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Addendum Issue 070
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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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