Lord British productions
The PC's answer for Zelda...
Ultima
The quests of the Avatar
In the dawn of videogames, there was a clever, talentful student, Richard Garriot, who earned the nickname, Lord British through his college years. He created a catchy little DOS game, which was later renamed to Ultima 0, thus beginning the ultimate Ultima saga, the videogame serie which showed us the battle of morality and immorality through the battles of the Traveller (later Avatar) in Britannia.
A quick summary of the story:
Sosaria was the land of cruel civil wars and immorality, but one Lord British arived from another world througha red moongate. This was the time, when Mondain, an evil wizard concentrated the powers of evil and tried to make Sosaria fall against the complete darkness... But Lord British called the Traveller, who defeated Mondain and later his student (and love), as well as their diabolical creation... Exoddus. After that, Lord British united Sosaria under the name of Britannia and called the Traveller to go on a quest of Avatarhood. Avatar then returned to Earth and thought he will never see Britannia again. Little he knew that his fate was already written... The Sahdowlords, whos were born at the reign of Mondain corrupted Lord Blackthorn while Lord British was away. The Avatar needed to return, banish Blackthorne and destroy the Shadowlords. At this time, the Gargoyles misread their prophecies and thought that they need to sacrifice the Avatar to avoid their own destruction. Avatar's friends saved him and eventually they together made peace between Gargoyles and Humans... Things were really quickened up when Avatar was dragged back to Britannia again just to face a series of murders and a fishy organization which eventually turned out to be the welcoming party for the... Guardian. The Guardian was the most perverted and corrupted disaster ever known, fortunately Avatar and his eight companions destroyed the way that would enable the Guardian to enter Britannia and then they destroyed the "plan B", too. The Guardian went furious and dragged Avatar into Pagan, the world of no virtues. Avatar barely escaped from this land and thought that his life will be simple from now on, but on a fateful day, he wakes up for a message of his friend, Hawkwind who tells Avatar that the Guardian actually entered Britannia! And what exciting things happened next? Go and play UltimaIX: Ascension!
These games involve time travel, fighting against mythical beasts and all kind of already known things besides a lot of uniqueness, like the virtue system: you can't loot any treasure chest you see, because your Honour an d Honesty lowers!
Let's see the games I played:
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
This the part when the Traveller collects the Virtue Runes, sanctifies the Virtue Shrines and eventually becomes the perfect (but still human) Avatar, wielder of all virtues. Yay! The game involves just a few colors and some stickmen, but provides great gaming experience and Richard Garriot uses the engine to it's extent. The searching of runes and shrines is awesome, but the best part is when you need to increase your virtues... For example, you can give blood to increase your Sacrifice, but not just by walking up to somebody and saying that you want to give blood... About "saying", you can type words in and if people has anything to say about it, they say it! "Name", "Job" and "Bye" are mandatory, but you can ask for "Rune", "Shrine" or even "Mantra". Plus, if you see a beggar you can say "Beggar" or if you are virtuous, "Give"!
Ultima VII: The Black Gate; Ultima VII-2 Serpent Isle
In this game, there is the Fellowship which looks like an organization of good will, but secretly they help the Guardian in approaching Britannia. Their leader, Batlin, is controlled by the Guardian and has a very funny speech style. His Fellowship speech is worldwide classic. Avatar destroys the Black Gate, only way for the Guardian to come to Britannia, and later he restores "Balance between Chaos and Order" at Serpent Isle. There is also a murder mistery plot line. The enemy behaviour is funny, sometimes you can no-damage a dragon, other times a pack of bandits pwn you to death. The transportation is very comfortable, you ca travel by ship, on horses or you can net yourself an amazing Flying carpet, as well as use some Virtue Stones for an unique way of teleporting. The game is loaded with secrets and full with sidequests. Your decide which companions to take and every one has different abilities. Near the end of the first part, it's mandatory to travel dungeons and net yourself three magical objects whiches can be used for very funny things... Far the most interesting thing is that the dungeons are GIGANTIC, but you only need to travel little part of them. For example Deceit. If you enter this dungeon at the "crater entrance", then you only need to go a few corners and you are at the boss. This also means that there are a lot of ways for tackling a dungeon. Then comes Serpent Isle with it's deep drama. Death and grave danger everywhere. Plus that wacky guard who thinks magic is useless.
Ultima VIII: Pagan
Avatar is dragged to Pagan, world of the Guardian. The people here don't know Avatar and can't be converted into the virtues. Avatar's goal is to escape from there. He needs to defeat the Titans of the Elements. Some breathholding events here. However, seems like there is too much emphasis on the story. Avatar don't have his companions with him and item interaction is not colourful. One great advantage is that area exploration is very exciting.
Ultima IX: Ascension
Oh, Le Grand Finale! The Avatar somehow finds his way to Britannia and teams up with another evil just to toy with the Avatar through the cities and dungeons... Gigantic Evil Columns corrupt the virtues, create whirlpools and such... Sadly, the companions of Avatar don't join him, but at least they are in the game... and play important role! Lots of big secrets get revealed. The enmies have very different behavior: the vultures circle around you and swipe donwn when you look away, the giant rats wait in the darkness then home in on you from the side, the goblins survey a certain area pretending they don't see you then SWAM, your skull is broken. The skelettons are the most fearful, I willfully avoid all possible places where they are. They hit big and come back to life fast, while they are VERY SCARY! The dungeons are astounding, every one is completely different. The first is a regular warm up, but the second is already very hard with unique traps (Poisonous spider!!!) and an optional extra part which is as big as the first one! Covetous is the scariest, since it's full of skelettons... Let's see if you can find all secrets in this unique mine! There are some very big secrets and it's very hard to find them. And how things turn out? Play the game, you will be glad you did! You may think it's an old game, but even nowadays computers have problems running it.
Ultima inspired a lot of other things, like my ZCing. I made just today a screen which resembles Skara Brae from Ultima VII and I plan a whole area which will resemble Skara Brae from Ultima IX.
There are also two games (Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld II) which I never played and don't know how they connect in the timeline. They evoke Avatar's adventures in the Abyss, so they must be around Ultima VI: The False Prophet, since it's the one that involves going into the Abyss. (Plus Ultima IX, of course.)
My virtue is the Honesty!
The virtues are: Compassion, Humility, Honesty, Justice, Sacrifice, Valour, Honour and Spirituality. They evolve from the three Main Virtues: Truth, Love, Bravery.
(techical info: this is my 999th post and this post was written in more than 45 minutes)
Edited by CastChaos, 16 June 2007 - 09:29 AM.