeons are no longer just flat, uninteresting walls. Enemies in the dungeons are fully drawn, colored, and animated. Dungeons can be simple caverns with rock walls and stalactites or prisons made up of stone walls. You can even see the skeletons of dead prisoners chained up on the walls and you can search their bodies. The dungeons are sealed in this game so you will need to discover the Word of Power used to open each dungeon. Dungeons now have two openings, one on the surface and one in the Underworld. The Underworld is a barren, mountainous region full of evil creatures, but it must be explored in order to find important quest items. You can even find some NPCs in the Underworld.

The combat system and magic system are more complex. Combat still takes place on a turn based battle screen, but each battle screen is now unique depending on the type of terrain you are standing on. For the first time you can attack diagonally and you can attack over other objects. You can also go to solo mode and play with a single party member. After you kill a monster you can search its carcass or its treasure chest for weapons, armors, scrolls, potions, rings, amulets, food, and gold. There are many more varieties of enemies in this game and enemies are a bit more intelligent. Some powerful enemies can create force fields, blast you with magic bolts, or summon other creatures to aid them in battle. Some creatures can multiply, teleport around the battle screen, steal your food, or possess your party members. You have a much larger array of weapons and armor at your disposal such as melee weapons, ranged weapons, flaming oil, morning stars, magic weapons, helms and shields. Some weapons are two handed but sometimes you can hold different weapons in each hand and attack individually with both. In addition to your magic spells you can also find a variety of scrolls, potions, rings, and amulets which all have different effects. This game has the most strategic and interesting combat system of all of the Ultima games, and some of this complexity is actually lost in later games.

The magic system has also become more complex. All the spells in the game are now divided up into Eight Circles. Spells in higher circles are more difficult to cast, and require more mana and intelligence. You must still mix up your own spells using a variety of reagents. Each spell also now consists of magic syllables which must be properly combined to create the right spell. For example, the syllable AN means to 'negate' while the syllable NOX means 'poison'. The spell called AN NOX will dispell poison. A new runic alphabet has been introduced which you must translate if you hope to decipher certain clues and information. Helpfully, the translation is provided in the documentation (although I did not have the original documentation when I first played the game and had to translate the entire script myself. I also did not have the map that came with the game so I had to explore and sketch the entire game world on graph paper. Ironically, this actually made the game more fun!)

I could probably go on and on about the details in this game, but that is probably enough to give you an idea of how much there is to this game. This game is my personal favorite because of its epic story, its complexity, and its sense of immersion and atmosphere. This was one of my first serious gaming experiences and I literally spent years trying to complete this game. There is so much to see and do, and I am still often staggered by how impressive it is, even compared to better looking games which have come out since then. This game continues an exploration of philosophical themes which began in Ultima IV. In that game you learned about virtue and the differences between right and wrong. In this game you learn that the world is not always so black and white. The next game will continue this exploration of morality.

As an aside, I can't really tell if anyone here finds this thread interesting or not, but I figure this is as good a place as any to put these reviews up.

I'm sure there are some guests and non-members viewing this thread who would find this stuff interesting! And I don't have my own blog, so where else would I put it?

Even if no one is reading, I've wanted to organize my thoughts on this series for a while now and get it down somewhere. It may take a while to get the next game up, but that write-up shouldn't be nearly as long...

Robotech I hope bioware brings these games back.

I'm reading them all. Thanks for it, I've only played VI and know nothing of the backstory.

ULTIMA VI (1990)

As you might expect, this title was more advanced than Ultima V but it was also more streamlined in many ways. By the time Ultima VI came out computer games were nearly ubiquitous. Role-playing games were especially popular. Computer gaming was no longer just a niche and had started to find mass appeal. Games were becoming increasingly user-friendly and were increasingly higher quality productions. Origin itself had become a much bigger company and was now producing other game titles in addition to the Ultima series (the most notable of these was Wing Commander, also released in 1990 and often found bundled with Ultima VI).

The graphics are the most obviously improved aspect of Ultima VI. Although the PC version of Ultima V supported VGA graphics the game engine was essentially the same as the earlier titles. The first five games were all primarily programmed for the 8-bit Apple II computer system. But computer games had become more ambitious and the Apple II platform had become outdated. Ultima VI was the first game in the series to specifically be made for the 16-bit IBM-PC platform and it takes full advantage of the more advanced graphical hardware, the dedicated sound cards, and even included mouse support.

The game world is still viewed from a top-down perspective, but now also presented from an oblique angle. This allowed objects have a pseudo three-dimensional quality to them. The game world is still made up of tiles but it isn't as blatantly obvious. In past games every single monster, object, location, and character occupied exactly one tile. Sprites in this game could now be larger, more detailed, and more animated. In fact every object in the game is represented graphically. Ultima VI did away with all the extensive inventory lists from Ultima V. Another notable addition was character portraits. Every character in the game had their own unique color portrait which gave them more personality. You could even choose a portrait for your character. The introduction for the game was also more dynamic and was no longer limited to just still images with accompanying text.

