Ultima Underworld - Matt Chat 461

Matt looks back at the groundbreaking Ultima Undworld: The Stygian Abyss:

Matt Chat 461: Ultima Underworld

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Watching that had me re-install it again yesterday!!

Ultima Underworld I & II
I loved those games. The graphics make me cry today. I don't think I could play it again.
Still remember Ort Grav for lightning and "IMY" for create food.

Originally Posted by Wisdom
Ultima Underworld I & II
I loved those games. The graphics make me cry today. I don't think I could play it again.
Still remember Ort Grav for lightning and "IMY" for create food.

It's not really the graphics for me… it's the control scheme. I installed this game last year and just really couldn't stand the controls.

UU2, one of first games I played on my first PC-386 (which I got after my Commodore Amiga period). I loved this game so much. But its not one of games I would still replay after the years. Reason is probably somewhere between controls, graphics and the fact its actually action RPG.

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
It's not really the graphics for me… it's the control scheme. I installed this game last year and just really couldn't stand the controls.

I used the mouse look patch to great success, made it more playable for me - I think it was this one :

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultima/comm…ch_for_ultima/

I read Ultima Cyberworld, so much CD Red BS is thrown on the main page everywhere.

Sigh, another great, classic duo of games that are practically begging me to re-play
them both. One day.

IMHO UU1 is better than UU2. Or at least, I found the first one more intriguing, more enthralling, more appealing!!

Oh, how I wish both games to be properly remade/remastered…

Originally Posted by henriquejr
IMHO UU1 is better than UU2. Or at least, I found the first one more intriguing, more enthralling, more appealing!!

Oh, how I wish both games to be properly remade/remastered…

Hmm… sometime in 2000's I played a remaster of one of them. It was an incomplete project and you pretty much could only play in the main castle. I don't think it was Unity…
Can't remember but I knew I was so excited to replay and then over time the project (like so many fan passion projects) died.

Edit : Upon further thinking it could have been using the Unreal engine too….

Originally Posted by Wisdom
Hmm… sometime in 2000's I played a remaster of one of them. It was an incomplete project and you pretty much could only play in the main castle. I don't think it was Unity…
Can't remember but I knew I was so excited to replay and then over time the project (like so many fan passion projects) died.

I never heard of such project

Originally Posted by fabrulana
I used the mouse look patch to great success, made it more playable for me - I think it was this one :

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultima/comm…ch_for_ultima/

This is great, I'll give this a shot…

I would agree that the story for the first game seemed superior to the second. Learning the game might have been a factor as well, but I do recall just having way more fun with the initial game. But both were well worth playing!

This is one of those games I really wish I had played back in the day. Unfortunately, it was released a few years before I transitioned to the PC as my primary gaming platform.

I tried getting into it a couple of times over the years, but it was just too dated for me. I'd love to see some kind of remaster or remake.

I started with Ultima Underworld 2, it was an amazing experience, a friend and I were glued to the monitor

Originally Posted by Wisdom
Hmm… sometime in 2000's I played a remaster of one of them. It was an incomplete project and you pretty much could only play in the main castle. I don't think it was Unity…

Originally Posted by JDR13
I tried getting into it a couple of times over the years, but it was just too dated for me. I'd love to see some kind of remaster or remake.

There was a project to port it to Unity, then it changed to Unreal, but it proved complex so they switched back to Unity. And finally the quality wasn't sufficient for VR, so another switch was attempted to the Unreal Engine. I think it has stopped at this point. The details are in the link.

Then there is this project, to export Underworld 1 & 2 to Unity, but I haven't tried There might be others.

UW1 is fully supported and can be completed from start to finish. Save games are both forward and backwardly compatable with the original dos version.
UW2 is partially supported with fuller support to come in time.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
Then there is this project, to export Underworld 1 & 2 to Unity, but I haven't tried There might be others.

I remember that now. I think I tried it some years back. Not sure if it was finished at the time.

Here's some gameplay if anyone is interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DZj…el=sirboboffat

Not big difference from the original imo, but it looks a little sharper.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I remember that now. I think I tried it some years back. Not sure if it was finished at the time.

Here's some gameplay if anyone is interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DZj…el=sirboboffat

Not big difference from the original imo, but it looks a little sharper.

Major difference seems to be size of view window. Which is quite significant improvement in these games I would say.

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
It's not really the graphics for me… it's the control scheme. I installed this game last year and just really couldn't stand the controls.

If the screen isn't too wide, I find the exploration controls overall quite good, knowing that it's not a context where rush means much, and you'd better take care of all details.

But for combats the controls are awful, I can play it a bit, but combats controls always stop me sooner or later in a play. I can't imagine how I could have endured that.

I suppose Doom amazing controls made UU controls unbearable. But for a detailed interactivity you couldn't do that with Doom controls. Still many years later System Shock 2 shown something quite descent for interaction level and with much better controls quite more influenced by Doom.