Category Archives: Sierra On-line

Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress, Atari ST

Oh my goodness… This Atari ST conversion of Ultima II, by Robert Eric Heitman, uses a mouse-driven GEM interface as an “enhancement” over the original, and this – in my opinion – has turned the game into kitty litter…

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Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress, PC

Originally released by Sierra On-line in 1983, the PC MS-DOS version of Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress is pretty much the same as the Apple II original – except for the graphics which are four-colour CGA and look pretty awful. Thankfully there’s a fan-made patch, by The Exodus Project, that upgrades the graphics and fixes a few bugs and that’s the version I’m showing here. Note that at the end of this sequence of screenshots I’ve also shown the CGA version of the game for comparison.

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Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress, Commodore 64

The 1983 Commodore 64 version of Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress is a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion. On the one hand it is a gigantic, innovative, involving, and highly challenging Role-Playing Game, and a worthy sequel to the first Ultima (which was a great game). And on the other hand it is a fiddly, visually insipid and annoyingly vague quest into who knows what kind of fantasy, time-travelling nonsense…

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Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress, Atari 8-bit

The Atari 8-bit conversion of Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress was developed and published by Sierra On-line in 1983, coming out not long after the original Apple II version.

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Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress, Apple II

Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress is the sequel to Ultima and is the second game in the Ultima series. It was first released in 1982 for the Apple II. The game was initially published by Sierra On-Line, but a dispute over royalties for the PC version led series creator Richard Garriott to start his own company, Origin Systems.

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Ultima, Atari 8-Bit

Released in 1983 by Sierra On-Line, Ultima on the Atari 8-bit is more archaic and frustrating than the original Apple II version. And it looks pretty awful too, with a real lack of colour – especially in towns where the game is in monochrome unless you play on a machine (and monitor) that supports “artifacting“. In artifacting mode the dungeon and town graphics look similar to Apple II graphics, but they don’t really take advantage of the Atari‘s superior graphics capabilities.

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Half-Life, PC

Half-Life is a classic first-person shooter (FPS) that is regarded as one of the best video games ever made. It was Valve‘s first game and was first published in 1998 by Sierra On-line. Half-Life came out at a time when the market was becoming saturated by FPSes, and it completely changed the way video games were made by developers – and were perceived by the general public.

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Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death, GameCube

The Nintendo GameCube version of Dredd vs. Death was published by Evolved Games in North America and Sierra in Europe in 2003. It was developed by Rebellion, the owner of the 2000AD brand.

Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death is a first-person shooter that at least tries to make good use of the Judge Dredd license, and to a large extent it succeeds quite well.

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Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death, PlayStation 2

Released in 2003 for PC, PlayStation 2, GameCube and XBox, Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death is a first-person shoot ’em up developed by Rebellion and based on the infamous 2000AD comic character of Judge Dredd. And – so far (at the time of writing) – it is really the only Judge Dredd game that does the source material any real justice (pun intended). The game is almost twenty years old now, but it’s still worth playing nowadays.

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Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death, PC

First released in 2003 by Sierra, Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death is a first-person shooter developed by Rebellion that is based on the famous British comic character who rose to prominence in 2000AD comic during the ’70s and ’80s. In fact: Dredd vs. Death is arguably the only decent Judge Dredd game that’s been made, to date.

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