Drunken Irishman 
|
|
|
|
| Location: Estonia, Tallinn |
| | Favourite Ultima: Ultima 7 Serpent Isle |
|
|
|
Hello. I thought about doing this thread for awhile now, a thread about RPG history starring Ultima series as the hero. Basically, in this thread we take an Ultima game and compare it to other games that came out in that year. Since I'm the first poster I also have the privilege to start. So I choose the year 1992 - the year of Black Gate.
I'm not going to talk about U7 in a detailed manner cause I assume you've all played it and know what makes it great - big world, orientation on exploration and talking with npc's rather than on combat, npc schedules with every npc written into memorable individuals, world interactivity not seen in the genre until Oblivion, etc.
Might and Magic 4: The fourth entry in the Might and Magic series. What did it do differently than Ultima 7. Well, firstly, Might and Magic basically just improved on the old-school gameplay of the 80's. You won't judge the quality of writing in this game. But it proves that old-school gameplay is fun when it has certain userfriendliness to it - auto-map, journal (which U7 lacked), easy to use interface, groovy atmosphere (basically the world feels like one big mathematical equation) - make this game a fun way to pass time and kill monsters.
Darklands: Personally I think that this game has a lot of similarities to nowadays Elder Scrolls games - big open-ended world, ability to play after finishing the main quest, etc. It also is the first RPG game I know of that uses real-time with pause combat (later popularized by Baldur's Gate games).
The last entries of the Gold Box series: 92 saw the last entries of the Gold Box games - Dark Queen of Krynn, Buck Rogers: Matrix Cube and Treasures of Savage Frontier. The thing about Gold Box games is that they really didn't change anything gameplay wise from the first GB game (Pool of Radiance), and graphics and sound got only slightly improved so they definitely were behind times. The finest thing about Gold Box games is their well developed tactical turn-based combat system. They are also very plot-driven games, which makes me want to compare them to JRPG's - linear story-driven games oriented on combat.
Ultima Underworld: This game is dungeon crawling at it's finest. It took some time for the RPG genre to actually use fluid 3D movement (Lands of Lore still had the classic step by step movement to it). It also has really comfortable interface for it's time - in other dungeon crawlers you had to click on "step" to move and on "sword" to kill, while in this game it all depends on the way how you move and use your mouse. It also has branching dialog, the first one to use this feature in RPG's, according to my knowledge, was Eye of the Beholder II (1991), and fairly good writing. Looking Glass really managed to make that dungeon a living world with living people and did it without any form of npc schedules.
Wizardry 7: The last Wizardry game for quite some time (8th game out at the end of 2001). It's a very difficult dungeon crawler with lots of random combat. It also is not graphically or sound-wise as evolved as the Ultima games, or even Might and Magic. All the dungeons, towns, forests - basically all the screens look the same. It has step-by-step movement and npc interaction with typing. But it has a certain appealing atmosphere, thanks to it's narrator who starts talking about the meaning of life and existence in almost every screen. So the descriptions are really fun to read. It also tried to bring some life to it's world by making the events random - you are competing against other factions, and often when you think have found the artifact you've been looking for, it turns out that it's been taken and then you have to find out who took it, and sometimes that guy is already dead when you finally find him.
I think it's enough for introduction. Now you guys may take more games from 92 and compare it to U7 but I'd rather see different years at first (that is if anyone is willing to play along).
|
|
