Customer Reviews

Ultimate RPG Archives

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

These are indeed old games, and as such, they don't look anywhere near as good as newer games. However, there are a bunch of classics here that should be experienced by any fan of PC gaming. If you love getting immersed inside a virtual world, practically all these games will deliver the goods. And printed manuals? Almost unheard of these days! If you are a true fan and don't mind tweaking your system a bit to get them running, there are hundreds of hours of fun to be had with this massive collection.

First of all : You will go through pain playing these games on anything more sophisticated than Win98 and MS-DOS. And they are old... REALLY old. So don't expect anything fancy. Take the Bards' Tale for example : IMHO, the PC-version is uglier than the C64-version including sound. You are a hardcore fan and don't fear some torture to get what you want ? Fine, here you have it.
Remember, those are classics! I bought them and I don't regret it.

But the pricing is a bit out of proportion here. I bought the pack some years ago for something like $50.

Note: I don't actually have this compilation, but I do have a fair number of the games included in it. I'm basing my review on that.

Just read the review below this one; he says pretty much everything I was going to, with one exception: he doesn't mention Ultima Underworld. Both Underworld games are in this collection, which on their own are worth the price. Both games are part of the not-to-be-topped Ultima series, and feature perhaps the first true 3D environment in any game. Ever.

Don't expect support for hardware 3D acceleration or any of that jazz; these are older games, but still very much worth playing. I don't expect you to have any trouble getting these to work, but... if you do, contact me; I can help.

Remember the excitement of opening your Commodore 64 for the first time? And some of the games that it came with? Okay, so the games here are the PC version and--unfortunately--feature the lack of PC capability in displaying superb graphics compared to the 64 (hence the 4 stars), but the memories that come along with it are more than worth the difference.

Remember the dragon of Bard's Tale? The magical Fire Horn? The beserkers in the tower that were worth oodles of experience points that you kept going inside again and again to get the levels? It's all there.

So go back and cherish all the memories of some of the old RPG games...I doubt it will be there for you to appreciate much longer.

The biggest thing I look for in games I buy is the replay value. This set certainly has it, and you can get it used and get everything but the box in good condition for $45 less than the price of the new one. With the new one, the only difference is it comes in it's original retail box and you can save money by buying used.

This set is mainly aimed at us old-school RPG junkies who grew up on Ultima, Wasteland, Wizardry, Bard's Tale and other classic RPG's. The good used ones come with all the maps you want, and a large game book that has everything in it that the original game manual would have had. But new-school RPG junkies can enjoy these just the same.

Once again, a great buy.

I bought this collection merely for the inclusion of Wasteland (which, as far as I'm concerned, is the best PC game ever produced). Not only do you get Wasteland, but you get it's excellent contemporary, The Bard's Tale and it's sequels, and the almost-perfect Ultima Underworld I and II. If you are a fan of RPGs at all, buy this collection. You cannot go wrong.

Interplay has, for about fifteen years, been one of the most underrated gaming companies. This collection shows you why they should never be dismissed. Whether the early Wasteland, which brought a new standard to the avant-garde type of role-playing game which has since become popular, or the new style of graphic and game design put forth by Dragon Wars, or even the complex and interlocking included games in the Might and Magic series, these are spectacular games that should be played by all CRPG fans. More than worth nearly any price that could be paid for it.

I don't think I need to reiterate what has already been written about the games contained. I will say that the price is utterly ridiculous. I bought this collection for $20 at Best Buy when it first came out. The fact that Hitgaming is gouging people for over 10 times the original price is unconscionable.

Many years ago, in an era of twin-tape-deck boomboxes, VHS, and the immortal Atari 7800 game console, a friend and I shouted in victory as we finally defeated the cyborg armies at the finish of Interplay's Wasteland, finishing up new two years' worth of playtime (this was before cheat codes and walkthroughs and all- we played for over a year before even learning that a clue book existed). This ancient lord of all PC RPG's (which we played on a Commodore 64 hooked up to a 12 inch black and white TV) is, always has been, and always will be, the most fun I've ever had in a life-long career of playing video games. Sure, the epic battles between my stalwart team of Desert Rangers (all armed with Iom beamers, LAW rockets, and Flamethrowers) and the cyborgs, mutants and insane cultists of post WWIII Nevada were text-only, and the graphics were mostly little stick-like figures in only a handful of colors, but hey, it was still more fun than pretty much any game I've played on PS2 or on my PC. Some might scoff at the primitive technology of games like Wasteland or the Bard's Tale trilogy, and of course modern games are much prettier to look at and have capabilities that us Desert Rangers of 1988 could only read about in Sci-Fi novels, but...it's having fun the whole reason for playing in the first place.
I sort of stumbled upon this collection while poking around online, and I cannot wait to get my hands on it and dig in. While I haven't played all of the games here, Wasteland and the Bard's Tale trilogy still stand out as some of the best gaming experiences ever. Time to stop by Garth's Equipment Shoppe and pick up a new Crystal Sword...or maybe turn those machines back on over at Darwin Base and bring my cyborg pal VAX back to life...OK, yeah I'm a dork. I grew up in the 80's! This stuff used to be cool!

So far I've only played Wasteland. It's exactly as I remembered it. The DOS installation program failed, but it wasn't needed since the copy on the disk was the fully installed program, not the original setup files. The downside is that you can't choose options or restart the game with the same characters. However, you can restart the game if you put a fresh copy on a rewritable disk, load the game from another disk, then save it on the disk with all monsters / treasure in place.