Customer Reviews

Ultima Collection

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Created by Richard Garriott (AKA Lord British), this collection spans fifteen years of roleplaying history. If you want to know how games progressed during the past twenty years, get this compilation. If you want to play good games, get this compilation. If you're looking for a good roleplaying experience, get this compilation. If you're looking for the latest in gaming greatness -- don't get it. The last game in the compilation was published in 1994, if I recall correctly. Don't let that stop you from playing, though. If you have the stamina to go through all of the games, you'll be happy you did.

Going through these games is time-consuming and often frustrating. Unlike other computer role-playing games, all of these are completely open-ended. You aren't specifically directed from point A to point B to point C; instead, you must figure out on your own what to do. To me, that makes these games much more enjoyable, and much more rewarding; they require you to think. To others, it might not be so fun.

Why four stars, then? Well, if you're like most of us, and running a PC with Windows 95 or 98 installed on it, you're going to have trouble getting some of these games running. Some will be too fast; others won't work at all unless you pull some technical wizardry (or have someone else do it for you). These games are designed to run under DOS, which these days is about as common as the Dodo. So: for all of you having trouble getting these games to run, contact me. I can help.

I'll say it right out-- this package is a bargain and worth every cent just for Ultima VII alone. But more on that later-- first, a run-through of the games contained on this compilation:

Akalabeth (ultima prequel), U1, U2, U3 (Exodus):
Revolutionary in their time, but now you'll probably just want to check them out to see what games were like back then. The casual gamer will be turned-off immediately by the those horrid 3 color graphics, (which just happen to be the ugliest 3 colors you've ever laid your eyes on) and even only the most nostalgic of hardcore ultima fans will be able to play through them. But as i said, still worth a look.

U4, U5:
Slight improvement in graphics, and leaps & bounds in the story department. If you're a casual gamer-- these will be hard to get into, but you will be rewarded by an awesome story and true interaction. Ultima fans will of course have a great time with these.

U6:
Often bashed for its poor interface, (and sometime i'm inclined to agree), the game still contains a great story and for once, a musical score.

U7 (parts 1 and 2):
Now here's the gem: I personally think it's the -greatest- game of all time. of all the games i play, this is the only one i can keep replaying over and over. to tell the truth, i wasn't always into ultima or crpgs for that matter. I used to play final fantasy "rpgs" (really, they're actually horrid linear interactive anime movies that have no role-playing elements, boring fights, and cliched soap-opera stories), but then a friend let me borrow an old disk version of Ultima 7- the black gate, and i've been hooked ever since. Not only does this game contain a truly great story and has good graphics (they may be a little old but still hold up well), but contains a -completely- interactive game world. If you see it, you can use it or manipulate it in some way. Have long conversations with npcs, forge your own sword, explore dungeons, and even bake bread. Add some good music and an innovative point-and-click mouse-driven interface, and you have a masterpiece.

U8:
Casual gamers will find this game the easiest to get into; after all it contains psuedo-3d graphics and is the most modern one. Personally i thought u7 was better in terms of story and game world, although u8 had its high points. That and the action elements seemed a little out of place. However, not a bad rpg, but not a great one eithier.

Those are the games contained on the collection; now the pros and cons of the collection as whole:
PROS--
1) It's a great bargain
2) Contains an atlas with all original maps, a reference guide, and all the original manuals on the cd
3) has "Moslo" a program that slows down your cpu to make the games playable on modern pc's
4) The games (especially u7) are worth it
5) Has cool interviews with ultima's creator, richard garriott

CONS--
1) Missing some of the other great ultima games (worlds of ultima, ultima underworld)
2) Can be a little tough to get ultima 7 and 8 working in windows, (due to its odd dos-run memory manager). But, that problem can be easily solved by ... getting the ultima 7 and 8 windows patches.

Overall, it's a must-buy for ultima fans, and if you like rpgs, i reccomend this for not only ultima 7 but the other great rpgs contained within.

This collection is a mixed bag, but for the price it's a great deal. My impressions on the games herein:

Ultima VII - Worth the cost of admission. Even now it is the best game in the series. The plot and the graphics totally immerse you in the world of britannia. Although the graphics are a little dated it still doesn't look too bad today. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Ultima VII part 2 - This game could have been wonderful. However, there is an extremely violent and unnecessary plot twist near the end that pretty much killed my motivation for continuing to play. I thought the rest of the story was a bit thin as well. The game is also rather linear.

Ultima VIII - This game sucks, and the reason why has been adequately explained elsewhere. It does, however, have the best music featured in any Ultima, if you have a General MIDI-compatible sound card.

