Ultima IX Ascension

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what do you guys think about U9?
i like it very much, the graphics and the music is great and i love being able to walk around britannia in 3d

 

I read some reviews and the critics pretty much tore it to pieces - plus the demo was bugged to hell so i never had the inscentive to buy the full version, despite being a big Ultima addict.

 

Well, the graphics are nice, but I wish they had finished the game before they released it

 

I've never bought it. I enjoyed all ultimas before, but ascension's bugs were something everyone talked about so I skipped the game.

Was the "bugs story" overblown I can't say. But I do know one person who could tell if the "disaster thing" was true.

Tal, will you please share your experience with Ascension bugs with us?

 

I'm sure I've seen and posted about ths game somewhere round here before, but last week I actually managed to find a bug in the game, first for a loing time, and probably not a bug, just a problem running in XP with the sound on occasion.

From personal experience it is a fantastic looking game, and capable of running pretty well despite just scraping minimum spec. Occasional slowdown, but nothing major and on a K6-266 that is to be expected. And certainly not enough to render it unlayable.

The only real problem was the game itself. Given it's the conclusion to a two decade old classic series it falls well short of standards expected. Weak storyline, which tends to be very linear, side quests practically non-existant, little long term difference between classes, and early on half seem pointless.

Worth a look if you can borrow a copy, or pick it up dirt cheap. At the time I paid full price for it and bought abudget game at the same time. Initial impressions (no serious bugs in particular) led me to favour this. How wrong I turned out to be. Thief Gold is a classic.

 

I actually know someone who completed it.
He's got a Pentium3 800mhz, with a GeForce 32mb DDR. He had the final version of the game as far as I can remember.
He was even able to demonstrate a few of the bugs, as he suddenly started swimming through the bottom of one lake and proceeded to swim around under everything. This was fun, until he tried to get back up to the surface, and found that he was unable to do so.

 

I finished it about 3 months ago (between TOB and IWD). They have fixed alot of the bug problems. It didn't crash very often and usually worked. I had all of the graphic options turned all the way up (P3 1ghz 512mb RAM).
That wasn't my problem with it.
The game wasn't finished. It has a beautifully rendered world that you can explore. And this world is effectively empty. I kept climbing mountains, swimming, exploring every crack. I usually found nothing. If I found something, it was often related to a quest and if I did it too soon, I would screw up the game.
My other problem with it is the gameplay. Ultima 1-7 were party based RPG/Adventure games that had a similar feel to them as the BG series. Ultima 8 and 9 are basically "Super Mario Avatar" or "Tomb Avatar". Jumping, jumping, jumping. There was very little combat in the dungeons. Very few different kinds of monsters. Very few different kinds of weapons. It is very puzzle oriented. In one dungeon, you basically run back and forth firing arrows at little targets that appear in different places. Miss one and start over. In another place, you spin around and around in a room shooting arrows at little targets that appear on the walls. Miss one and start over. Sound fun? It's not.

I could rant for awhile. I think on it's own it could be an acceptable game. As the finale of the Ultima series, it is a joke.

 

I'm new to these boards and a fan of the Ultima series. Personally I very much enjoyed the game. I registered my copy as soon as I bought it and the updated install CD came in the mail as promised around April 2001. After I installed the game with the new CD, it ran wonderfully. I completed the game without trouble. I would recommenbd the game to any Ultima fan.

My machine at installation was:
AMD K6-III 450
Soundblaster Live! Platinum
Diamond Speedstar A90.

It ran even better when I added a
Diamond Monster 3D II.

The game was at its best when I took out the Diamond cards and put in
Voodoo5 5500.


My only real complaint about the game was its linearity. Something that I enjoyed about the previous Ultimas was the ability to explore Brittania from the beginning of the game.

Pagan did suck.

[This message has been edited by CUE (edited June 20, 2002).]

 

It's a buggy game, but the graphics look nice, and steeling stuff without being caught is even nicer.(??)

 

The graphics are great.The music is cool.The game is wonderfull.

 

I thought the game was alright, the 3D-ness was really nice, but I haven't played on it that much.

But it'quite a nice game once you get into it.

 

I played Ultima Ascencion a couple of years ago I think, on the computer I had then, which was 600MHz, with a simple graphics card, don't remember which one.

I completed it, and overall I liked it a lot, although I had trouble with it. The landscape was beautiful, and I liked being able to roam all over it, but I had a tendency to get stuck in trees, furniture and walls, so to avoid that I sometimes had to activate a cheat of no-clipping to get loose.

Apart from that the only trouble was that it slowed down. The avatar moved normal for a while, then movements got slower and slower until frame-by-frame. Then it was time to save and reboot, and I had to do this every 20-30 minutes of gaming. But apart from that, it worked fine.

On another note - several years ago I got Ultima Underground free when buying a computer. That was the first Ultima game I played, and I loved it, absolutely loved it, and played it over and over during the years. But I've moved a couple of times since that, and the game cd seems to have gotten lost. Does anybody know if this game still exists, and if it's possible to find it somewhere on the net for download?

I also heard there was a Ultima Underworld 2, where can I find it?

With the same pc purchase I also got a game called Shadowcaster, which was in the same genre as Ultima. You played a shape changer who could become an underwater frog, a flying devil, a stone elemental, a lionman with four arms and a lot of other things, depending on what surroundings you had to move through and what foes you faced. Great game, but it has gotten lost too. (It was on the same cd I think.) Anybody remember this game? Any sequels to it? Is it still available anywhere?

 

I never bothered to get it despite being a fan of the first 7 games. Not only did super avatar bros (aka ultima 8) sour me on the series they then waited about a decade to make the 9th and ultimate concluding game (pushing it back to make the awful UO. By the time ascension was actually being made, fallout and bg had come out and I had no interest. If I want to run around Britiania I'll pull out 6 or 7. Real sad cause in the early '90s origin was the best game company out there.

 

I think that you can still buy U9

and i THINK that since you payed for it it is legal for you to download it with *cough* kazaa *cough*

[ August 17, 2002, 09:40: Message edited by: jesper898 ]

 

Following this thread on Ultima IX Ascension made me want to try it again. So I installed it a couple of days ago on my newest computer:
Pentium 4 1600 mHz CPU
RAM 256 Mb
NVidia GeForce 2MX graphics card

It works like a dream! I'm having a lot of fun playing it, because the graphics are beautiful, and with this computer there's no trouble at all, absolutely nothing, just smooth gameplay all the way. Now I'm experiencing it the way it was meant to be - wonderful. It's like a totally new game!

So my advice to those of you who gave up because of too many problems; give it a new try on today's systems. Even you, Tal, who bashed the game earlier - if you have a better system today, give it a retry!

 

woohoo i just got a new comp!
*installing u9*
this thread just refuses to die

 

Good luck. One thing to warn you about. Stick to the plotline. If you do too much exploring, too early, you can screw things up later.

 

Noble friends i just arrived in britannia and after talking to lord british i made my way to the roof and fell down, but i got the fireball scroll muahahaha!
I got the fire sword and made my way towards Britain while humming the Rule Britannia theme, when suddenly the guardian attacked me with a fierce spell known only to the wise mages of moonglow by the name *crash to desktop*
i will be back soon guardian muahahaha!