Ultima.. what port is best of each release?

[Hatta]

 

 

Oh man, I love the Ultima Underworld games.

 

There's not a HUGE difference in game-play between Ultima Underworld 1 and Ultima Underworld II... but I would LOVE to see Underworld 1 with the UW2 engine. The graphics are ever so slightly improved...

 

I wonder if anyone has done any enhancements for UW2?

 

FWIW, the Arx Fatalis engine was recently open sourced. It's heavily inspired by UW. Wouldn't it be great to see a remake of UW on a modern 3d engine?

[Arkhan]

 

 

Oh man, I love the Ultima Underworld games.

 

There's not a HUGE difference in game-play between Ultima Underworld 1 and Ultima Underworld II... but I would LOVE to see Underworld 1 with the UW2 engine. The graphics are ever so slightly improved...

 

I wonder if anyone has done any enhancements for UW2?

 

FWIW, the Arx Fatalis engine was recently open sourced. It's heavily inspired by UW. Wouldn't it be great to see a remake of UW on a modern 3d engine?

 

as long as the people working on it aren't jackasses that will ruin the game and FPS the hell out of it.

 

[Griking]

Personally I preferred the Apple II graphics for the first 5 Ultima's over the enhanced graphics that other computers may have offered though I enjoyed the enhanced sound that the other computers had over the Apple II.

[+remowilliams]

I have a few cool Ultima books as well. One of them is the Official Book of Ultima 2nd edition by Shay Adams

 

Yeah it's a neat book, and one of those Compute books I have on my list to scan here.

[FastRobPlus]

There used to be a web page that compared all version of all Ultimas to one another, pointing out the differences. Does anybody know the URL?

 

I seem to remember that the Atari 8-bit version of Ultima III slightly won out over the other early versions, due to it playing slightly falster than the Commodore 64 version, but having better sound and music than the Apple II version.

[Goochman]

Ultima II and III are best on the Atari 8bit IMHO - I think it plays faster than the other versions and is true to the original from LB.

 

Ultima 4 would also win out if they had released a 64k version with all the music. Someone correct me, but I believe on the C64 version there are noticeable pauses as you walk the land when you cross a 'border' and the disk is accessed - is this correct? The Atari version is smooth like the Apple version.

 

Most websites trash or ignore the Atari 8bit versions which is a shame - they were for the most part released with the Apple versions and not treated to any special treatment like the C64 versions got with their re-releases.

[Christophero Sly]

*EDIT: NM

[FastRobPlus]

Ultima II and III are best on the Atari 8bit IMHO - I think it plays faster than the other versions and is true to the original from LB.

 

Ultima 4 would also win out if they had released a 64k version with all the music. Someone correct me, but I believe on the C64 version there are noticeable pauses as you walk the land when you cross a 'border' and the disk is accessed - is this correct? The Atari version is smooth like the Apple version.

 

Most websites trash or ignore the Atari 8bit versions which is a shame - they were for the most part released with the Apple versions and not treated to any special treatment like the C64 versions got with their re-releases.

 

Ultima IV plays smoother on the Atari, but I don't remember the specifics. I remember getting it on the 1200XL, loving it but hating the lack of music, hearing the C64 version's music, buying the C64 version, disliking the overall speed of that version, then giving up on the game altogether due to the slow motion feel of it.

[+remowilliams]

I have a few cool Ultima books as well. One of them is the Official Book of Ultima 2nd edition by Shay Adams

 

Added the scans today to my scribd stuff

 

 

The Official Book of Ultima

[Arkhan]

Was anyone an avid UO player ever?

[high voltage]

me, me, me, good times, slow internet connections (still payable by the hour), great fun

Edited February 10, 2011 by high voltage

[+remowilliams]

Was anyone an avid UO player ever?

 

I had a pretty mad UO addiction back in ye olde dial up days.

[Arkhan]

Yeah I liked walking into Britain on AOL and lagging out because the craptastic dialup couldn't cope with that many people. I did most of my Town related crap in Skara Brae because noone was there half the time.

 

I just quit a few months ago after playing since 1998. They killed it with that frigging Stygian Abyss crap. It was sposed to make it better, and it somehow managed to add suck.

