Richard Garriott‘s famous Role-Playing Game series began officially in 1981 with “Ultima” for the Apple II. It was a pioneering mixture of single-player adventuring, combat and levelling, with humble beginnings, starting out on early 8-bit systems and working its way up to modern PCs in the 1990s. The Ultima series was always evolving; always innovating, and constantly proving to be a considerable influence on story-based, single-player RPGs, and the fantasy adventure game market in general.
Tag Archives: Richard Garriott
Ultima IX: Ascension, PC
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.
Ultima VIII: Pagan, PC
Ultima VIII: Pagan is the eighth entry in the Ultima series and was developed and published by Origin Systems for PC MS-DOS in 1994. Like its predecessor (The Black Gate), Pagan goes for a darker, more mature tone than most of the previous Ultima games, and it is also more puzzle and action-oriented.
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 VI: The False Prophet, Super Nintendo
The 1993 Super Nintendo version of Ultima VI: The False Prophet was developed by Origin Systems and first published by FCI/Pony Canyon. It is a faithful and playable port of the classic RPG, but with a few changes made to adapt it to play on a gamepad.
Continue reading Ultima VI: The False Prophet, Super Nintendo
Ultima VI: The False Prophet, Atari ST
Ultima VI: The False Prophet on the Atari ST was converted by Abersoft and first published by Origin Systems in 1992. It requires a minimum of 2MB of RAM to run and will run slowly on a standard 8MHz machine. In fact: even on a 16MHz CPU it will still run much more slowly than the original PC version, but is just about acceptable in an emulator with a fast ST configured.
Ultima VI: The False Prophet, Amiga
The Amiga conversion of Ultima VI: The False Prophet was programmed by Abersoft and first published by Origin Systems in 1992.
Ultima VI: The False Prophet, Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 version of Ultima VI: The False Prophet was programmed by Axel Brown of Imagitec Design and published by Origin Systems in 1991 and is the only 8-bit port of the game available. It is a somewhat stunted version of Ultima VI, with a number of changes made to make it fit onto three double-side floppy disks (six sides in total).
The King of Grabs 