From: Jeremy_Reimer@mindlink.bc.ca (Jeremy Reimer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.misc
Subject: Ultima 2 Review - more to come
Date: 31 Aug 92 07:48:16 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

                        TALES OF FORGOTTEN ULTIMAS

                              By Jeremy Reimer

                                 ULTIMA 2

PREFACE

This is the second document that I have written up about the early Ultima
games.  I thought it might be interesting for some people who wish to
read about these older classics without taking the time to play them
by themselves.  Me, I have as much time to waste as I want, although
I must admit that I tried to finish these as quickly as possible.  Sector
editors help a lot here.

ULTIMA ][: THE REVENGE OF THE ENCHANTRESS

This was the first Ultima game that Richard Garriot wrote entirely in
Apple ][ 6502 assembly language (note that even the method of spelling II
used in the game is a giveaway that this was an Apple game)  It is much
larger than Ultima 1, although the world maps are not much larger, there
are different worlds and ages of the world to visit.

Richard sold the game to Sierra On-Line to publish it, but the IBM version
I played was released under the Origin banner, so it must have been
delivered some time after Ultima III was released.  This was the first
Ultima game I ever heard about, back in my high school days when
everyone had Apple ]['s, and it was making a lot of noise in the then
infant gaming community.  Not surprisingly as it was fast, colourful
and had a much larger storyline than the first Ultima.

GAME SPECS

The IBM version used CGA graphics only, which took a bit of getting used
to.  Magenta oceans and cyan forests made me wonder why they didn't give
up on the IBM right then.  Good thing they didn't, as we would never
have seen Ultima VI or VII if that had been the case.

The key-disk copy protection mystified me for a while, as it choked out
with a mysterious Divide Overflow error.  I finally figured out that if
I switched the machine from 33Mhz to 16Mhz it would load properly.  After
that I could switch back to the higher speed.  At some points in the game,
like rocket landings, I had to switch back to slow things down enough to
see them!  The game ran fine under a hard disk and under Desqview, although
it still prompted for disk swaps, and you had to hit the ESC key to confirm,
even though all the files needed were there on the hard disk!  This
wasn't mentioned anywhere in the docs, I had to bash the keyboard for a
while to figure it out.  In any case, it got less annoying over time.

The game was full-screen for the graphic tiles with four lines of text at
the bottom, just like Ultima 1.  Tiles were 16x16 pixels everywhere.  The
various worlds were 128x64 tiles in size, and you could wrap around the
assumed spherical globes easily.

THE STORY

Ultima 1 was set on the planet (or lands) of Sosaria, with the simple
plot of defeating the evil wizard Mondain and freeing the land (although
you did travel back in time to do so).  In Ultima ][, things were really
skewed.  The docs mention Mondain's death causing "great upheaval"...
the understatement of the decade!  Ultima ][ is set on our loveable
planet Earth, and the main game map is a full map of all the continents
that we have all seen in schools and elsewhere.  Lord British, dedicated
to a united Sosaria in Ultima 1, is said to have united the people under
one rule, but no evidence of this is found.  His castle though is
located on the main island of Britain (the real one!) but the town by
that name is nowhere to be seen, instead we have Port Boniface.  The
really weird thing is the presence of time doors, with which you can
travel from the present (said to be 1990) to the time of Pangea (the
large supercontinent that existed millions of years ago), to some
unspecified time B.C., or to AD 2112, a year after a nuclear holocaust
has destroyed most of civilization!

What's going on here?  (Well, what's going on is a major plot
discontinuity, that's what!)  Nuclear holocaust?  1990?  Although it is
an Earth map, it's hard to believe it is 1990 when you still have
dungeons, demons and other D&D stuff floating around, and Lord British
sitting on his usual throne in Castle Britannia.  The docs say it is an
age of "reason over romance, dulling awareness of values and leading
weaker souls to lives of crime and software piracy."  Well, maybe.
Personally, it reminded me of the Campaign for Real Time in Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy-- the time doors allow passage to other times, and
so we find cities in BC and Pangea where none should be.  In the words
of the Camtim spokesperson: "The past is now truly like a foreign
country.  They do things exactly the same there."

Actually, post-holocaust things are somewhat different.  Central America
is gone, missing, the convenient walkway between Russia and Alaska has
been blown to bits along with much of Asia, and the only surviving city
(even Britain is a dead country) is Moscow.  It's quite cute entering
Moscow and seeing landmarks like "DA RED SKWARE" and "DA CCCP", not to
mention the lack of a king (DA KGB, consisting of about seven guards,
sits on the "throne".)  This somewhat wounded town is the only place to
steal a rocket, which you will need to travel to other planets.  The
docs say that you can travel to all the other planets in the solar
system (and land on them, obviously the Gas Giants have become rather
less gaseous) but I found that Mars was just Earth A.D., Mercury was the
blob of Pangea, Venus was Earth B.C. and Jupiter was Earth after the
Holocaust.  Uranus, Neptune and Pluto each had individual "maps" and an
interesting topography.  Planet "X", rather easily found, also had a
different map.

