Ultima 3

Publisher: Origin Systems

Designer: Richard Garriott

Type: Roleplaying

Platform: Various

Release Date: 1983

Rating:

Once again, the Ultima series takes a slightly different turn. Well, first of all, the game has moved away from a single character to where you now have to create a party of characters so be able to solve the game. Also, combat moves into a specific combat screen where you fight against your opponents, which makes it somewhat better than the previous games where you would run around the world trying to escape all of the nasties. Also, one really interesting thing is that you can choose one of three genders, that being male, female, or other (though the choice doesn’t do much). Oh, and there happens to be this race called a Fuzzy, but I have no idea what it is supposed to be.

So, it looks like you haven’t quite finished your job yet because even though Mondain and Minax have both been killed, it seems as if they have left their computer, Exodus, running. Okay, this isn’t quite like the computer that you happen to be using to read this review, but other it is some sort of supercomputer with some hugely impressive AI component that is controlling a world full of nasty monsters. Anyway, your job is to turn it off, and if you think that it just involves pulling the plug, well, it is a little more difficult than that.

I did eventually manage to complete this game, but I can’t say that it was one of my favourites. I guess it is sort of that type of game that straddles the earlier releases, which are sort of a breakthrough, and the really outstanding games that are to come. Though, another interesting thing is seeing what they took, and what they happened to have left behind when they moved onto the next project. For instance, it seems as if creating a party yourself was eventually dropped in the next iteration.

Still, this was a fun game, even if it didn’t quite reach the accolades of some of the others. It was difficult, but not too difficult, but then again that seemed to be the case with a lot of these roleplaying games, where the early part is really hard, but once your characters reach a certain point, then things start to get a little easier. Still, it was fun when I played it, especially with the fact that the whole purpose of the game is to turn off a computer.

Anyway, you can find details about this game on Wikipedia (which shouldn’t surprise anybody), but there are also entries on this game on the Ultima fandom page, as well as on the c64 wiki page. Oh, and if you want a walkthrough, there is one on the Ultima codex.