Another huge change for the game is the sense of scale. In previous games your character travelled across an overworld map which was dotted with locations such as towns and dungeons. Each of these places was represented by an icon. You could 'enter' these locations to open up a new sub-map and then 'exit' these locations to return to the overworld map. Your party, as well as enemy parties, were also represented by a single icon. If the parties had an encounter a combat screen would open to display all the individuals. Ultima VI has no sub-maps or sub-screens. Everything happens in one big open game world. All the locations are seamlessly connected to each other and represented on the same scale. Ultima VI was one of the first games to introduce this 'sandbox' style of gameplay. Britannia still has the same geography as the last two games, but the world now feels more fully alive and connected. The first-person dungeon view from the previous games is gone. For the first time dungeons are now presented from the same bird's eye view as the rest of the game (although the 3D dungeons would later be reborn for Ultima Underworld).

The interface for the game has been completely overhauled and stripped down. In fact the whole game can be played with your mouse. As I mentioned before there is no longer an inventory list. Every character carries their own items and all these items are represented graphically. Items can be worn, used, and dropped simply by clicking on them. Items can also be organized into bags. Every object in the game has a particular 'weight' assigned to it. How much a party member can carry depends on how much strength they have. So if no one in your party can carry any more stuff, you may have to drop certain items in order to pick up new ones. Assuming the item is not too heavy, you can pick up and carry anything you want, even useless junk. Actually it is a good idea to only carry what you need because overloading your characters can cause the game to crash. In earlier games nearly every single letter key on your keyboard performed a specific function. You would have to 'Klimb' a ladder, 'Open' a door, 'Ignite' a torch, and so on. A lot of these functions have now been combined into a simple 'Use' command. And all of these simplified commands are shown as tiles at the bottom of the screen so that you can click on them with your mouse (though I still prefer the keyboard hotkeys).

Combat has also been vastly simplified from the last game. You don't fight battles on a turn-based sub-screen but in real-time (sort of). You can still direct the Avatar in battle by targeting and attacking foes. But you no longer have to individually control all your party members. You can set battle orders for each character (such as flank, engage, retreat) and allow the computer to handle the rest of your party. But in fact combat has been markedly de-emphasized in this game. Combat is not strictly necessary to complete the game. You never actually have to fight anyone in the game, although enemies can be very tough to outrun. Enemies can even chase you right into towns because there is no longer a clear separation between the towns and the wilderness. Because everything occurs in real-time, you can sometimes find creatures in the wilderness attacking each other! (this might be a bug in the game). So you will sometimes see strange status updates such as 'squid critically wounded!' even though there are no squids in your immediate vicinity. Similarly, the magic system has been simplified. You now get a spellbook. You can fill up your spellbook by purchasing spells from mages and then all you have to do is click on a spell to cast it. You still need the right reagants on hand but you don't have to mix them up yourself. There are close to 80 spells in this game and you definitely don't need most of them. Along with combat, statistics have also been de-emphasized in this game. It is no longer strictly necessary to grind through enemies, collecting experience points and levelling up your characters (though it can be helpful) The game is focused more on plot and characterization and you can complete the game without a lot of tedious combat. Karma is still important so you have to be careful about stealing and murdering innocents. You can, however, raise your karma back up by meditating at shrines. And there are some amusing tricks that allow you to ransack a whole town with minimal loss of karma. You can also pickpocket items from other characters.

Because level grinding is unnecessary, this game can be actually be completed very quickly if you already know where to get certain items and who to give them to. You could even potentially skip large portions of the game, which often consist of fetch-quests for various quest items. It is a non-linear game so you can go anywhere you want and do whatever you want. But you need to interact with certain characters to move the plot along. You could complete Ultima V without talking to a single person but in this game there are certain characters you must talk to. Plots and sub-plots are much more elaborate and detailed. The conversation system is still the same (although key words now appear highlighted, making it easy to find out what to talk to someone about). Each character you meet has a more well-defined personality and background and they usually have much more to say about themselves and their problems. You may have to complete a task for a particular NPC in order for him or her to direct you to the next quest item or next NPC. The characters still have daily schedules (though not as obviously as in Ultima V) and even your companions are more lively. You can actually converse with your own companions in this game and they may often comment on events going on around them or even interrupt your conversation with a non-player character with their own dialogue. Character are much more fleshed out and interesting. You can even encounter certain characters who will have sex with you! (though nothing is actually shown on screen, your companions will have amusing reactions to your recreational activities). Your companions are always travelling alongside you and they are all displayed individually. One sprite no longer represents the entire group. Like the last game you can now go to solo mode and individually control a particular character, although this is no longer limited to just combat situations (and for some parts of the game this is actually necessary). You start the game with your old friends Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre. A few of your other companions from Ultima IV/V may join up with you, but there are also some new characters to join up with, including a talking mouse named Sherry. As an example of how characters have more personality in this game, if you tell a particular companion to leave your party they may get offended and refuse to join with you again! Character creation is nearly identical to the last game. You can either transfer your character from Ultima V or you can visit the gypsy and answer the ethical questions again. Again, this only affects your starting stats which aren't even really that important to this game. (But it is kinda neat watching the gypsy mix up the potions that determine your fate).