[gdement]

I was a huge Ultima fan when I saw Ultima Online show up at Babbage's. But when I read the box, figured out that it was online multiplayer only, and figured out that I'd have to pay a monthly fee to play the game, I was appalled at that concept and put it back on the shelf. I've still never played it.

 

I think the SMS version of Ultima 4 is very interesting. I would really count it with the computer ports, because from what I've seen of the game, it's as close to the original as the other computer ports. It's not the typical "consolized" adaptation which purists sometimes object to.

 

The first RPG I ever played was Ultima 3 on the NES. When Dragon Warrior came out, Nintendo promoted it heavily and of course I wanted it (Ultima had hooked me on RPGs after all). But having played U3 previously, DW seemed kind of generic and uninspired to me. It felt like a cheap RPG somebody threw together to introduce (today I'd say market test) the genre. I enjoyed playing through it back then but wasn't interested to ever look at the sequels (probably should have).

 

A friend had the first Ultima Trilogy (I-III) which he played on his Apple IIGS. I remember that Ultima 3 would sometimes display a screen saying it had detected a Mockingboard and asking if he had one. Only happened rarely, weird that it happened at all though.

 

Mo'slo... am I the only one who found this program to be less than it's cracked up to be? Seems it's widely regarded as the solution to speed problems, but I wasn't that impressed with it. When I was struggling to play Ultima 7 on a Cyrix 6x86-133, I couldn't get it slow enough. The lowest setting I could use in mo'slo was something like 3% (I don't remember the exact number). At this setting, it had about a 50/50 chance of crashing the computer instead of running the game. If the game ran, it was still about twice as fast as I wanted it to run. The speed percentage you request from mo'slo isn't anywhere close to the slowdown it really gives you.

It's still a helpful program within limits, obviously better than nothing. But I can't imagine it being useful on anything from say a P2 onward. I don't think it's any failing of the programmer, it's just trying to perform an ugly kludge that has limitations. Origin gets the blame for making this kludge necessary. I've always been amazed that Origin went for so many years without bothering to control the speed of their games. It wasn't until Ultima 8 that they finally added some throttling.

[Goochman]

I was a huge Ultima fan when I saw Ultima Online show up at Babbage's. But when I read the box, figured out that it was online multiplayer only, and figured out that I'd have to pay a monthly fee to play the game, I was appalled at that concept and put it back on the shelf. I've still never played it.

 

I think the SMS version of Ultima 4 is very interesting. I would really count it with the computer ports, because from what I've seen of the game, it's as close to the original as the other computer ports. It's not the typical "consolized" adaptation which purists sometimes object to.

 

The first RPG I ever played was Ultima 3 on the NES. When Dragon Warrior came out, Nintendo promoted it heavily and of course I wanted it (Ultima had hooked me on RPGs after all). But having played U3 previously, DW seemed kind of generic and uninspired to me. It felt like a cheap RPG somebody threw together to introduce (today I'd say market test) the genre. I enjoyed playing through it back then but wasn't interested to ever look at the sequels (probably should have).

 

A friend had the first Ultima Trilogy (I-III) which he played on his Apple IIGS. I remember that Ultima 3 would sometimes display a screen saying it had detected a Mockingboard and asking if he had one. Only happened rarely, weird that it happened at all though.

 

Mo'slo... am I the only one who found this program to be less than it's cracked up to be? Seems it's widely regarded as the solution to speed problems, but I wasn't that impressed with it. When I was struggling to play Ultima 7 on a Cyrix 6x86-133, I couldn't get it slow enough. The lowest setting I could use in mo'slo was something like 3% (I don't remember the exact number). At this setting, it had about a 50/50 chance of crashing the computer instead of running the game. If the game ran, it was still about twice as fast as I wanted it to run. The speed percentage you request from mo'slo isn't anywhere close to the slowdown it really gives you.

It's still a helpful program within limits, obviously better than nothing. But I can't imagine it being useful on anything from say a P2 onward. I don't think it's any failing of the programmer, it's just trying to perform an ugly kludge that has limitations. Origin gets the blame for making this kludge necessary. I've always been amazed that Origin went for so many years without bothering to control the speed of their games. It wasn't until Ultima 8 that they finally added some throttling.

 

You run Moslo multipe times - it will continue to slow things down untilyou get it just right or way too slow

 

Thanks to some help above I am running through Ultima II on my Apple IIe - always wanted to beat that on the original platform. U2 is still alot of un in my eyes since you can really blast through it in a reasonable time. I might go through U3 as well - but U4 can really take weeks to get through properly.

[Tempest]

A friend had the first Ultima Trilogy (I-III) which he played on his Apple IIGS. I remember that Ultima 3 would sometimes display a screen saying it had detected a Mockingboard and asking if he had one. Only happened rarely, weird that it happened at all though.

Yeah the old Ultimas need to be patched if you want to use the Mockingboard on the IIgs. They get confused otherwise. They work just fine as is as long as you're not actually using a Mockingboard though.

 

Tempest

[Christophero Sly]

Thanks to some help above I am running through Ultima II on my Apple IIe - always wanted to beat that on the original platform. U2 is still alot of un in my eyes since you can really blast through it in a reasonable time. I might go through U3 as well - but U4 can really take weeks to get through properly.

I ran through UII last year. Had to do it on DosBox though. Let me tell you, CGA colors suck. I would've loved to have been able to play the original A2 version I played as a kid. I agree that UII is still a fun game, regardless of what the revisionists say. A bit of a grind, but still very fun.

 

I just finished a replay of U3 last month. Again, on the PC. I was surprised by how much grinding was required. You need an insane amount of gold and experience in that game, and both are very hard to come by, especially if you play with a sense of morality about your character.

[cimerians]

I have a few cool Ultima books as well. One of them is the Official Book of Ultima 2nd edition by Shay Adams

 

Added the scans today to my scribd stuff

 

 

The Official Book of Ultima

 

Remo you kick ass!!

 

I love that book.

[Hatta]

I would've loved to have been able to play the original A2 version I played as a kid.

 

You know, there are Apple II emulators available. You can even play it in your browser.

[Christophero Sly]

I would've loved to have been able to play the original A2 version I played as a kid.

 

You know, there are Apple II emulators available. You can even play it in your browser.

Yeah, I know. But I don't play games that I don't actually own.

[Hatta]

[Christophero Sly]

What is that even supposed to mean?

[gdement]

You run Moslo multipe times - it will continue to slow things down untilyou get it just right or way too slow

Hmm.. weird for that to work, since trying to slow down too much in a single instance will make it freeze. I had thought it was a limitation of the method he was using to slow the computer down. In that case, I guess I do have to blame the programmer for not making it scale itself better. No big deal though since there's a workaround.

 

 

A friend had the first Ultima Trilogy (I-III) which he played on his Apple IIGS. I remember that Ultima 3 would sometimes display a screen saying it had detected a Mockingboard and asking if he had one. Only happened rarely, weird that it happened at all though.

Yeah the old Ultimas need to be patched if you want to use the Mockingboard on the IIgs. They get confused otherwise. They work just fine as is as long as you're not actually using a Mockingboard though.

He didn't have a mockingboard (or if he did, nobody knew about it), so I guess the detection problem includes false positives as well as the false negatives?

[Arkhan]

The first RPG I ever played was Ultima 3 on the NES. When Dragon Warrior came out, Nintendo promoted it heavily and of course I wanted it (Ultima had hooked me on RPGs after all). But having played U3 previously, DW seemed kind of generic and uninspired to me. It felt like a cheap RPG somebody threw together to introduce (today I'd say market test) the genre. I enjoyed playing through it back then but wasn't interested to ever look at the sequels (probably should have).

 

Well, DQ was first released in 1986, so ... it kind of was a slapped together to test the concept out sort of deal. It actually came out before Ultima III for NES... in Japan at least.

 

 

America kind of always gets a skewed release time line.

[gdement]

Well, DQ was first released in 1986, so ... it kind of was a slapped together to test the concept out sort of deal. It actually came out before Ultima III for NES... in Japan at least.

 

 

America kind of always gets a skewed release time line.

I'm not sure I'd call it skewed in this case, since the original U3 is an older game than the original DQ. Makes sense that it's NES port would come out first here.

 

But yeah, exporting games from one market to another often does mess up the release schedule. Final Fantasy is a famous example, but something similar also happened to the Famicom ports of Wizardry. They have Wizardry 2 and 3 reversed.