From: Jeremy_Reimer@mindlink.bc.ca (Jeremy Reimer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.misc
Subject: Ultima 1 (yes, 1) Review...
Date: 23 Aug 92 08:07:50 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

                        TALES OF FORGOTTEN ULTIMAS

                              By Jeremy Reimer

                                 ULTIMA 1

PREFACE

Recently I purchased the first Ultima Trilogy in order to experience some
of the history of the world's greatest-selling computer fantasy role
playing game series, that has so recently triumphed with Ultima 7.

This series of documents, written up after I had completed each of the
first three Ultima games, is intended to let the reader in on a bit of
the history and evolution of this series.  Someone commented once on Usenet
that he didn't want to play Ultima 7 without having played all the previous
games in the series, and that he didn't have time to do this.  These
documents may aid those who also have this problem.

GAME SPECS

The Ultima 1 supplied in the Trilogy was a re-release of Richard Garriott's
(aka Lord British) original Ultima game that was written in Applesoft
Basic for the Apple II.  In the new, previously unreleased IBM version,
the graphics tiles were updated to use the EGA standard.  Most of the tiles
will look familiar to those who have played Ultima 4 or 5 on the IBM.
The main player character, the stalwart hero with sword and shield, was
exactly the same, as were familiar monsters such as the Dragon Turtle, and
enemy humanoids such as the evil Rangers, Necromancers (with the funny
exploding hair) and Warlocks.

Sound was limited to little blips whenever you moved or attacked.  This
would not change until Ultima III on the Apple, which had a soundtrack, and
Ultima 6, the first Ultima designed entirely on the IBM, which had an Adlib
soundtrack.

The dungeons, a part of the game Richard had already programmed in a similar
fashion in Akalabeth, were black and white vector drawings only.  Even the
monsters were scaled vectors, but reasonably well done nonetheless.  These
three-dimensional dungeons would remain until Ultima 6, when they were taken
out and replaced with the same tile graphics as in the rest of the world.
However, we eventually got Ultima Underworld, which made up for this loss
a thousandfold.  The dungeons in Ultima 1 were limited to 10 levels, but
were fascinating to explore nevertheless.  One object was coloured in the
dungeons, and that was the field barrier, which was depicted by a series of
red horizontal lines.  The walls were not filled in, which sometimes made
things confusing when you went into a small room, but the gameplay in the
dungeons was top-notch.  You could even shoot monsters far away from you if
you had a range weapon, the same as on the surface.  All the monsters looked
reasonably well drawn, for line-drawings, except the Carrion Creeper, which
looked like a stripped bush.

The main world was displayed in a full screen, except for four lines of
text on the bottom which were used to indicate commands and four vital
stats.  This is an artifact of the Apple ]['s high-res graphics/text mode,
but it was interesting to play an Ultima that used most of the screen BEFORE
Ultima VII! It does appear from the screenshots, however, that the new
version of Ultima 1 on the Apple used graphics for the full screen, since
lower-case text was visible.  However, the basic screen layout would remain
unchanged.

GAME PLAY

The world in Ultima 1 was the land of Sosaria, a smallish planet divided
up into four continents.  The map provided showed all of them, described in
the runic language that has been unchanged over all the Ultima games.
However, there was no runic translation provided in the documentation!
Breaking the code is pretty easy once you realize that the [I]nform and
Search key will tell you which continent you happen to be standing on;
the Lands of Lord British, the Lands of the Dark Unknown, the Lands of
Danger and Despair, or the Lands of the Feudal Lords.

The four continents are approximately 64x64 tiles in size.  The world is
assumed to be spherical, and so you wrap around to each continent as you
proceed in one direction.  Curiously, the provided map doesn't place the
four continents in the "right" positions, so you have to learn which ones
are to the "right" or "left" (East or West) of each other.

