Take a No-Cost Trip to Ultima Worlds

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Take a No-Cost Trip to Ultima Worlds


GOG and Electronic Arts are giving away a pair of unlikely Ultima classics.

When you think of Ultima, if you think anything in particular at all, it's probably about classic swords-and-sorcery role-playing in the land of Britannia, where the Avatar does his thing to bring peace, order and good government to all the peoples of the land. What you probably don't think about are dinosaurs and Mars, and yet both of those things are very much a part of the Avatar's experience thanks to the power of the Moonstone, which Origin put to creative use in the early 90s to broaden the scope of the game while retaining the famous Ultima brand.

First up, in 1990, was Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams [http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Ultima-The-Savage-Empire/dp/B0007YYNF2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1340034495&sr=8-3&keywords=Savage+Empire], set in an alternate-universe 1893 in which many of history's greatest figures, including George Washington Carver, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie and Vladimir Lenin, are accidentally stranded on the surface of Mars and must be saved before the Earth's history is changed forever!

It was a cheap attempt to cash in on the fame of the Ultima brand, yes, and the Ultima Worlds spin-off series was killed not long after the third game began production. But they are decent games in their own right, and now you - yes, you - can take them for a spin yourself, because GOG and EA are giving them away. And in fine GOG fashion, the games come with a whole bunch of extra stuff too, like maps, cluebooks, design documents and even some classic videogame music.

And they're free! Did I mention that already? Either way, they are, so there's no reason not to check them out. GOG.com is where you want to go: Martian Dreams [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/worlds_of_ultima_the_savage_empire] there. You can tell 'em that Maly sent ya.


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oldtaku

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Jan 7, 2011
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Cheap cash in, yes, but as you said these are really good games if you can handle the now primitive UI.
 

AxelxGabriel

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Nov 13, 2009
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And with that, GoG has all the good Ultima games up for grabs.

Now lets just hope they keep their dignity and never put up 9 >.<
 

Baron_BJ

Tired. Cold. Bored.
Nov 13, 2009
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AxelxGabriel said:
And with that, GoG has all the good Ultima games up for grabs.

Now lets just hope they keep their dignity and never put up 9 >.<
Believe me, they're going to at least TRY to put 9 up for grabs. Remember, they also put Master of Orion 3 up for sale.

When it came out a note worthy amount of people said "I don't know why people are complaining, this game is great! Also I've never played any other Ultima at all" and even then there are a lot of people who will pick up the game just to see how it ends. There's going to be a market for it.

That said though I question whether they'll be able to actually get it running at a level that they would be willing to put their name behind. Dead end tech that even at the time, no one used and even if you did, it chugged like a ************ no matter how good your computer was and if it wasn't chugging that was because it had crashed. All this means that they've got one shitty job ahead of them; fixing code that at this point might be even more obscure than DOS.

I wonder what they'd throw in as goodies? I'm thinking they might want to throw in a version of the fan-made lore/dialogue patch that a player could toggle on and off but would always leave on.
 

Antari

Music Slave
Nov 4, 2009
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DVS BSTrD said:
Ultima, another reason why people hate EA.
Well not Ultima specifically, but Origin ... yes. There is much hate there. Origin will always be Origin Systems to me.