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

Mike S.  <Mike_S@nowhere.com> wrote:

I agree again. I like Ultima 5 more then 4  but I went with 4 because
of how damn unique it actually was and still is. I went with 7 as an
alternative due to its incredible 'living' world and I also think it
is just the best game in the mainline series.

I'm going to be contrarian here and recommend Ultima III as the one Ultima
game people should play to introduce them to the series.  Sure, Ultima
IV and V have a better story, but by modern standards the story elements
of the games are so thin, it's hard to see that except by comparision to
the earlier games.  I think the third game in the series shows off the
the basic mechanics and style of the the first five Ultima games, what
actually attracted people to play these games, without the distraction of
a "revolutionary" story that still only makes up a tiny part of the game.

On the other hand I see Ultima VI and VII as being dead-ends in terms of
their effect on game development.  Sure the whole baking bread thing of
Ultima VII was infuluential, as were other elements of the "living world"
you mention, but these thing were just background to the actual gameplay
and style of the game.  When later isometric RPGs came out, like Diablo,
Fallout and Baldur's Gate, they basically had to throw everything out
and start from scratch rather than build on what Ultima VII did.

--
 l/  //   Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
 db  //