Those of you who have undertaken to read the Bible in its entirety may be familiar with the fact that most Biblical “reading programs” do not recommend attempting a cover-to-cover read-through. Indeed, many such programs do not necessarily recommend beginning with the Book of Genesis! The Bible is a complex book, and reading its every word typically requires a fair bit of thinking ahead and preparation on the reader’s part.
I mention this here because a reader sent me a request over the weekend that is kind of an analog to the above. For some of us, Ultima is a game which predates us; perhaps we were born after the first one was released, or perhaps we did not come to be gamers until the series had achieved a level of maturity. This is certainly the case for me: the first three games I ever played, in order, were a Winnie the Pooh puzzle solver/RPG, Sierra’s Mixed-Up Mother Goose, and Ultima 6…all within the span of about 18 months. If I was 7 years old by the time U6 and I first met, I’d be surprised.
But it got me hooked, and I’ve played most of the other Ultima titles since that time. (U6 remains my favourite, though.)
The last Ultima game released a decade ago. Think about that for a moment. Even Ultima 9 represents a bygone era of gaming…or, perhaps, several eras; game-related technologies move ahead with truly alarming speed.
If someone wanted to get into the Ultima series today, where would they begin? Is it still best to start at the beginning, with Akalabeth, and from there to play through all the games in game-chronological order? Or is this not the right approach? Should a person instead begin somewhere in the middle, then move to earlier titles, and then play through the Guardian saga? And should one play through the originals? Or the remakes?
That is what reader Lance wondered in his email:
Between 2000 and 2003 I played a lot of Ultima Online on various free shards; before that I hadn’t played any Ultima Games. Since then I’ve put a couple hours into the following: U1, U7 (in Exult), U8 (in the other Exult-like project) and U9 (completely patched up and using the developer-released patch).
In each I lost interest: U7, U8 & U9, I was obsessed with going into every
house and stealing useless junk like candles, cutlery and bananas…which meant the locals would eventually get angry at me.
I’m thinking about starting with U1 again and working my way up to U9, but I’m not sure if I should play the remakes instead of the originals in
DOSBox, or maybe start with U9 and work my way down to U1.. or even put Ultima’s best foot forward and start from there and work my way to the worst in the series (maybe U7, then U8, U9, then U6 etc)?
To be honest, I’m not sure what sort of answer to give him, apart from recommending beginning with U6; that is the best starting point, as far as I’m concerned. From there, the order I suspect might work best would be: U4, U5, U8, U9, U1, U2, U3, the Underworld games (optional), Akalabeth (optional), and then U7 (both parts, in order). This balances higher quality against lower, modern against classic; to my mind, it should work for the average gamer.
But what do you all think? Recommendations can be left in the comments (please give explanations for your suggestions, as well).
Tags: Akalabeth, Book of Genesis, DOSBox, Exult, Mixed-Up Mother Goose, RPG, Sierra, the Bible, Ultima, Ultima 6, Ultima 9, Ultima Online, Winnie the Pooh
