Proof that not every RPG wants you dead within the first five minutes of gameplay! ;) Today on Ancient DOS Games, Gemini's taking a look at Ultima Underworld, an action/RPG developed by Blue Sky Productions (whom later became Looking Glass Technologies) and published through Origin Systems in 1992. Given that this game was a precursor to System Shock and inspired the first two games of The Elder Scrolls franchise, it's kind of crazy having never played it until now. Curiously, it's just as playable (if not more-so) than the games which followed and is surprisingly forgiving when it comes to the level of difficulty, though it does have a number of quirks which take some getting used to. :P ------------------------------------------ Additional Information and Corrections: * Well, that was a short absence, as despite being delisted from GOG for a number of weeks Ultima Underworld 1 and 2 are back up for sale there! https://www.gog.com/game/ultima_underworld_1_2/?pp=91dfde1d6e005e422f64a59776234f1f4c80b5e4 * It may actually be axes which are slower and hit harder than maces even; the manual's not very clear on this. * Here's a link to the page on the PC Gaming Wiki where I found the brightness mod I used: https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Ultima_Underworld:_The_Stygian_Abyss#Video_settings * "Gem at the right side of the screen" ...OK, how in the world did I mess that up?? It's BLATANTLY OBVIOUS it's on the left side! XP * I even have it written as "Unity" in the script... how the heck did I end up saying "Unreal"?! Geeze, my script reading was not on point this time around... I blame the FOUR SEPARATE TRAINS that interrupted me during the process. :| * Took another look in the manual and it actually briefly describes finding more mantras deeper in the dungeons which allow you to focus on specific skills, so while that does make it easier to steer your progression the way you want to, it still ultimately makes the choice of character class at the start more of an early-game mechanic which doesn't affect the late game to any major degree. :B * Just by force of habit I keep referring to the game running a solid "60" frames per second, even though this is running a VGA 320x200 graphics mode... which runs at 70 frames per second, not 60. :P * For some curious reason, many of the full motion animations are jittering in the footage I captured. I wasn't having this problem prior to recording... weird... * I've been informed I was ALMOST right in my deduction of what was going on with the mouse cursor, except what the game is actually doing is DIVIDING the incoming mickeys by 2. Thus 1 becomes 0.5, but because it can only move the cursor in increments of full pixels, 0.5 gets truncated to 0. :P * This video BARELY skirted around being mature rated. I double-checked the footage and the reason it gets a pass is because there's a disconnect between the blood effects and the enemies, as in, you don't ever see living things bleeding or bloody, just red particle splotches to indicate hits and generic messy splotches to indicate dead things. ------------------------------------------ Pixelmusement Website: http://www.pixelships.com ADG on Pixelmusement: http://www.pixelships.com/adg Alphabetical Index of ADG Episodes: http://www.pixelships.com/adg/index2.html Kris' Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/kasick @Pixelmusement on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pixelmusement