Should I play Ultima IX?

You can play U9, but don't forget to install unoffcial 1,09 patch. It solves lots of the bugs of the game and make it pretty playable. Exploration is fun and dungeon design is good in the game and you meet interesting people and quests along the way. And also it's the first game that I know of that combine RPG gameplay with third person action camera even before Gothic 1 and Morrowind. One of the weakest points of Ultima 9 is the RPG leveling system, which is very shallow I think. More like Zelda games. After nearly 10 years, game's graphics are still charming to me with lots of unique landscapes and interesting places to visit.

Also I have heard from some diehard Ultima fans that comparing to older Ultima games there're some inconsistencies in the lore of the game. Anyway, I suggest you to try it and see for yourself.
 
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Some screenshots of the game, still looks good I think:

30248-ultima-ix-ascension-windows-screenshot-arrival-upon-the-strange.jpg


30247-ultima-ix-ascension-windows-screenshot-you-can-actually-see.jpg


17461-ultima-ix-ascension-windows-screenshot-the-book-of-ultimate.jpg
 
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Perhaps you choose well the snapshots but yes it looks good for me too, a lot more style than U7. But well I'll probably won't play it anyway, and for U7 until the fps are such a crap and it will be forever because it's just the game doesn't have much frames for movements so it's dead end for me.

For comparing DA2 to U8 it's forgetting quite fast that Bioware was already part of EA with DAO.

Also for me there's nothing that obvious on any side, ME2 is clearly dumbed down a lot when compared to ME1 but ME1 is an average game with too many weakness when ME2 is a rather unique game with an impressive amount of quality stuff and an overall design quality just close to best games.
 
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I'm hoping EA is GOG's mystery partner for the summer and they tweak the Ultima games to get them running well. Not sure if could deal with the older ones but I would buy Ultima VII in a heartbeat.
 
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JDR13 said:
...but never even tried U8, which most fans claim is pretty bad.
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An interesting FYI... U8 was the first ultima game with EAs involvement. Dragon Age 2 is the first Dragon Age game with EAs involvment. Interesting how the core fans of each series in two very different generations both experienced a 'lesser' experience once EA became involved. And also, since I brought it up, may Lands of Lore RIP (another EA tragedy).
 
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Ultima VIII: Pagan is indeed inferior as a rpg or Ultima game, but still I enjoyed it; the setting in twilight world, Tenebrae, cutscenes, memorable characters (Devon, Mythran and the titans) and last but not least the captivating background music. Nice puzzle adventure, but not recommended for Ultima experience.

u8execution.png
 
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I really liked Ultima 8 as well ;)

It was my first Ultima, in that I was too young for the first games - and I didn't have access to a working version of Ultima 5-6 on the Amiga.

I got my PC right around the time that U8 was released, and I considered it one of the best games at the time.

Looking back and comparing it with other games, most notably U7 - it definitely has issues. But I still think it's a pretty strong game if you don't mind a bit of hack/slash and you can get over that it's not a "pure" Ultima experience.

Naturally, compared with the world-simulation peak of U7 - it's just an action RPG with the Ultima name on it.
 
That game gave me cravings for mushrooms that I have even today. I didn't care for them much before U8, but afterwards I loved them.
 
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skavenhorde said:
That game gave me cravings for mushrooms that I have even today. I didn't care for them much before U8, but afterwards I loved them.
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LOL :D

Well I never thought that games can give you lust for certain food, unless you are using them for recreational purposes.

Anyways I always thought hat the mushrooms looked as ugle as they come. And were found from the most curious places. :p
ultima8_03.gif
 
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I remember very little of Ultima 8, despite completing it. I think it did something with the 4 elements of the world cliche and I do vaguely recall long caverns.
 
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The thing I remember most was the god damned floating platforms that went up and down and you had to jump to and dying many times. I gave the game (U8) the moniker Super Avatar Brothers because of this. I still shudder that EA tried to make an RPG into a platform jumper, but those were the sort of games that were popular at the time.

Eventually, they patched a number of things about the game (including those infernal platforms! They now just stayed in place instead of going up and down) and Richard Garriot himself had to put a note in with the patch basically apologizing for the game.
 
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Platforms that went up and down, jumps, instant death? That remind me something, ha yes DKS. Great RPG but it's better there isn't too many platforms like that, only a little bit isn't bad but I guess U8 abuse of it.
 
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Scrav said:
I remember very little of Ultima 8, despite completing it. I think it did something with the 4 elements of the world cliche and I do vaguely recall long caverns.
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I'm the same as you. I played U8 and completed it (I even bought a brand new sparkling Pentium 1 60mhz just to play U8) but I don't remember that much about it really - Ultimas 1 through 7, I remember all those very well. But U8 was very 'meh' in my opinion. Even U9 was much better than U8.
 
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Ergonpandilus said:
LOL :D

Well I never thought that games can give you lust for certain food, unless you are using them for recreational purposes.

Anyways I always thought hat the mushrooms looked as ugle as they come. And were found from the most curious places. :p
ultima8_03.gif
Click to expand...

LOL,

Maybe a few recreational ones once upon a time.

But those dang things were everywhere. Blue mushrooms, purple mushrooms, mushroom trees, mushroom…everything. I had mushrooms on the brain while I was playing that game.

Although your right about the tall ones. I just ignored them.

I did like the new reagents you had to use. At least that was something different from the usual black pearl, spider silk, etc...

I hardly remember that much about this game though though I did pass it somehow. I remember I needed to get off that dang island, titans and pentagrams all over the place. Oh and the water was bad news. I must have fallen in there a hundred times throughout that game. Especially at this one spot trying to jump from rock to rock to get some axe that ways lying on a rock in the middle of a underground lake. Took me awhile, but I jumped my way across and back again.
 
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redman5427 said:
How well does the game fare with Win7?
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I haven't tried to install it yet. I have an XP partition for when 64bit Win7 gives me a problem with an old game though.

I'm really eager for better virtual machine software, or even straight-up early Windows emulation. I would love to have something like DosBox for Windows 3.1 or 95 games.
 
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Virtual PC

I use that for my Win98 games that I can't get running. It doesn't come with the OS though. I still have my Win98 OS and just load that into it.

I heard some good things about Virtualbox I have never used it though so can't tell you much about it other than the homepage :)
 
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I know those things already exist but they don't do 3D games that well right now in my experience. They're probably getting better all the time though.
 
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For the limited era of 95/98 3D games - you're pretty screwed if they're not compatible with XP and beyond.

Mostly because that was right around the time when 3DFX was dominant in terms of 3D acceleration, and needed the Glide drivers. Beyond that, the early Direct3D stuff is probably not too easy to emulate through software - so VMWare and Virtual PC won't help much. Both solutions are primarily for application and server stuff, and definitely not gaming.

You'd probably need actual hardware for full compatibility.

Thankfully, not a lot of great Windows 3D games came out during that time.
 
It may not be for gaming, but it works. It is the only way I can get some of these things to run. If I can't get Wizards & Warriors running in my normal OS I can always just VPC.
 
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