All I can say is WOW. The voice acting in the intro cutscene is the, no exaggeration, the worst I have ever heard in a game. I have a hard time believing that was actually included in (what I think at least) was a high profile release from a major developer. I want to believe it's some kind of parody, but there's no indication of that that I can see.

The game was released in 1992, when Wolfenstein 3D and Dune II were released. The voice actors were...the computer programmers/designers who made the game.

Back then, the production budgets for even the largest game companies were nothing like the budgets for today's games.

WHAT NEWS, CORWIN?

Baron Almric actually is Richard Garriott himself. He never was a good voice actor, but you can still find him in many of the later Ultima games. He was a fan, too.

Incredibly bad. Just look at the FM Towns version of Ultima 6.

It's comical how awful the voice acting was back then. But at the time, it was absolutely amazing until WC came out and they hired Mark Hamill, and I realized how awful all the voices in the games I loved really were.

I know Richard Garriott has always had a very high opinion of himself, but, holy crap, how could he listen to a playback of his performance here (or anywhere else for that matter) and be so self congratulatory that he didn't realize how ridiculously terrible a voice acting performance it is?

Not necessarily, I think Richard Garriott has always meant his characters and games to be tongue in cheek.
I mean just look at all the fake ole English dialogue mixed with american spelling.

John Van Caneghem ("Might and Magic" series mastermind) was also an oddball, he also loved his slice of cheese in his games, though he never voice acted to my knowledge.

"JUMPED AAHT THE WINDER OI'LL WAGER!"

not too bad.
better than modern movies in the Box office! that's correct. it is all in perspective to the period of archaic english from the middle ages. like saying old english is "bad" it isn't, it is just not fitting in the 21st century! and RG didn't take it so seriously to obsess with reality.

It is intentionally cheesy, like people overacting in a medieval/fantasy faire. Richard Garriott likes those. From that lens it is actually quite good as it evokes what it is supposed to.

A friend of mine liked the UU1 intro so much he memorized it in its entirety and we sometimes throw quotes from it to each other (well, mostly he does, i barely remember it :-P but i recognize the speech style).

That is glorious.

I bet one of the more frequent one is
"Whether you speak truth, or falsehood, I cannot say!"