There are only four types of ground tiles: water, grass, forest, and
mountains.  There are two types of "cities", towns and castles.  When you
enter a town or castle, the image shifts to a new perspective.  In Ultima 1,
the entire town or castle interior is shown on the screen at one time, which
means the tiles get smaller (from 16x16 pixels to 8x8 pixels)  This makes
it hard to see what things are, although guards and jesters are pretty simple
to identify, I had trouble figuring out that the figure locked in the prison
was a princess and not a mage of some kind.  Big letters are used to identify
counters in the towns: Magic, Food, Pub, Weapons, and Armour being the most
common, although sometimes Inn is substituted for Pub.  There are only
four different types of cities and castles internally, otherwise they
look identical.  Stores in different continents sell different
equipment, though.

One of the neatest things in the game is the addition of space travel.
The pub managers give you tidbits of hints about this whenever you buy an
ale, the documentation mentions it also.  Curiously you actually BUY items
like a Star-Wars like Aircar and a Space Shuttle from some shops!  They are
expensive, however.  When you board the shuttle, you get a countdown, and
then you blast into space.  You can thrust and retro in four directions,
to try and dock with a space station floating above the Sosarian world.
You can then pick one of two types of ships that are sitting there.  One of
them bears minimal resemblance to a Klingon battlecruiser.  When you switch
to front view, you get a passing starfield like in Star Trek, and hitting
the Hyperjump key gives you a visual effect similar to the ones in Star
Wars.  Then you must battle ships that look exactly like Tie Fighters by
moving the cursor (no mouse or joystick support) and firing on the small
ships that drift into your field of view.  This simplistic addition actually
is more fun to play than it sounds.  You must destroy at least 20 ships to
become an "Ace" and becoming one is important if the Princess is going to
help you in your quest.  Richard Garriot and Chris Roberts obviously have
more in common than one might expect!

There is very little talking in this game.  The [T]ransact key enables you
to talk with Kings and merchants.  Kings of the eight castles will send you
on various quests.  Some are simple, like entering areas marked by huge
signposts, such as the Pillars of Wisdom, the Tower of Knowledge, the Grave
of Lost Souls, or the Southern Sign Post (ran out of ideas, I guess)  Other
quests usually involve killing monsters that only live in the lower three
levels of most dungeons.  Completing the king's quests give you extra strength
and other abilities, and also the gems you will need in order to operate
a time machine, which is needed in order to win the game.

PLOT

The plot is very simple, the evil Wizard Mondain has taken over the land,
his minions and followers run around everywhere wreaking havoc.  Mondain
wears the Gem of Immortality, which he created over 1000 years ago and
cannot be destroyed.  Your quest (found out only by buying ale at pubs and
listening to the bartender's advice) is to find a time machine to go back
1000 years and destroy the gem and Mondain while his powers were still weak.
Well, weak enough to kill him, anyway!  The aforementioned Princess will
inform you of the time machine providing you rescue her from any of the
castle's prisons.  The only way to do so is to kill the Jester, who
constantly talks about "having the key"  The problem is, he usually has the
key to the empty cell.  This is in stark contrast to Ultima IV where killing
any civilian makes you lose Avatarhood!  Here, in order to win, you must
kill the Jester to get the key, along with the rest of the guards who will
then attack you!  It is possible to wipe the castle free of guards, and
even kill all the kings, with the exception of Lord British who is
invulnerable.  The kings for some reason don't fight back.  However, everyone
in the city or castle is magically resurrected if you leave and re-enter.
I found it rather amusing, especially rescuing the princess, which
reminded me very much of that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where
John Cleese wipes out all the guards while coming both in and out of the
castle. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

The final confrontation with Mondain is pretty cool.  You must first destroy
his Gem of Immortality, still in the process of formation.  He throws all
kinds of weakening spells at you, as well as Magic Missiles and these flaming
bursts that appear in random places.  He's in white robes with a long staff
and a large hood.  Wear him down and he'll turn into a bat, requiring you
to chase after him to hunt him down for good.  You get a "THOU ART VICTORIOUS"
in a big blue box and a final screen of text for your accomplishment.
Basically at the end you sleep through the 1000 years you had travelled back
to defeat Mondain, and now Sosaria is a happy place, and Lord British
congratulates you.

