Re: "8 Classic Games You Haven't Played (but should)"

On Thu, 30 Jan 2025 12:17:45 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 29/01/2025 14:17, Mike S. wrote:

On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 07:02:48 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:
 

Half-Life
GTA III VC
Master of Magic (arguably MoO instead, but I prefer MoM)
Fallout
Populous
Elite
Star-Control II
Ultima

 
I prefer MOO but I always felt that MOM was more popular so I think
your choice makes more sense.
 
As for Ultima, which one? The first one is too old and too weird for
classic status IMO. I would nominate either Ultima 4 or 7 myself.

>
What's so special about Ultima IV as I had it on the Atari ST, never got
into it but I do still have the original box although I've lost that
cloth map, and I also now have it on GoG as a freebie.
>
Is it actually worth playing now just to see what it's all about?

Oh man... that's really hard to answer. Especially as a fan of those
games!

First of all, if you ARE going to play it, grab the Ultima 4 Upgrade
Patch. It improves the graphics somewhat, adds some music, and adds a
few QOL features. http://www.moongates.com/u4/upgrade/Upgrade.htm

Ultima 4 was noteworthy mostly because it tried to break-away from the
usual murder-hobo dungeon-crawler structure that was the common theme
of pretty much every CRPG at the time. You weren't wandering the
world, scooping up loot and killing anything to move in the hopes of
leveling up just so you could kill the evil foozle at the end.
Instead, your goal was to become an 'avatar of virtue', which meant
playing a more nuanced hero. There was a lot more effort put into
world-design and setting, and a lot of progress in the adventure was
made through dialog rather than combat. This all sounds rather
ordinary today, but it really was quite revolutionary in 1985.

That said, the game is plagued by the technical limitations of its
era. There's only so much world-building you can do when you're
restricted to 720kb of data. Conversations are terse, characters are
fairly flat and there's only a limited amount of detail that can be
portrayed in the game itself (reading the manual is a must!). The
gameplay is also very repetitive. Visit 8 cities. Locate 8 runes.
Locate 8 mantras. Visit 8 shrines. Plunder 8 dungeons, each with 8
levels. The lack of an in-game journal means you're going to have to
take copious notes. The dungeons are annoyingly mazelike. The combat
is often tedious. It's limitations make it very hard for a modern
gamer to tolerate.

I don't want to totally hate on the game, because I think that there
is fun to be had still, but its not easy-going at times. Mostly, I
appreciate it for its historical value --for how it changed the
genre-- than for its actual gameplay.

"Ultima 5" is a little better. Its gameplay is still fairly repetitive
(although not quite as bad as "Ultima 4" but it has a slightly deeper
story and slightly more engaging quests. It's still something of a
slog, but it's more accessible. Although without a personal attachment
to the character and the world (which you really only get by enduring
"Ultima 4") I'm not sure U5 will have the same impact for a newcomer
as it did for people who played both games.

There's a fairly lengthy and comprehensive review of all the Ultima
games on YouTube

full playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIWyHd3FFFU&list=PL16yfJJxAM6g-4YxKGI-17q-K3nrXuVSd
Just Ultima 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIWyHd3FFFU

Admittedly, the reviewer is fairly long-winded (and, mind you, this
critique is coming from ME!) and they doesn't really tell long-term
Ultima fans anything they probably don't already know, but they gives
a good overview of why he feels the game is so notable and whether or
not its still worth playing.