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By Contributing Writer Rob Pecknold Rating: Awesome As the final chapter in the most beloved computer RPG series in history, there was a lot riding on the shoulders of Ultima 9: Ascension. Thankfully, Richard Garriot and the rest of the developers at Origin did not fail. This is one of the greatest RPGs ever. Ultima 9 is really two completely separate experiences. There's the pain and misery of the virtually unplayable game that you get out of the box, and there's the joy of the incredible game that's unlocked when you download a few patches. I've got a great computer system: a Pentium 3 running at 500MHz with 192MB of RAM and a TNT2 graphics accelerator (non-technical translation: it's really, really fast). My system can handle pretty much everything I throw at it with ease, including Quake 3: Arena and Unreal Tournament. However, because Ultima 9's Direct 3D drivers were so rushed, the game was almost unplayable before the first patch was released. Thankfully, the newest patch at ultima9.com fixes a lot of problems in the game, and enhances Direct 3D support to a playable level. Still, it's a shame that the game wasn't tested more before its release, especially considering that's in been in development for five years. It's also a shame that the absolute minimum you need to play this game is a Pentium 2 running at 266MHz with 64MB of RAM (plus 600MB of free hard drive space and an 8MB graphics accelerator). That puts a lot of people out of the running right off the bat. The thing that sets Ultima 9's story apart from other RPGs is the eight Ultima Virtues: Humility, Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, and Spirituality. There is a town in the world of Britannia representing each virtue. For example, Britain is the city of compassion, but as the result of the actions of the game's main enemy (the Guardian), the city is lacking in compassion. Everyone in the town is rude to each other, and they're actually carting off their sick people to a swamp outside of town. Naturally, you have to go in and restore order. Another thing that you have to worry about is your karma. You're fully capable of killing townspeople and doing other sinful things, but this gives you bad karma. Bad karma makes people mad at you, it makes you less powerful, and it generally makes the game much harder. The Virtues system and the karma system really helped to draw me into the world of Britannia. They make it seem like you really are the main character; you're not just moving him along a pre-determined set of events. Another thing that helps to give the player this feeling is the multitude of side quests in Ultima 9. There seem to be hundreds of them throughout the game. Most of them don't have a big effect on the main story line, but they make the game very non-linear and full of variety. Other than a few pixelated or blocky objects, everything in the world of Britannia is rendered beautifully and perfectly. It's the closest anyone has ever gotten to making a true virtual world. I've stopped to stare at scenery in Ultima 9 more times than I have in every other game I've played combined. Another awesome aspect of Ultima 9 is the sound. Every character, AND THE ROCK MEANS EVERY CHARACTER, has its own spoken dialogue. Even though there a quite a few repeats in the voices, that's understandable when you populate an entire world with talking characters. The game's music was done by a full-size orchestra, and it sounds incredible. There was obviously a lot of money put into the game's soundtrack and audio, and it was worth it. The game's combat system (or lack thereof) basically conists of nothing more than frantically clicking the left mouse button. It's no big deal, because the focus of the game is story and exploration, not combat. It's also no big deal that swimming is a pain in the butt to control. You don't have to swim often enough for it to be a major problem. Other than swimming, controlling your character is incredibly easy. The right mouse button moves you around, and all you have to do to change direction is move the mouse. You also control the camera system this way, which is a stroke of genius. You're always in control of the camera, which means that you can choose the best angle for whatever it is that you're doing at any given moment. This is one of the best camera systems found in any game released in the past year. The five years it took to develop this game were more than worth it. Those five years produced a game world that really seems to be living and breathing, as opposed to a game world that feels like a bunch of polygons. The Virtues system, graphics, sound, side quests, and karma system all combine to create one of the most amazing RPGs ever released. If your computer meets the minimum requirements mentioned above, you should definitely buy Ultima 9: Ascension. Send your thoughts on this review to rob@mastergamer.com
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