The object of the game is to find the evil enchantress Minax (former
apprentice and lover to Mondain of Ultima 1) and kill her.  Why?  Well,
the docs say so (Richard Garriot admits it is not until Ultima IV that a
real reason for completing one's quest that isn't just one written in
the docs would appear)  Apparently, she used the Time Gates to actually
cause the Holocaust, from her home in the time of "Legends"-- described
as being "beyond time".   Well, Legends is quite easy to find (and a
simple place-- an oval world with one castle inside a circle of
mountains) but in order to penetrate the castle safely (force fields
that do 1000 damage can ruin your whole day) you will need a ring, which
the seers tell you about for an inordinate cost.  The Man under A Tree
(literally) will give it to you, but only with Father Antos' Blessing,
and the Good Father happens to live on Planet X, like all Good Fathers
of course.  Well, you eventually enter the castle, kill Minax (she
teleports around the castle a bit, but eventually you can get her) and
the closing screen is you doing a victory loop in your rocket around
Earth, having saved it in all the different times.


GAME PLAY

No intro here save for a picture of a serpent's head, and an optional demo
of the game which was just a bunch of screenshots at various stages of
play.  When you start playing you start playing, although you have no
weapons or armour save your fists and skin.  The tile graphics are the
same as in Ultima 1, except that the cities use full-size tiles and a
scrolling view instead of the full-screen cities of Ultima 1.  Dungeons
are the same as in Ultima 1, wire-frame black and white walls and doors
(although some walls are have large squares that aren't doors, which
mystified me)  The monsters are not line drawings but are coloured
blown-up tiles.  There isn't much scaling, you get a distant blob, a
closer blob, and then the final close-up monster.  All the blobs look
alike, so you can't determine what's coming.  Still, this was unlike
anything seen before when it was first released.  Some monsters, like
the snake, actually do look impressive close-up, even if they are a bit
blocky.

There are dungeons and towers, which are really just upside-down
dungeons.  Cities look like the Mac "cloverleaf" key, and castles look
like a squarish wall, while wandering through the countryside.  There
are fewer monsters wandering around, mainly orcs, demons, balrons and
devils (demons with a trident) The interesting monsters all live in
dungeons.  The demons and devils can paralyze your arms and legs, and
the balrons can cast sleep spells on you, but certain items in your
inventory (such as boots and cloaks) can protect you from these spells.
You collect items in your inventory from monsters that you kill, but you
won't see any indication that you've received them until you check your
[Z]tats.

Range weapons appear to have lost their range, all weapons attack over
one tile only.  The ground types are the same, mountains, water, forest
and grass, but swamps have been added.  Instead of poisoning you they
sap your hit points, and there is no way to avoid this while walking
over the swamp.

For the first time you can commandeer pirate ships.  The pirates attack
you invisibly while on the ship, but sometimes they "split off" into a
second ship which you must destroy.  Weird, but at least you can then
own the other ship.

The dungeons and towers are few, and you won't find anything in there
except gold and experience points.  They seem to go up to 15 levels in
some cases, but you can play the whole game without ever needing to go
in one.  Even in Ultima 1 you *had* to venture forth to complete certain
quests.  Here, the dungeoneering is optional.  Also optional are the
other planets, save for planet X, and most of the other time zones,
especially Pangea, although some villagers will give you hints about
where to find the Old Man, and other things.  The hints aren't much more
than "Visit the Hotel California" or some such thing, and you have to
figure out that the above hotel is in the one AD North American city,
New San Antonio.

One annoying thing (although the docs do mention it) is that
occasionally you will run across a monster that just CAN'T be killed.
Not even with all stats 99 and the Phaser and Power Armour (the
strongest weapons and defence in the game)  This may originally have
been a bug that was just left in for effect.  The only good way around
them is the Negate time spell, which is cast not by magic but by rubbing
one of the "strange coins" that you find other monsters carrying
sometimes.

Space travel is toned down from the Star Wars battles in Ultima 1.  Here
you just procure a rocket to hyperjump (the cool effect remained though)
to other worlds.  Landing is difficult (especially at 33 MHz!)

