Ultima Underworld

[Zed5Duke]

When i played it first time i have problems with interface (much more prefer classic 90 degree rotation dungeons) Years later i found its not so bad, when spend some time. First its better use keyboard to movement instead of arrows, and rise CPU cycles in dosbox around 6000. Already i finished few levels from UU1 and i like it more with every hour spend on play. Everything is good: map, equipment, skill system, dungeons design, adventure parts (usual dungeons are just hack & slash, here is many dialogs with meet npc)

Its important to read manuals and clue books, full playability start when you understand interface. Download them from here: http://www.replacementdocs.com/news.php BTW here is probably every manuals from classic games!

Game download from Abandonware Paradise, or many other places.

Also visit this very good walkthrough: http://www.sircabirus.com/uw1walk/pages/index.html

This game is very, very original, (nothing similar exist) so when meet first time you may feel it too strange and dificulty, but later after play you may understand its genius.

[Bit]

Indeed, a very great one too. And - if I remember right, the very first real 3D at all - think it was even before Wolfenstein.
And yes, I needed a while too to like it.
In the end I got stuck - (I remember something like a crystal working as a teleporter to different areas) - and I am still not sure if because of a bug (some random?!) or simple ... dumbness

[Gambit37]

I'm going to be selling my copy of Ultima 1+2 on eBay soon if anyone is interested....

[Marco]

Ultima Underworld is definitely a classic. I too am not a fan of the fully 3D dungeons, so it's a testament to the quality of the game that I loved it so much. The dungeon was richly designed and atmospheric, with just the right mix of monsters, puzzles, interaction with non-hostile characters, plot, and customization of your own character. I loved delving deeper and deeper, finding the lost remnants of the different groups of inhabitants, all trying to eke out a living in the dungeon.

One major flaw was its bugginess. Many of the nastier ones (including an annoying inventory bug that would frequently force you to exit the game & restart) were later fixed. I never replayed it with a patched version, though, so I don't know how well the patches worked.

Another problem was that your character handled like a truck on the ice. You get used to it, though.

For some reason, Ultima Underworld 2 never gripped me as much as the first one. The gameplay was identical; maybe it was because they didn't really try to do anything new. #2 also came out right on the heels of #1, by which point I was getting tired of it.

[Trantor]

I never really liked Ultima Underworld, I didn't come to terms with the interface, and I didn't like the fighting system. It was an amazing technical achievement back in the day, that is for sure, but the game itself never captured me. Give me Ultima 4 over this any day!

[Sabreman]

I've been collecting and working my way (slowly) through a whole bunch of classic RPGs, and naturally the Ultimas are on the list. My only experience of them - aside from a bit of dabbling in DOSbox to see if they work - is with Ultima IV and VII. I never had a gaming PC when these things were first out, and I scanned over the magazine coverage with envy. Being a DM fan the notion of these free-roaming environments seemed almost unbelievably good.

It will be a while before I get to playing UUW, but I have bought a copy and I have had some exploratory sessions. Looks like it will be fun and immersive despite the somewhat clunky interface.

I'm going to be selling my copy of Ultima 1+2 on eBay soon if anyone is interested....

I do still need to get those. What versions are they? Basically I'm buying the old games for collection/preservation purposes as I play everything under emulation, so the platform isn't important. I just like to have the originals so I'm looking for the 'best' complete versions I can find in terms of stuff in the box.

As far as Ultima I goes I'm after this one:

http://www.ultimacollectors.info/u1_pc_1.htm

And Ultima II, this one:

http://www.ultimacollectors.info/u2_pc_1.htm

(or the pretty much same Apple II version):

http://www.ultimacollectors.info/u2_apple_1.htm

[Gambit37]

Sorry I meant Ultima Underworld 1 + 2.

I have a slightly battered boxed version of Ultima Underworld 1 (but all the contents are in good condition). Ultima Underworld 2 has no box -- just the disks and manuals.

[mikko]

I love both Underworld games. Nearly as much as System Shock.. I have completed both a couple of times, and I'll probably do it yet again some day.

They do have their quirks. Like the annoying frictionless ice in UUW2, and the effin void level. But I especially like the inventory system and the automap and and.. And then of course you can go fishing and even fly past some stupid pit puzzles..

They were really high tech back in the days. Not really 3D, but tile based maps with diagonal walls and sloped surfaces. In some ways more advanced than Doom, in others not so.. And their successor, System Shock, even had dynamic lighting effects. The 386 and even the 486 machines were screaming in agony..

[Marco]

The 386 and even the 486 machines were screaming in agony..

Oh definitely! I remember those days well -- the early to mid 90's. The games were pushing hard on that famous limitation imposed by His Shortsighted Highness, Mr. William "640K should be enough for anyone" Gates. I remember the contortions I had to perform with the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files -- load this into himem, use this mouse driver instead of this other one, allocate this much to expanded memory and this much to extended memory, and use this memory manager, etc, etc, etc. Just to get the darn program to even run. Then Windows 95 came along and "fixed" all that.

So anyway..... (steps out of the soapbox)

yeah, those were the good ol' days of RPG games. You Amiga and Mac and Atari ST folks just have no idea what you missed. Thanks for the nostalgia trip.

Marco.

[Gambit37]

I have every idea. I was Amiga and PC! Config.sys was fun

[Marco]

Wow... Okay, you're going to have to answer me this, then:

Why on earth would you have willingly chosen to use a PC over an Amiga when you had access to both? In this gaming era that we're talking about, virtually everything worth playing was coming out for both systems. Many of them only had third-rate ports to the PC (Bloodwych and Abandoned Places, for example), and many more were never even released on PC (Chaos Strikes Back, for example, just to keep it close to home). And then of course you had all the annoying problems of the PC that we've been bringing up. I was primarily an Apple IIGS and PC user back then, and pretty thoroughly jealous of the Amiga folks.

Admittedly, Ultima Underworld was exclusive for the PC, for it came out in the early-mid 90's (1993, I think?), when the Amiga was starting to reach the tail-end of its career. But at least in the late 80's to early 90's, I cannot think of a single game you would have rather played on a PC than on an Amiga.

Marco.

[linflas]

Why on earth would you have willingly chosen to use a PC over an Amiga when you had access to both?

Doom (obvious answer for a lot of people i think).

About Underworld (and Daggerfall and all that era of first 3D RPGs), i never played those because they were really slow on average PCs.
My first 3D RPG was Morrowind, and i had to buy a brand new graphic card and extra memory for that (and it was slow anyway so i never went further than the first village).

[Gambit37]

I cannot think of a single game you would have rather played on a PC than on an Amiga.

Ok, calm down. It's as Linflas says: I played a bunch of stuff on the Amiga and then when it died off, I switched to PC -- just as games like Doom started coming out. I didn't use both at the same time.

[Marco]

Ah, Doom. I forgot about that little itty bitty revolution of the computer gaming industry.

Marco.

[beowuuf]

Same as me, when I first played DM to to death it was on my amiga. By the time I came back to it, it was on the PC because i used a PC for stuff, instead of digging out my old gaming system

[Zed5Duke]

In times when best pc was 386, there was nothing better for games like amiga 500. But pc got upgrade structure and still become better, after pentium and games like doom, everyone changed computers.