ULTIMA VI - I've just started playing this one. I prefer a point-and-click conversation system, rather than typing my words in, but i'm enjoying myself in any case, and the plot is very good. The world is very detailed, only superseded by Ultima VII.

Ultimas 0-5: The games I described previously I played when they came out (except VI). The rest of these depend on whether you're a fan or not; they are REALLY old, and somewhat simple by today's standards. But they represent some of the most important achievements in computer role-playing games. Have a look.

I had played ULTIMA II, III and V when I was younger. I loved them! I bought the collection so that I could work my way through all of the games. It has been wonderful! I had no trouble installing and running the software. Some of the games need the speed adjusted, but the instruction manual tells you exactly how to use the enclosed program MOSLO to get the speed just right. I had no problems after that. It has been nothing but enjoyable. Sure the games are old, so if you aren't into ULTIMA or old computer games you may not like the collection as much. But if you are nostalgic about computer games, then go for it - you won't be sorry!

I got hooked on the Ultima games since I was 12, starting with Ultima III and Ultima IV. Although I hadn't played the previous ones, I must say that the remake of Ultima I is definitely worth a look. Ultima II however, leaves much to be desired on graphics and sound (why not a remake?). Ultima III is an OK version, and Ultima IV is when the games began to get better. If you don't get too picky on the graphics and sounds, you'll enjoy both. As for Akalabeth (the precursor of the games), I think it was included more because of its historic value than for its game play.

Ultima V goes through major graphic and sound improvements, well worth the time to play and enjoy, as well as Ultima VI, which perhaps has the best storyline. But the real juice on this collection is with Ultima VII part I and II (Serpent Isle). These two games make this collection worth to buy; the storyline for both is amazing, plus you get the bonus add-ons for both (Forge of Virtue and Silver seed). Guaranteed to provide hours of game play, loss of sleep and numb fingers...

Unfortunately, Ultima VIII: Pagan was the big deception. Poor controls, an amateur-type 3D graphics engine and an archaic spell-casting system (will keep you mixing reagents for hours), left the fans disappointed. Too bad Richard Garriot (aka Lord British, the Ultima games producer) wasn't called for this one; the result may have been another. As a bottom line, I'll recommend this collection to true Ultima fans and to game players that want to get a good idea of how role-playing games evolved and have some fun in the process!

I first got in to Ultima thanks to my dad buying Ultima III: Exodus for a then-newly bought Atari 800XL back in 1985. Remembering this was the 1980s, I got hooked on the game rather quickly, and in 1986, I was able get Ultima IV for the same computer and found it even more challenging. After that, I wasn't able to get any more Ultimas, mainly bacause Ultima IV was the final Ultima made available on the Atari 8-bit, and I never was able to get the first two. Far more recently (in 2004)bought the Ultima Collection CD package and I am not one bit disappointed. It's nice they included a player reference card for all the games included, so you know the commands, how to read runes, answers to questions someone might ask you on Ultima VI, VII: The Black Gate and VII: Serpent Isle, and other important tips. My complaint is they forgot to mention the abilities (like strength, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, etc.) of the humans, fuzzies, elvies, dwarves, etc. on Ultima III like the original packaging did. They also included an Ultima atlas for all eight of the Ultimas, although Ultima II would be easiest to find things since it was set right here on Earth. There is one drawback, and that Ultima III and IV both lack music on this version (III had music for the Atari 8-bit, IV didn't, although music was featured on the Commodore C-64 version). Ultima III, if you were lucky to own the Atari 400/800/XL/XE or the Commodore 64, was the very first Ultima to introduce music, so it's a bit strange to not hear music when you play this PC collection. For those raised on PC games of the 1990s and 2000s, many will be turned off by the crude graphics. Ultima II and III particularly show their age (Ultima I included here is not the original from 1980, but the 1986 remake from Origin in which the graphics were updated to Ultima IV standards). But if you grown up in the 1980s, like myself, the graphics will come as no surprise. Ultima I and II don't take very long to win. In fact on Ultima II, it isn't even necessary to explore dungeons or towers to win, or even visit every planet (although it's nice to, because there are more towns and castles to explore, but there is one planet that is a must to visit in order to win). Dungeons on Ultima I, however, are crucial to winning the game, especially if a king from a certain castle tells you to kill a certain creature (like a liche, balron, gelatinous cube, etc.). Ultima III was the first to include a multi-player party system (up to four players), plus a maximum hit point system (where you need to go to a healer to heal), and a separate battle scene. Ultima IV featured better graphics because you don't get cyan and magenta vegetation and water, and this was the very first Ultima you don't kill an evil ruler (like Mondain, Minax, or Exodus) to win. Ultima V-VII continue to use the same Britannia, with each of the series becoming more realistic (V introducing the day and night cycle, for example, and VI and onward featuring more 16-bit Super NES style graphics). Ultima VIII had been the most reviled of the series, many named it "Super Avatar Brothers" because of needing to hop over platforms to go places. To me, the game isn't bad and the graphics are stunning, for 1994 standards. Ultima VIII was the first Ultima since II to feature only a single player. There are drawbacks to this collection. You must run any Ultima after VI through MS-DOS. Mo-Slo, which is luckily included, is needed for all the Ultimas except VIII, and depending on your system, even Mo-Slo won't work right, as it might end up being a bit choppy. Ultima II works best if you download a program to make it more Windows-friendly. Akalabeth, the 1979 precursor to Ultima is also included in this package. Luckily they made this program PC and Windows friendly, no need for Mo-Slo here. Basically Akalabeth is only a historical curiosity, there don't seem to be much here except go in dungeons and kill monsters, particularly the ones Lord British tells you to kill. Anyway, despite a few drawbacks, and if you're feeling a bit nostalgic for your childhood days of playing Ultima, or if you're an Ultima fan with a curiosity about the game's history, this is the collection to get.

