Ultima™ Underworld 1+2

Two important things to know about these games: 1. The audio settings are messed up by default in this download. You'll have to search how to set it to use Soundblaster audio. Trust me, you don't want to play it with the default settings, unless they happened to have recently fixed it. 2. Controls can be greatly improved (adding mouselook + a context sensitive "use" key) by searching for "John Glassmyer Ultima Hacks." You'll need to rename the .gog file to .iso and extract the game files, then use the patcher on the Ultima Hacks page on the executable. As for Ultima Underworld itself: the game holds up amazingly well for a game from 1992. It's very atmospheric with some great interactivity and player freedom. It's a major milestone in RPG history and I strongly recommend it to fans of immersive sims and first person RPGs/dungeon crawlers. So many games have been inspired by this one that it's hard to really understate its impact. The Elder Scrolls series, for example, started off as an imitation of Ultima Underworld and still contains a lot of elements of it. You can see bits and pieces of it in tons of games. It also has a lot of impressive tech, like physics on objects and fully 3D levels, before Doom even came out. Why am I not giving it a full 5 stars? It has a few flaws, mainly some backtracking and obtuse puzzles. You'll almost certainly consult a walkthrough at some point. Also, most of the "side quests" are actually required, even if they don't seem to be important at first glance. The game gives you the ability to attack or insult all NPCs, but you can ruin the main quest by doing so, so it's not really as open ended as it may seem (this is a problem that was inherited from Ultima and its focus on "virtuous" play). Overall though, an absolute classic. I don't like the 2nd game as much as the first, but it's nice if you want more after finishing the first one.

The Ultima Underworld games are part of a well known pantheon of games whose technology is now grossly outdated but whose game-play is still extraordinarily enjoyable to this day. At the time, UW1 went graphics and game engine went far beyond what anyone was used to and was quite literally years ahead of it's time. For those who have never played the games and are unsure whether they would enjoy I say give them a shot. While the interface and speed may seem a little slow and clunky by today's standards, give them a chance. Once you grow accustomed to them you will find a highly immersive forerunner to games we'd see years later! Enjoy them!

My favorites RPGs ever. Nowadays, we had the chance to get other jewels, The Witcher 1&2, Gothic 2 and more BUT these 2 Ultima Underworld are pure genius. Especially when you think about their release date. Being able to handle gravity, physics, true 3d objects when the other top 3d games of that period was Wolfenstein3d... I let you think about the level of immersion that Underworld could provide. Its stories, feeling friendship with gobelins, swim and hope to not drown, so priceless. When I'll finish my bucket of RPG, I'll be back to them, that's for sure!

There is a very short barrier of entry to enjoy these games (movement controls are unique but well designed, combat is a dice roll system so you wont always connect your hits), there are vast things to enjoy about these games. I played almost to the end of Ultima Underworld 1, but I couldn't complete the final boss because I didn't get all of the Talismen. If u wanna see the end credits, you need to get all the talismen. But no matter because I sunk like 30 hours into that game and enjoye every second of it. All the fun interactions with fantasy races, great vibes, awesome feeling of progression. Such fun and well written dialogue! The Stygian Abyss is a joy to explore, an entire world in it of itself. Full of communities and tons of wonderful intentional design, memorable alcoves and areas that I can recall a year after playing, and fun emergent interactions. I've started playing UU 2 and am enjoying it much the same. Its more UU afterall! Although I think i prefer the sprite work in UU 1. Its awesome to see how they expanded the game, there are a lot more kinds of interactions you can have. The game is seriously ahead of its time. Extremely polished. I think I enjoy the combat in these games better than I enjoy Morrowind's combat. Once I'm done sinking enough time into UU 2, hopefully beating it tho, I'm gonna move on to System Shock 1 & 2. Long Live the Immersive Sim!

I have very romantic feelings towards this game, since it was the first RPG which could portray the environment in true 3D. Before that I played Eye of the Beholder etc. UW was truly immersive. But besides the atmospheric aspect it also is a great RPG in its own respect. Rune magic, lots of things to discover, factions, consequences of own decisions, etc. I liked also UW1 more than UW2. Why? UW1 feels more consistent in it's setting, more simple yet complex enough. It is also not burdened by the Ultima universe. Also I like the more abstract comic like sprites in UW1 more than the trying to be more realistic ones in UW2. It simply matches better with the graphic capabilities of the engine which in my opinion still holds up well nowadays.