Ultima™ 9: Ascension

the controlls are really disgusting, but It can be quite good game, on higher levels. (just see the screenshots)

I played all Ultimas and the decline started with part 8. Part 9 is like one of the 3D Kings Quests, a mild mannered adventure with some RPG elements. Its not bad, the atmosphere was glorious back when it was new mainly because of the graphics. If this Version is patched to a point where its playable than its an ok-good game. (unpatched the game produced some mind boggling errors, like important items flying 50 feet above ground etc),

I like this game! Ok, I can understand why so many people are disapointed. When it (finally) arrived it was painfully buggy, had a bad performance and it was nothing like the developer had promised years before. But it has it's own charme. I started my Ultima-career late with Ultima 8 and I loved it for what it was, because I didn't had this expectations longtime Ultima-veterans had. And it's the same with Ultima 9. It feels and plays alot like the first Gothic just from the opposite side of the morale scale and without the dirty talk. If you just take it as a big and rich world to explore with plenty of wonderous places and characters you will have a great time playing this game! It may be no great Ultima but is has it's own virtues and isn't Ultima all about discovering your own virtues?!

Ye gods... the abomination returneth. First, let me make it clear that what follows is no slight against the fine folks at GOG. They didn't design or code this game and it does make sense to have it here, for completion's sake if none other. Herewith a open letter/blog post of mine, from early 2004 when EA shuttered Origin Systems for good: "I owe Richard Garriott & Origin much thanks for many, many hours of wonderful gaming and adventure. They was responsible for what many people (including me) consider the best computer rpgs ever made: Ultima 4 & 7. And I do wish them well - along with the other folks who got the boot. However, I cannot excuse them for the Ultima 9 debacle - especially Mr. Garriott. He personified Ultima, for better or worse, and the buck stops with him. In the state it was released, Ultima 9 not only did not work - it could not work. The listed system requirements were simply fiction; U9 ran like a slideshow on state-of-the-art gaming PCs. My own computer well exceeded the "minimum specs" to run the game and it was unplayable until I installed a new 3dFX video card. On the programming side, U9 was buggier than a termite mound. We're not talking subtle, arcane glitches here but rather what coders call "showstoppers." Lock-ups, desktop dumps, graphics corruption, destroyed save files, memory leaks and scripting errors which made the game unfinishable if players visited location X before location Y or Z. Remember the initial release of Sierra's Outpost? Ultima 9 was even worse. Don't play it without installing every available patch, or you will be sorry. I'm not even going to tackle the non-technical, narrative and story content issues of the game: plot, characters, voice acting, etc. I could go on for pages about that. The original release state of U9 was nothing less then an outright shafting of the very people whose loyalty and customer patronage made Origin famous and successful. I suspect that the 'suits' at EA pushed it out the door far too early so as not to miss the 2000 Christmas season. However, this was Richard "Lord British" Garriott we're talking about; not some low-level company flunky. Also recall that, whatever his most recent corporate duties, Garriott is himself an ace programmer and game designer; this man knows a broken game when he sees one. I find it hard to believe that Garriott did not know what was going on with Ascension. And because he was "Mr. Ultima," the final blame is his. If Garriot had absolutely put his foot down and said, "This game is a mess. It's not ready. I'm not going to pay my fans back for twenty years of support with this," would anyone at EA have dared to overrule him? Instead he publicly defended it, including comments about the game's release build being "well tested and debugged" which defy understanding. (As Jeff Green asked in his CGW column, "Lord British, do you even play your own games anymore?") And then... silence. As U9 was slammed in review after review and store returns piled up, Garriott seemed to drop off the face of the Earth... leaving others to defend the company line on the U9 Discussion Forum webpage. Now that he's free of EA, I hope Garriott is able to talk about what happened. I would like to hear his story, and I know I'm not alone. It would be no exaggeration to say that I grew up with Ultima, beginning in 1980 with my father driving me to a local software shop (remember those?) on my 13th birthday to purchase Akalabeth - then published by some unknown outfit called California Pacific. Twenty years is a pretty good run, all told. I just wish it hadn't ended by running off a cliff."

This game has problems but it is far from as bad as people claim. The game has some of the best designed dungeons of any games since its release. Also, maybe I'm riding the crazy train here, but I think I enjoyed Ultima 9 more than I enjoyed Ultima 8.