The Ravings of Demented Rabbits

This Time

Little worth repeating in real life, though if I play my cards right, that might change. But everybody's gone for the weekend, looks like. Oh well.

I beat Ultima 7, though. In remarkably little time, after a very lengthy haitus from it. It's rather surprising how much of it I remembered with perfect clarity, even with ten years' distance between now and the last time I had played. I remembered the invisible caltrops in the hidden pirate cave near Jelholm. I remembered where about half the magic armor was. Did the entire expansion in about 4 hours because I remembered how to do the whole thing. I had also totally forgotten how easy it is to munch yourself out in the game - even without magic weapons, once I got past the Forge of Virtue early on, I was unstoppable. Part of that has to do with my game knowledge, but still.

I was pondering a bit while playing, and the state of gaming has changed quite a lot in 10 years, too. The 256 color graphics at sub-640x480 resolutions that U7 helped pioneer faded out about 5 years later, to be replaced by things enormously better. But it still looks damn nice, considering. Gameplay-wise, U7 actually holds up very well. In that too, it is a pioneer - in terms of a non-linear plotline and large world, and a degree of interaction with the world that we take for granted in most games these days. Frex, U7 has more subplots, and a more complex storyline than any game that has come since except the Baldur's Gates and Morrowind. The amount of world to explore is comparable to both later games, and beats out a lot of others. There's reasons why it remains a much-played game even today, and why a lot of people sorely lament Origin's decline and fall.

The music, incidentally, is some of my favorite of all time, even as horrific as the quality of those oldschool 1992 midis is.

On another note, I was pondering how many memories I have wrapped up in this game. I remember when I was 12, I believe it was Father's Day or Dad's birthday, and Mom came in with this entirely black box. I dunno about Dad, but I was entirely blown away by the thing. Only reason I couldn't steal it away from him is because we usually played games together, then. I tried, though.

There are others, like having a snow day at school and staying indoors to rescue the Time Lord, or hauling a cannon around on my flying carpet to blow up pirates. The list goes on.

Flash forward a time, to the 1993 release of Ultima 7, Part 2: Serpent Isle. I don't believe I have anticipated a game as much since as I did SI. I had been making a list in my head while playing U7 of what would be cool features to have in a second game. And I'll be damned if they weren't all there. Actual paper doll models, YEARS before they became standard, and they looked SWEET for that period in time. No more rooting through bags for keys or food. Hell, the music's even better. I'm there. More wear locations. What more do you want?

Then I started playing, as I just now did, and now as then I was utterly blown away. It's even more REAL than U7, the plot and world even more exciting. I'm remembering once again why it's my favorite game of all time.

And on yet another note, I present some thoughts I presented to Suzanne tonight. The topic? Ultima 9.

Me: Hahahahahahahahahaha. Quoth Richard Garriot: "You can run Ultima IX on a Pentium 200."

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

*gasp*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

*gasping for air*

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Her: that's funny, even though i have n on idea what is so funny..

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Me: Yeah. I figured you wouldn't get that. But there's some bitter humor in there for me.

U9 came out back in 1999. I had a practically brand new at the time Pentium 500, with all the sparkling new accessories.

I couldn't run the game. It was slow, it crashed every, literally, 3 seconds. It is, to date, the only game I've ever heard of where the company had to send out brand new install CDs.

Horrible experience. Horrible. And everybody thought Ultima 8 sucked like that...

So, yeah. Reading a 1998 interview where the head guy's saying "Everyone and their dog can run our game!" is just hilarious.

This is, we note, the same company that has a reputation for needing top of the line computers to run their games. I mean, you look at an Origin game, and 3 years later everyone else is doing what they did. They're that far ahead of the curve. Or were, once.

Worst gaming experience I ever had. The remastered CDs helped, though. Only crashed once per 10-20 minutes. That's survivable.

Yes, I have a pretty unique take on what constitutes "survivable" in terms of game crashes. But then, I've played for years on a MUD that if it crashed once in an hour, that was doing good.

Posted by Dwip at October 18, 2003 1:19 AM