SPELLS

There are only 9 spells in the game, all purchased in one-use-only scrolls
(but you can buy lots of them) in magic shops in the various towns.  They
are: Blink (move short distances in the dungeon) Create (create a wall
of force in a dungeon) Kill (self-explanatory) Ladder Up/Down (used in
dungeons to get away quickly) Magic Missile (standard D&D spell) Open
(magically open coffins in dungeons) and Unlock (open chests in dungeons)


CHARACTERS

You can choose to be Male or Female, and a Human, Elf, Dwarf or Bobbit
(like the Hobbit of Tolkien fame) but all characters work pretty much the
same.  The same is true for the various classes, fighter, cleric, wizard
and thief, they simply refer to various attributes and don't affect ability
in the game.  It is easy to increase attributes (visit the various
Sign Posts) anyway.

WEAPONS

The standard Hands, Dagger, Mace, Axe, Rope&Spikes (which didn't seem to do
anything), Sword, Great Sword, and the useful infinite supply of Bows and
Arrows.  Amulets, Wands and Staffs are supposed to help in spellcasting.
The Triangle is a spell-casting aid and weapon in one.  You can get Pistols
from the Castle storerooms, as well as Lightswords, Phasors (the docs call
them Phasers, so I guess there's no real copyright) and Blasters.  The range
weapons all have a range of three tiles.

KEYS

A- Attack, followed by direction key
B- Board horse, raft, frigate, aircar or shuttle.
C- Cast whatever spell is currently selected
D- Drop, items will be lost
E- Enter town/castle/signpost
F- Fire ships cannons or aircar's lasers
G- Get adjacent items
H- Hyperjump in space
I- Inform and search, tells you what dungeon name you are over, what city
   name, what castle name, what landmark name, or just continent name
K- Klimb up or down
N- Toggles noises on/off
O- Open, only works for coffins in dungeons
Q- Quit and save.  It doesn't actually quit, it only saves.  I ended up
   running the game under Desqview and just closing the window.
R- Ready spell/weapon/armour.
S- Steal item in castle or town
T- Transact (talk to King or merchant)
U- Unlock.  Opens dungeon chests or castle prison cells.
V- View change, while in space
X- eXit current transport
Z- Ztats.  Attributes, possessions and spells owned are shown.
[Spacebar] Pass.

MISCELLANEOUS

Some items of historical note:

- Iolo the Bard makes his first appearance.  He's in every town, and he
  always sing the same song, "Ho eyoh he hum!"  Maybe its a whole bunch
  of kids called Iolo, from which the later Iolo will take his name.  He
  steals from you if you get too close to him.

- Lord British is described at the end of the game as a "stately youth in
  violet robes"  I guess he was kind of young when he wrote this game,
  and young kings do have historical precedent.  Cool.

- The jester in each castle is named Gwino.

- Shamino makes his first appearance, as a King of one of the two Castles
  in the Lands of Danger and Despair!  He's come down from those early
  days.  I suspect the Shamino we see later may be King Shamino's son,
  or grandson, or something.

- The towns of Britain (located next to Castle Britannia), Yew and Paws are
  the only towns from the later games (Ultima IV through VII) that were
  recognizable, and they were all in the Lands of Lord British.  Other
  towns had weird names like Faun, Montor and Gerry.  Richard's
  imagination was just beginning to be put to use, and a lot of the
  names lack true creativity.  But hey, this is just the beginning...

OVERALL

This was a fun game, despite its simplicity.  Its true hallmark is the
fact that this was the first game of its kind, and despite the fact that
more advanced dungeon games (like Vampyr) are now available as shareware,
it was still fun to play.  It took me about four days to complete, although
to be honest I did use a sector editor to add hit points to my character
in the early stages, just to stay alive.  Otherwise you tend to see the
big white skull o' death a lot, and when you are resurrected you lose
all your cash. As cash is the only way to gain HP (you give it to kings)
this would have meant a lot of tedious building up of strength in the
early going, and I decided to simply avoid all that.  After all, as the
Man From Usenet said, we don't all have time to play all these games the
whole way through...

                - Jeremy Reimer



--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just when you thought|         ==> Jeremy_Reimer@mindlink.bc.ca <==
it was safe...       | That's SUNNY Vancouver, British Columbia, *CANADA*!!
---------------------+------------------------------------------------------
He's BACK! The Car,  | George: Blackadder!  What time is it!?
The Cat, The Lunatic,| Edmund: Thre