Ultima IX: Ascension is the ninth and final instalment of the core Ultima series and was developed by Origin Systems and published for Windows-based PCs by Electronic Arts in 1999. It was the first Ultima game to use polygonal rendering in a full 3D environment.
Tag Archives: gold
Ultima VII: The Black Gate, Super Nintendo
The only version of Ultima VII: The Black Gate that is available for any system other than the PC is the Super Nintendo port, first released by FCI/Pony Canyon in 1994. It is a much simplified version of the game, but is still fun to play if you like old school RPGs.
Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle, PC
Serpent Isle is an oddity in the Ultima series in that it is a direct sequel to the previous game – Ultima VII: The Black Gate – which uses the same game engine, but with a few enhancements. It was published by Origin Systems in 1993 and only ever appeared on the PC, running under MS-DOS.
Ultima VII: The Black Gate, PC
Ultima VII: The Black Gate is the seventh game in the Ultima series and the first part of the “Age of Armageddon” trilogy, and was first released for PC MS-DOS by Origin Systems in 1992. The game is highly-rated among RPG fans and even series creator, Richard Garriott, describes Ultima VII as “the most masterfully-executed” of the Ultima series.
Ultima: Exodus, NES/Famicom
There is an NES/Famicom version of Ultima III: Exodus – called just “Ultima: Exodus” – that was developed by Newtopia Planning and first published by Pony Canyon in 1988. It has some major differences to the original, but essentially it’s the same game. The graphics are cuter but do suffer from some hideous tearing when a number of sprites are on the same horizontal line, which is a common technical fault on the NES.
Ultima III: Exodus, Atari ST
The 1986 Atari ST version of Ultima III: Exodus is pretty much identical to the Amiga version. In fact: it was ported by the same guy who made the Amiga version – “Banjo” Bob Hardy – so shares the same codebase. Since they’re almost identical I’d assume that the ST version was the primary target and the Amiga version was the port (since doing it the other way around would probably lead to features being dropped from the ST version as the machine had fewer custom chips). Ultima III was published by Origin Systems and is arguably the joint best version of the game available.
Ultima III: Exodus, Amiga
The Amiga version of Ultima III: Exodus was written by Bob Hardy and first published by Origin Systems in 1986. It’s actually a really good version of the game – maybe even the best – as it uses both mouse and keyboard controls to make playing the game faster and easier.
Ultima III: Exodus, PC
The original MS-DOS version of Ultima III: Exodus was first published by Origin Systems in 1985 and features four-colour CGA graphics. Thankfully – like there is for Ultima II – an enhancement patch exists, by The Exodus Project, that is well worth setting up if you want better graphics, music, new features and bug-fixes. That’s the version I’m showing here, plus I’ve also shown a few screenshots of the original CGA version at the end of this set, just for comparison.
Ultima III: Exodus, Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 version of Ultima III: Exodus was first published by Origin Systems in 1983 and came on three floppy disks. There is a fan-made ‘Gold’ version of the game available, that has compressed these down to a single floppy disk file, which saves a lot of disk-swapping, and that’s the version that’s probably worth finding, if you want to play this game on the C64.
Ultima III: Exodus, Atari 8-Bit
The Atari 8-bit version of Richard Garriott‘s Ultima III: Exodus was first published by Origin Systems in 1983. It again uses graphical artifacting (which the first two Ultima games did on the Atari), which results in it looking very similar to the Apple II original.
The King of Grabs 