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.
Continue reading Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress, Apple II
This first game in Richard Garriott‘s Ultima series was initially released for the Apple II in 1981 by California Pacific Computer and was originally called just “Ultima“. It was later re-named as “Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness” when it was re-made and re-released by Origin Systems in 1986. This 1986 re-code features improved graphics and gameplay, with a number of significant changes made to bring the game up-to-date with market conditions in the mid 1980s, and that is the version I’m featuring here. If you want to see the original 1981 version (and an explanation of how to play the game), click here.
Continue reading Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, Apple II
The original 1981 Apple II version of Richard Garriott‘s Ultima was the first version of Ultima ever released. It was published by California Pacific Computer and is a stripped-down version of the more widespread re-release version put out by Origin Systems in 1986 (which can be seen here).
The Apple II conversion of Bruce Carver‘s classic Beach Head was coded by Bryan Brandenburg of Sculptured Software Inc. and first published by Access in 1985, two years after the originals were released.
Boulder Dash on the Apple II was coded by Pat Montelo and published by Micro Fun in 1984, and it is arguably one of the best games on the system.
Predictably the Apple II conversion of Bruce Lee isn’t that great. It’s nowhere near as bad as the awful BBC Micro version, but it does have its problems. It first came out in 1984 and was programmed by Rick Mirsky.
Before playing this game I’d read that the Apple II conversion of Atari‘s classic arcade game Gauntlet was a bit of a mess, but that didn’t quite prepare me for quite how bad it actually is…
The Apple II conversion of Bubble Bobble was developed by Novalogic (like the MS-DOS version), and it must be said that it’s not particularly authentic. In fact, it’s probably the worst version of Bubble Bobble available.
Ghostbusters on the Apple II was one of the early 1984 conversions of David Crane‘s Commodore 64 hit, and – in all honesty – it is somewhat lacking.
The Apple II conversion of Elite is arguably the slowest and ugliest of all the versions available. And that – I think – is me being charitable to it…
Ian Bell himself programmed this conversion of Elite in 1986, so its authenticity cannot be called into question and I shouldn’t really mock it.
The King of Grabs 