Here it is, on GOG at last, one of the all-time classics of computer gaming. Seven Cities was created by MU.L.E.'s Dan(i) Bunten in 1984 and published by EA for several 8-bit platforms. It was a sensation upon release and is firmly established in the computer games pantheon. You can hit Wikipedia and MobyGames for the whole story. For now just buy it. This is as close to a no-brainer purchase as you're likely to find.
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."
I'm just going to come right out and say it: this is the best computer role-playing game ever. I grew up as a Mac/Apple ][gs kid sneering at PCs --- although with ever less hauteur as DOS/Intel machines became ever more capable. I knew a platform change was knocking on my door after seeing Wing Commander, but it was Ultima 7 that blew the door right off the hinges. I bought my first DOS/Intel PC clone just to play this game - a FastMicro 486DX @ 33 Mhz with a 211 MB HDD and Genoa VL-BUS video card. This was 1992. I paid $1999. Yes. I paid two thousand dollars to play Ultima 7. A bargain. :)
SC 2000 was the last hurrah of this great game series - subsequent "upgrades" being overloaded, gilded-lily monstrosities which turned the enchantment of the Sim City game model into a dreary chore. Kudos to GOG for scoring another gem. A must-buy.