You can still interact with much of the world around you but there are times when it seems less interactive than Ultima V. For example, you can no longer sleep in a bed. You can only rest at an inn or make camp outside. Possibly because it wouldn't make sense for your main character to sleep in the bed while the other companions just stood around watching him? You no longer have to eat food as your characters won't die of starvation but eating can help you regain hit points. (Curiously, in Ultima VII you are able to sleep in beds again and you can again die of starvation if you don't feed your characters!) There is some cool, new stuff you can do in this game. You can read books now. You can milk a cow. You can kill a cow for its meat. Various things like that. Ultima VI continues to build on Ultima V's attempt to create a living, breathing world while also moving away from some of the traditional pen-and-paper/dice rolling aspects of role-playing games. The story is much more important than the statistics. This evolution would continue further in Ultima VII.

Anyway, I've said enough about the interface and graphics. You probably get the picture. I'll briefly mention the plot, although I don't want to give away too many spoilers for anyone who is currently playing through the game. This game completes the second Ultima trilogy, the period of Britannian history known as the Age Of Enlightenment. The Avatar returns home to Earth following the events of Ultima V. Lord British was returned to his throne, the Shadowlords were destroyed, and Blackthorne was sent into exile. Britannia becomes a peaceful land once again. Many years later the Avatar is again mysteriously summoned via moongate to Britannia. But this time the moongate was not sent by the Avatar's companions. A demonic-looking race known as the Gargoyles kidnap the Avatar and attempt to ritually sacrifice him. Fortunately, Lord British becomes aware of the Avatar's plight and sends some of the Avatar's companions to rescue him and bring him back to his castle. He explains that this subterranean race of Gargoyles has launched a full-scale invasion of all of Britannia. The Avatar is tasked with stopping the invasion, finding out why the Gargoyles have attacked, and saving the world. As you journey once more through Britannia, you learn that things are not always as they seem and that you can't always judge a book by its cover. You learn about racial harmony and you learn that even a hero like the Avatar can make mistakes sometimes. Pretty sophisticated storytelling for the time.

Needless to say, Ultima VI was a huge success and outsold all of the earlier games in the series. It introduced a much larger audience to the Ultima games and to computer games in general. The Ultima brand was so popular at this point, the series actually continued on in three different directions and the Avatar would get to have many more epic adventures. I'll just briefly mention something about these games here. The main series would of course continue with Ultima VII, which I will get to in my next post. But before that the Ultima VI game engine would be re-used for the Worlds Of Ultima sub-series. In the continuity, these games take place after VI but long before VII. The first game, The Savage Empire takes the Avatar back in time to a long-lost prehistoric valley on Earth. The second game, Martian Dreams, takes the Avatar back in time to a lost civilization on Mars. Ironically, these were both settings that you supposedly visited in Ultima II. I suspect these two adventures were inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World and Edgar Rice Burrough's A Princess Of Mars, respectively.

The other sub-series, Ultima Underworld, followed the Avatar on two lesser known adventures back to Britannia. The first game, The Stygian Abyss, also takes place in the time between Ultima VI and Ultima VII. The second game, Labyrinth Of Worlds, takes place after Ultima VII part I but before Ultima VII part 2. These games were fully-realized, three dimensional, first person role-playing games that revolutionized the gaming industry with their technical achievements. The Underworld engine was a direct inspiration for Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom, the progenitors of the first-person shooter genre. And the Underworld style of gameplay was a direct inspiration for The Elder Scrolls: Arena, the first game in that hugely popular role-playing series. That's all I'll say about these side adventures, but they are great games and they all share those classic Ultima design elements that make you feel like you are adventuring through a real, living world.

I'm reading them too. It's good stuff. :b:

Check out the wing commander games confederate son.

Fraaaaaaaaak.

Spent about a half hour typing up the Ultima VII write-up and my Firefox crashed.

Damn you Mozilla, damn you to hell.

I actually played Wing Commander 2 back in the day.

Firefox? Is that Virtuous, Avatar? :flamingmob: