Ultima The Ultima Underworld I & II Thread

[inwoker]

while Doom was just about running around and shooting at everything that moves.

You didn't play doom, do you?

 

[Mareus]

Doom was just about running around and shooting at everything that moves.

Nah, not really. It's a bit more than that. Doom is a game in which your environment is a puzzle. You often see places through windows that you can't reach and it leaves you wondering how you can reach them. It often happened that a place would open up briefly if you stood at a particular point and you had to rush right then and there to get in, and you would find a secret area. These areas contained powerful items, and even had optional exits to OTHER levels.

If you travelled through the sea of toxic chemicals, you often found some more useful places, under the consideration that you risk alot of damage to yourself. If there ever was a hazmat suit somewhere, it was best to grab it and go into those areas.

That was the appeal of the game: the hunt for resources to survive, and the exploration of those levels. The shooting was incidental to it.

Err.. ok.

PS. And yes I have played Doom and finished it, thank you. I just think what Wyrmlord described was a fancy way of saying running around and killing things. You could say exactly the same for any shooter. From all the Doom time shooters however I found Heretic much better than doom. But I still would say it was just about running around and killing stuff.

 

[Wyrmlord]

How does "running around and shooting" also include the whole aspect of secret areas?

And I don't know how you can say the exact same thing for any shooter. Modern shooters have shifted their attention away from secret areas in shooters.

Heretic? That's a rubbish game, IMO. Terrible level design among other things.

 

[Mareus]

Well, if that is what you do 99% of the time, I don't see how the few maze puzzles and secret areas improve the overall game, but hey... I won't try to prove you wrong.

As for Heretic, the game play was similar to Doom and since you mentioned secret areas and exploration, I decided to mention Heretic where you had much more of that. I finished that game too BTW, and I still remember you could fly, use magic to become more powerful and crazy stuff like that. There were more types of enemies and the whole setting was much more weird. But both of these games don't come even close to the originality and quality of UU, which is my only point I am trying to make, and don't forget UU is much older.

And no, I have never yet played a shooter where you didn't have secret areas. Name me one shooter that didn't have secret areas and I will believe you.

 

[Durwyn]

And no, I have never yet played a shooter where you didn't have secret areas. Name me one shooter that didn't have secret areas and I will believe you.

From top of my head - Timeshift... Beat it and i don't recall any secret or hidden areas. I'd find more shooters without it but im to lazy to think now...

 

[Squeek]

I became aware of Doom when I was attending a high-tech trade show in Las Vegas shortly after its release. The place was jam-packed with cutting-edge hardware and software and folks that were anxious to explain it all to you. But one booth had a line two blocks long trailing out from it. They had Doom loaded on a kick-ass server (to show off the hardware), and people were waiting for their turn to try it.

Doom caught on like wildfire. People couldn't stop playing it, so much that corporate networks across America slowed down significantly as a result of everyone playing it at work. No joke -- it was a real problem.

Ultima Underworld was the first RPG to truly take advantage of the first-person perspective, IMO. Then Wolfenstein carved out the new genre. But Doom took that to a whole new level of first-person-shooter goodness.

 

[Wyrmlord]

And no, I have never yet played a shooter where you didn't have secret areas. Name me one shooter that didn't have secret areas and I will believe you.

Bioshock. Far Cry. Call Of Duty games. Every railroaded shooter ever made.

But, either way, this is too much of a digression from our main point, which is that Ultima Underworld is an awesome game. I really like this game's combat system. Placing the mouse on different points of the screen while doing attacks does various forms of attacks. It's really simple, but deep.

Real-time combat systems can give a really hard time when there is a complex interface to work with, but Ultima Underworld's combat is slow enough to give you time to switch to combat mode and line up your attacks accordingly. Somehow, I have never really liked all those Dungeon Master style games because I find the real-time combat in them to be really annoying.

 

[Mareus]

I haven't played Timeshift, but I really don't think hidden areas and maze puzzles make a game all that deeper and better. I am well aware of the impact Doom had on the gaming industry, and no one is denying that, but saying the game is not about running around and shooting things just because you have hidden areas and maze puzzles that existed like forever is a bit silly. Quake also had hidden areas, Duke Nukem too, Heretic had hidden areas, Witchaven had hidden areas, so what? These games only make you run through a labyrinth and kill things, that is what the game is about, that is what you do 99% of the time. I mean, just imagine playing Doom with no enemies. YAY! What fun! The puzzles were all get the red key and use it on red doors.

If Doom was like that Montozuma Revenge first person game, I would understand the point, but as it is, for me Doom will always be remembered as the killing game. BTW Montozuma Revenge is like first person toomb raider.

And Bioshock had hidden areas, as far as I can remember. Haven't played much of the others.

 

[JarlFrank]

Ultima Underworld was awesome. It's the fucking first true 3d game ever, has a fucking great athmosphere, is an RPG and looks and feels more advanced than some early shooters. And it's a good example of dungeon crawling done right.

 

[Argosy]

From all the Doom time shooters however I found Heretic much better than doom. But I still would say it was just about running around and killing stuff.

Really? I thought Heretic was just a texture mod where they changed everything to a generic fantasy setting and made all the colors clash. Hexen, on the other hand, was excellent.

 

[Mareus]

From all the Doom time shooters however I found Heretic much better than doom. But I still would say it was just about running around and killing stuff.

Really? I thought Heretic was just a texture mod where they changed everything to a generic fantasy setting and made all the colors clash. Hexen, on the other hand, was excellent.

Yes, Hexen was much better, but it also came a lot later. If we are gonna compare shooters which came out before 1996, then I will mention Cybermage that kicks ass from Hexen, Heretic and Doom and all other shooters that came out till 1995.

 

[Lord Rocket]

Ultima Underworld was awesome. It's the fucking first true 3d game ever, ...

Interceptor, 1989. It had a bridge you could fly under, making it precisely as 3d as UW was.

Fuck's sake, people, let's stop overstating the technical achievements of UW. It's an amazing engine, but have a good close look at the environments sometime. The wall angles are either 45 or 90 degrees (one way, at least, in which Doom is superior), and the slopes are on either one or two gradients - probably one, but I'm willing to be charitable in this case.
It WASN'T true 3d. Bridges are, again, OBJECTS, not true parts of the map. Even a cursory examination reveals this. 2.5d in other words.

PS: Mareus, you suck. Heretic, better than Doom? Hexen, better than both? Oh Jesus, man, try PLAYING them again. Look at the level design, and above all, the amount of switch hunting you're obliged to do. Heretic is good fun, I admit, but only when you've played Doom so much you need something new to do.
Nice visual effects though.

and don't forget UU is much older.

By two years. At THE VERY MOST. More like 1 and a half.

 

[DaveO]

It's the little things that really make this game. The artwork is not static, with your interface having special little things if you watch. For example, if you jump one of the icons on your interface covers its head. You'll also see them laugh after dispatching foes. And let's not forget the fun of learning the basics of the Lizardmen language.

 

[RK47]

How do you actually raise STR in this game? I regretted starting as a mage, currently carrying so many quest items, I can barely afford to equip even full leather armor. And to make matters worse, going down deeper there's a level with magic draining shit, forcing me to upgrade my sword skills.

 

[someone else]

Strength cannot be raised. Encumberance in UW1 is 2Xstr. In UW2 it's (2Xstr +10). Strength is more important in UW1.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

To clarify further, the main 3 stats cannot be raised once you've generated your character.

The maximum value to any stat is 30.

Hint: The "randomly generated" stats during character generation aren't random. It's a sequence of numbers that is always repeated every time you create a character and then re-roll the stats.

 

[RK47]

Yeah I figured it out as much. Tried using char edit to increase it, but the damn save got corrupted. Restarted as a druid. Seems like they have the highest STR & INT. DEX is a dump stat.

 

[mountain hare]

Just started playing this today. Damn, it kicks ass. As always, Ultima restores my faith in gaming, even when the particular game in question is over 10 years old.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

Closer to twenty years old actually.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I'm pretty sure it was 1993, the same year as Ultima VII.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Gamefaqs says 1992. Btw, found something interesting.

 

[Burning Bridges]

http://www.stygianabyss.com/

Japanese Ultima Underworld - Dan - 3:40:53 PM EST

This is one news post I didn't expect to ever be making. Today (well, yesterday actually, details...) I learned that there was a Japanese version of Underworld 1 released for the original playstation years ago. TheOutrider was kind enough to provide some screenshots and information in this thread

# the framerate and resolution are very nice
# the controls aren't
# there's an FMV intro, high-quality music and some nice sound effects, including echoing footsteps in large rooms
# the enemies have been replaced with rather ugly polygon renditions

Other than that, the game itself seems to be exactly the same. Except for the fact that everything's in Japanese.

 

[Elzair]

I am not even going to comment on this one. I have already said my piece.

 

[MetalCraze]

Ultima Underworld - how a good game killed a whole genre in the end

 

[Suchy]

Nah, that was Diablo. Definitely not a good game though.