This game was included in several compilations: Ultima II was quite a success in 1982, and sold well enough that Richard Garriott could found his own company, Origin Systems, which in the future was the publisher for all the Ultima games developed. Ultima II was highly praised for its fast-paced gameplay, quality graphics, and realistic worlds.
APPLE II ULTIMA III MAPS PC
The versions of the Trilogy boxset for the PC and Commodore 64 contain the original, unaltered Ultima II for their respective platforms.)įor more information, see Computer Ports of Ultima II. (Only the Apple version received the update.
It was only released as part of the Ultima Trilogy I II III anthology of the first three games, and is extremely rare today.
APPLE II ULTIMA III MAPS UPGRADE
The FM-Towns release supported 32,768 colors (though it's unclear how many were used) and stereo sound, making it the most advanced of the many ports.Īlthough this game was never remade or updated for the PC platform, a little-known upgrade (similar to what was done for Ultima I) was made for the Apple II. Japanese computers NEC PC 88 supported a maximum of 8 colors, while the MSX-2 capable of 16 total both saw an Ultima II that looked and played far more like console games of the time.
Most ports relied solely on a keyboard interface however, the Macintosh and Atari ST both were heavily mouse and menu-driven. Fitting its display at the time, the Macintosh port was entirely in grayscale. Areas seen in "black" in 4-color versions were filled in with color on the Commodore 64's 16-color release, and with bright white on the 16-color Atari ST. The Apple II Series, DOS-PC, and Atari 8-bit releases were limited to 4 colors. Ultima II was released on platforms with a wide range of abilities.
The stand-in is a cropped version of the original cover for Akalabeth. Because Origin never acquired the rights to the original Ultima II cover art, a stand-in was used for subsequent anthology re-releases of the game. Afterwards, their former publisher refused to sell the rights back to Origin for many years, and never relinquished the original cover artwork. Īfter a number of difficulties dealing with Sierra, the Garriott family founded Origin Systems in their home state of Texas. Sierra On-Line, located in California, was chosen to publish Ultima II because they were the only company willing to spend the money needed to include the cloth map with every game Richard Garriott insisted on. With her death, the timeline returns to normal, with no one remembering the horrible events that occurred in the changed timeline - all except the Stranger. Gathering the only weapon that can kill Minax, the Quicksword Enilno, and wearing the protection of the Force Field Ring, the Stranger travels back to the Time of Legends and confronts Minax in her castle to kill her. The Stranger, having escaped from the changes in the timeline at the last moment, has to decipher the mystery of the Time Doors, which enable time travel, to reach Minax and prevent these horrible events from ever happening. Manipulating the timeline to this end, she let Earth die in an atomic holocaust in 2111 - all life on Earth perished in the Aftermath. Being the lover and apprentice of Mondain, she is quite angry over his death by the Stranger's hand, and swears revenge. The Player, again as the Stranger, doesn't have the task to save Sosaria, but instead Earth itself from the Enchantress Minax. Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. This mix of themes seems odd today, but wasn't that strange in the early 80s. The game as released is also quite buggy, and has many areas that are simply empty (some of the planets of the solar system have literally nothing on them). The game deals with several different time periods on Earth, has numerous pop-culture references, science-fiction elements, and travel throughout the Terran Solar System.
0 kommentar(er)