Now, don't get me wrong, I've always been an AVID fan of the Ultima games. In fact, Ultima 8 is what got me into game programming myself. However, at $89.90 for a used copy of this, that's downright highway robbery. I got A FREE copy of it with Ultima 9, which costs $20!

At any rate, only fans of the ultima series are likely to jump on this one. If you enjoy Ultima Online, I'd strongly recommend you go back to the origins and see where Ultima sprung up from. My particular favorite was the last in the series, Ultima 8.

Keep in mind that some of these games are over 20 years old, so don't be expecting graphics at ALL in some cases. More interestingly is reading the documentation files that come with the CD to see how Lord British (the founder of the series) started with Akalabeth, a game that only incredibly vaguely resembles Ultima, selling copies of it at his college on 5 1/2" floppies in sandwich bags!

-Javin

Ultima 6 and 7 have to be the best games I have ever played. I remember nights where I would stay up all night crawling thru a dungeon in 7 with the hairs on the back of my neck standing up because the game was so thrilling to play. Sure the graphics of 6 are outdated, but anyone who has played thru it entirely knows the gameplay more than makes up for it. These games had a very strange atmosphere which made you wonder what would happen next. Another great thing about them is you can move/steal any object and kill ANYONE at any time which adds up to months more entertainment besides just the great story. Ultima 8 however was a horrible action type game made by EA and not the original director. But 6 and 7 are a fantastic deal at this price, especially for collector like myself. The only gripe I have is that Ultima7 was not redesigned for windows and you may have some problems getting the mouse/sound to work. It would have been easy for them to redesign it for Win98 and would have saved alot of people headaches. Still this is a fantastic piece of gaming history. BUY IT NOW!

If you look up Exult on the internet, you will find a platform designed specifically to run Ultima VII and Serpent Isle.

I just found at sourceforge.net a way to run Ultima VIII but I haven't tried it yet. Can't wait!

I LOVE these games. They really are in depth and entertaining. I spent forever playing Ultima VI on my old 386 computer, never finishing it!!! Now I can finish it on my new Dell. =)

Of the included games, the worthwhile one is Ultima VII; the others are too dated or broken, and Ultima 8 is just pointless. Thankfully, Ultima VII has now been ported to most major platforms, so you should be able to run it on any computer with minimal hassle. Maybe I'll try to play the older ones someday, but I'm in no rush.

This was certainly not true when it came out. Written for DOS, it required editing the autoexec.bat and config.sys by hand. Designed to run on a 386/33, the game engine included in the box will requires the included 'MoSlo' program, which only lets the game issue a command to the CPU one out of N cycles. However, the Exult game engine, an open-source Ultima 7 interpreter, is freely available. If you google for "exult ultima", it should be the first hit. It has much higher system requirements than the original (about 10x), but given that most people have computers 100x faster than in 1994, this is no problem. And it even runs in different systems, like Macs or handhelds.

This package is a bunch of shovelware. Ultima VII, even with its dated graphics and Midi sound, is still fun. This is certainly a niche product; it is only recommended for computer role playing games fans who are feeling nostalgic for the early 90's, back when Origin still created worlds.