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Addendum
URL: http://www.adden.tr.cx/
Issue# 70 : Reviews of Ultima
17th June 2002
Author: Phoenix
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Reviews of Ultima (Beginning for now at VI due to a temporary lack of 
access to V. I'll review V once I finish it again.)
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Ultima 6 - The False Prophet

Having completed the almost excessively challenging Ultima 5, I thought 
to myself, what shall I tackle next? I then went on to tackle Ultima 6.

Having already completed VII, I already knew the story of 6: The 
gargoyles, pissed off with the nicking of their beloved Codex, an action 
which resulted in the destruction of their antipodal habitat, react by 
capturing the Shrines of the Virtues. You (or me, if I'm playing, in any 
case our alter ego, the Avatar) find ourself whisked from our mundane 
planet through the moongate and onto an altar to be sacrificed by a number 
of unpleasant looking red brutes, the aforementioned gargoyles. As in 5 
we are rescued in true heroic fashion, that is at the last moment, by our 
not-even-slightly-mundane companions Iolo, Dupre and Shamino, and whisked 
away to do battle with the naughty bastards.

Not surprisingly there is a twist in the story, and although your 
original quest is to eliminate the gargoyle threat it soon dawns upon 
you that, well, gargoyles are people too.

Unfortunately I found number six far too easy to complete despite such 
twists. After six hours after intense gaming I had followed the story 
through to the end. It is pretty much a case of find this and take it 
here, then bring that to here, then take that here. The clues are 
freely given and clearly expressed so that little searching or thinking 
is required. 

This is a pity as the game had plenty of promise. The outside was 
fairly large and could be explored at will, though there wasn't much 
to be found other than towns and dungeon entrances. The random encounters 
suffered from a distinct lack of variety. There was plenty of room for 
improvement here: more monsters, or perhaps just more creative combat 
from the monsters, injecting more mental effort into fights, would 
have helped. The wilderness could have been varied with occassional 
monster lairs, abandoned cottages, bandit hideouts, anything to reduce 
the monotony of the block landscape. The city Vesper vanished without 
a trace; indeed the Drylands, though intended to be desolate, were 
bare enough to induce terminal sensory deprivation. 

I did enjoy just wandering around searching for hidden events in the 
landscape, and occassionally finding something worthy of note in 
dungeons, though on whole they suffered the same fate as the overhead. 
The spells were fun, though I finished the game after buying only three.

As a RPGer: Worth a brief glance, not particularly challenging.

As an Ultima fan: Interesting storyline leading into VII, but rigid 
gameplay compared to both V and VII.

As a time waster: Stick to sex tetris, though there is some hidden 
humour to be found...



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Ultima 7 - The Black Gate.

Following the events of VI (actually I think one or both of the 
Underworlds intervene) the Avatar returns to Brittania via a mysterious 
red moongate to find that 200 years have passed in his (your) absence...

The Avatar being the Avatar, coincidents are only to be expected, 
and you find yourself standing next to your old companion Iolo, who 
has aged remarkably well over the lost bicentury. He then proceeds 
to show you a rather gruesome ritual murder.

It appears that in 200 years much of Brittania has altered. Magic 
has all but vanished, the mages driven mad. Corruption and class 
privilege has crept into society and a sinister cult called the 
Fellowship controls much of society. Though the Fellowship claims to 
be a purely philanthropic society it does bear a strong resemblance 
to Scientology, Jehovah's Witnessism and Mormonism, and should 
automatically raise suspicion. You quickly learn that the Fellowship 
is mixed up in the murder in some way... surprise surprise.

The Black Gate has a lot more atmosphere than number six. For a 
beginning the world is even more interactive. You can weave wool, 
bake bread, make swords, and perform plenty of other irrelevant 
actions with no bearing to the task at hand. Then there is weather 
effects, cloud shadows, thunder, lightning and rain. (I would have 
liked snow as well...;-I) The game is full of easter eggs, more so 
than six, including references to literary and cinematic figures, 
history (Earth and Ultima), other origin games (can YOU identify 
the Kilrathi ship...), plus some more obscure references. Like six 
there is a good deal of humour in the game.

Also like six the world is more or less freely accessible. Unlike 
six there is plenty to be found, not all of it relevant to the main 
quest... I found pirate hideouts, including a huge cache of hidden 
treasure, spider lairs, swampy ruins (the same from Ultima 5? I'm 
unsure... they weren't in 6,) and interesting caves. There are 
also plenty of subquests to be filled, some with reward, others 
just because... well, that's what Avatars do!

Downsides... The game looks nice in real-time, with liveried guards 
walking around toting huge broadswords and peasants living out their 
virtual lives. Otherwise the real-time element reduces the game, 
particularly during combat when your tactical options generally range 
from choosing when to attack to choosing when to retreat. This is a 
problem on "newer" computers (say, post 1997) as the combat tends to 
end almost immediately after it begins, one way or another.

The entire world, including dungeons, is included on one huge map. 
The dungeons are contained inside the mountains. I must write that 
this shat me for a number of reasons. In combat mode sometimes your 
party members would run against a mountain impotently leaving you 
to take on a horde of nasty, grinning gremlins, because there are 
some monsters inside the mountain. Sometimes, near the edge of a 
dungeon, it is possible to see the outside world, which can look 
a bit ugly.