KEYBOARD COMMANDS:

[A]ttack, [B]oard, [C]ast, [E]nter, [F]ire, [G]et, [H]yperspace,
[K]limb, [R]eady, [Q]uit and Save (still doesn't quit) [S]teal
[T]ransact, [U]nlock, [X]-it and [Z]tats are unchanged from Ultima 1,
although Klimb will only go up (two-way ladders in dungeons make their
first appearance) and [R]eady only readies a weapon.

[I]gnite torch (they tend to blow out in dungeons) [J]ump (futile),
[L]aunch/Land Rocket [D]escend ladder [W]ear Armour and [Y]ell (also futile)
are new commands in Ultima 2.

SPELLS

New in Ultima 2 are the distinction between Cleric and Wizard's spells.
Other classes can't use them.  All spells work only in dungeons.

Clerics: Passwall (destroys opposing wall) Surface (transport to surface)
         and Prayer (Help me Lord!)

Wizards: Magic Missile, Blink (random teleport within a dungeon level) and
         Kill (self-explanatory)

Both: Light (eliminates need for torch) and Ladder Down/Up (quick way to
      get in/out of dungeons and towers)

MISCELLANEOUS

Some items of humourous note:

-  The single city on the "planet" Uranus is called New Jester.  It is
   populated exclusively by Jesters, who surround you (some of them
   aren't even killable, which means you can get trapped) but do not
   attack.  One Jester who you think might be useful is at the end of a
   swamp that is marked "Dare the Swamp if you Dare"  Get to him, and
   he'll tell you "You lose, Cadet!"  Sure, because you can't get out
   of the swamp anymore (Desqview Close Window helps in these
   situations)  On an island in the city another Jester will say
   "Isn't this a silly place?"  Yeah, it is.

-  The "planet" Neptune also has a single city.  Enter it and you see a
   big sign: "Computer camp!"  Here you can actually meet Richard
   Garriott, who is sitting in one of the sleeping quarters with his
   friend "Howie the Pest" (who is translated rather unfavourably as
   an Orc!)  Howie says "When will Ultima II be finished?" and of course
   in character as always, Richard replies: "Tomorrow for sure!"

-  Warren Beatty can be found on Planet X asking "Where is Diane Keaton?"

-  The weapons shop in New San Antonio is called "Death 'n' Destroy"!

-  John and Gerry Mayer (who are these people?) stand next to each other
   in a town and say things like "We know software!"  What does this
   mean?


Some items of historical note:

-  Every NPC can be killed in this game, even Lord British and Richard
   Garriott.  Of course, if you exit the town and re-enter, they get
   magically resurrected.  LB was invincible in Ultima 1.

-  Iolo returns for his second consecutive Ultima, but he's a jester now
   and not a bard.  His wife, Gwenno, makes her first appearance.  They
   are both living in New San Antonio behind signs that say "Iolo" and
   "Gwenno", where they just dance around.  You can't talk to either of
   them.  Lovebirds....

-  Gwino the Jester is back in Lord British's castle.

-  No towns are recognizeable from other series at all.  Yew, Paws and
   Britain are nowhere.  Fits in with the weird setting change, but then
   why is Lord British there?  (Because he wrote the software??)  <grin>
   I recognized Baradin's though from Ultima 1, it is now a town and not
   a castle.  Shamino, king of a castle in Ultima 1, is nowhere to be
   seen.  Linda, a town in Ultima 1, is now where Rome should be.

-  "Viewing" was introduced as part of the game.  You need a magic helm
   and not a magic gem as in later Ultimas, but you can see the big map
   of either a world or a city, but not a dungeon.

OVERALL

Ultima ][ continues the Ultima tradition, being a bigger and better game
than Ultima 1, with a larger plotline, more worlds and things to see,
and better graphics (although my Ultima 1 was re-released in EGA, seeing
Ultima ][ released as such would be nice)  Despite the weird setting,
it was fun to play and always fun to dispatch old Minax in the end
(she's got quite a nasty tongue!)  Big feeling of success once I finished
it, especially as I had been at it for about a week (again using the sector
editor to help hit points along and avoid premature death), although I
didn't explore all the dungeons and towers (they all looked the same)
At the end of the game Richard Garriott says it all: "See you in Ultima III!"

        - Jeremy Reimer


--
Jeremy_Reimer@ |"Anti-ninjas were the most feared assassins in the world.
mindlink.bc.ca | Instead of appearing out of thin air, throwing metal stars
---------------| and messing around with bo staffs and numchuks they simply
aka THE JAGUAR!| shot people and then drove everyone mad with pointless
---------------| conspiracy theories for years afterwards."
Stealth Sig#42 |  --From "N-Man #3"