It is possible to pick up objects from the other side of the room; 
indeed although it doesn't let you take things when you're directly 
blocked off from them, it does let you get things that would otherwise 
be impossible to grab. It is possible to look in a chest of drawers from 
several meters away, take whateve you need, and run, all without need 
to get any closer. This is remarkably convenient when trying to search
corpses, chests, barrels, etc in dungeon if you don't wish to draw too close to that enemy or trap, but unrealistic.

It is possible to steal items from under a shopkeeper's nose, while 
he's staring at you, putting them into your backpack, without him 
even noticing. Move a piece of paper or furniture in a shop or house, 
only move not take, mind you, when you're alone and unwatched, and 
the city guards swarm up crying violet homicide.

The puzzles have the distinctive lever-doorway flavour of Ultima 6 
before it and Ultima 8 afterwards. There is also the often frustrating 
teleporting maze puzzle, which frankly shits me. Some of these 
require a bit of thought, but not too much... generally the game 
is easily completed by following the storyline at will and simply 
exploring and freelancing when the quests get boring.

I did quite enjoy Ultima 7, both as the storyline unfolded (it has 
some good twists and a nice 'ending') and as I adventured at my 
own will.

Also, try looking on top of the Trinsic smithy...

As a RPGer: Ooh, not *too* hardcore, but has atmosphere...

As an Ultima Fan: The second best, after 5, and full of little 
nicknacks worth looking for.

As a time waster: Too epic to be an efficient time waster, though it 
can be satisfying to search the forests.

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Ultima 8

This is set after Serpent Isle, not reviewed here yet as I haven't 
found a copy.

The Avatar finds himself dropped onto an island in a strange sunless 
world.

I had been lead to expect a LOT MORE from this game. This game was 
billed as paradisical due to its huge number of animation frames. 
This came at the price of any dynamicism. There is a minimum of 
choice in the gameplay, the magic system which is central to the 
game is impossibly complex, and there is a very limited number of 
items, interactivity and playing style. I will list complaints in 
some sort of order...

Combat: Click to hit the enemy. That's it. You can only use a few 
hand to hand weapons and some thrown weapons, though thrown weapons 
are awkward to use. Keep clicking until enemy falls down and 
doesn't get up. If you're lucky they don't hit you.

Monsters: Fairly boring mix. Shapeshifters that look just like you. 
Trolls. Zombies. Giant daemons. Only interesting thing about the 
monsters is that you can step on lizards and spiders.

Magic: Oh dear. The magic system is so unbelievably complex I 
won't try to describe it in too much detail. There are a number 
of different schools based on powers 'borrowed' from the 'Titans', 
the elemental spirits of Pagan. To borrow these powers you must 
perform a ritual to create a spell. All of which is time-consuming 
and not suited to casting spells in a combat situation, which is 
a pity since most of the spells are useless otherwise. They are 
also necessary!

The maps: In 6 and 7 the outside world is contained on one huge 
map. 8 is contained on a number of small maps. This limits free 
exploration, particularly around the outside world maps which are 
quite small and contain little of interest.

The puzzles: In addition to those oh so fucking annoying lever-door 
puzzles and teleporting puzzles Ultima 8 introduces the jump-onto-this-fucking-tiny-and-almost-impossible-to-judge-the-fucking-
position-of-so-save-your-game-and-try-50-times-until-you-get-on-it-only-
to-find-you-can't-go-anywhere-from-there-so-go-back-and-try-another-
fucking-tiny-platform-platform puzzle. Some of them move or sink, frogger-
like. Makes me enjoy standing there clicking on one lever after another, 
hoping I chance on the right combination.

Movement: You can run, jump, catch hold of platform edges (which can 
sometimes be diarreah-inducingly difficult) and creep about like a 
fag in a football club. Wow. That makes up for everything. Though it 
is fun to get a runup and see how far you can jump before plunging 
into the sea.

Details and novelties: A few books, nothing exciting like in 7. Humour 
pops up relatively rarely, and from what I saw the game had few hidden 
easter eggs. Maybe they were VERY well hidden... Though the population 
will talk of rain, none ever happens. There is no day or night, though 
this is intentional as the world has no sun. Neither is food or sleep 
required, it seems. The city at the beginning (the only city, it turns 
out) is unconvincing and lacks pretty much everything. It contains a 
castle, a handful of houses belonging to main characters, a library 
and that's it. It IS fun to try to steal something, though, and watch 
yourself get blown away... oh, no gold either. What's the point of 
adventuring without treasure? Really... though you can't actually buy 
anything.

To conclude, this game sux.

As an RPGer: Sux.

As an Ultima Fan: Sux.

As a time waster: Sux. It DID waste my time, though. Only thing 
worth 	doing is watching the beheading at the beginning over and 
over 	again, wishing it was me because I had nothing better to 
do. The head being eaten by the fish is quite funny, though.

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Addendum
(C) Phoenix June 2002
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