I played the PC version of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar using XU4 version 0.9 and Upgrade version 1.3. I used Photoshop 5.5 for the artwork and ImageReady 2.0 for animation. I built this website on Notepad.

Opinion on the Game

Nearly twenty years ago, Richard Garriott designed a game that veered a bit off his own beaten path. He had already gained notoriety for his previous games, Akalabeth (“Ultima 0”) and the first three Ultima titles. Those games are credited for giving rise to the genre of computer roleplaying games (CRPGs), but aren’t really about anything except being the good guy and vanquishing the bad guy. Ultima IV is the first computer game to remove the bad guy so that the good guy is forced to ask himself just what makes him good.

The first thing you do in the game is find out who you are. You are seated at a table across from a gypsy, using your own ethical compass to solve the hypothetical dilemmas she poses. Then she whisks you away to the vast fantasy realm of Britannia, where you begin adventuring as a character whose traits are determined by how you answered the gypsy’s questions. (For instance, if you chose the valorous approach to the hypotheticals, you may start as a mighty fighter. If your answers emphasized humility, you’ll have to roam the dangerous world as a meek shepherd.) Soon, probably after getting killed by the first wandering creature or poisonous plant you brush up against, you’ll meet Lord British, Garriott’s alter ego in the game. He will tell you that since the great evils of the land have been vanquished (see the first three Ultimas), the people need someone to guide them towards virtue. You could be that inspiring light by discovering and upholding the eight virtues and becoming . . . the Avatar!

That sounds like a unique quest, but the experience of solving it isn’t much different from any prior or subsequent CRPG. You have to explore the land, fight off relentless creatures, talk to townspeople for clues, and search for important artifacts. These activities are the meat of the gameplay, and unfortunately don’t stand out as a gaming experience.

Let’s look at exploration first. Although each town has a distinct design that lends it personality, getting there is less than half the fun. Any square of the landscape’s terrain that isn’t a flat patch of grass is only going to slow you down. This wouldn’t be a problem if the world weren’t such a dauntingly vast place. Before I figured out the moongate system, I spent entire gaming sessions struggling to get from Point A to Point B. There are forms of transportation that decrease travel time, but they require special attention and come with their own annoying limitations. For instance, horses are handy for getting across land quickly, but I was surprised to find that I couldn’t take them aboard ships. So when I made an ocean voyage, I had to carefully note where I left them, or I’d spend hours looking for them or earning money to buy replacements.

Combat hampers progress even further. Even in the new age of peace, the realm crawls with hostile beings that hurl themselves at you in every clearing, grove, and stretch of ocean. They come in many species with various offensive abilities, and you’ll eventually have an arsenal of weapons and spells to fight them. But combat isn’t challenging enough to require much tactical thinking, or rewarding enough to get excited about. Most fights can be settled with plain old hand-to-hand combat, and don’t yield any loot beyond gold and experience points. It’s nice that combat is easy enough to allow the adventurer to focus on the adventure, but the frequency of it still poses a distraction.

Once you make it to a new town, you’ll want to pump all the residents for information. There are about 200 people in the game to talk to, and many of them have clues on the virtues you have to uphold, the artifacts you have to fetch, and the dungeons that contain them. Unfortunately, just about everyone in Britannia has only one terse thing to say to you, be it a clue or witticism, and the conversation system involves figuring out the bingo keyword that will provoke that little nugget of information.

Then it’s off to the dungeons to find the artifacts you need to complete your quest. While the dungeons aren’t large or complex, there are enough traps, secret doors and monster lairs to make each dungeon run a trial you have to prepare for ahead of time. You’ll need to map your progress to avoid getting lost (or, better yet, use someone else’s map to find those quest objects quickly). Unfortunately, the dungeons aren’t as distinct from one other as the towns, and look like the halls of a cheap motel. It's a good thing there are magic spells to transport you upstairs and downstairs instantly so that you won’t have to spend as much time in them.

The game would be more interesting, and feel more like a study in ethics, if it posed dilemmas for your character to solve during the quest. Wouldn't it be great if those hypothetical situations the gypsy asked you to address actually happened during the adventure? The virtues do affect the game a bit: you’ll suffer setbacks for things like dishonesty, stealing, and killing non-evil creatures. But they don’t do enough to distinguish the gameplay from that of other CRPGs; it’s still all about running from one encounter to the next and collecting arcane objects.

That doesn’t mean the game’s not fun. Once you develop an “aw, shucks” attitude and take whatever comes, you can get caught up in hunting for artifacts, amassing enough gold to purchase better weapons and spell reagents, and adding companions to your party to help you slaughter enemies. The punishment for mistakes is usually not severe, and even death is a minor setback. It’s clear that Garriott wants you to complete the game successfully, so he encourages you through forgiving gameplay and his benevolent alter ego (though it would be a good idea to enable the cheat codes before taking on the final challenge).

In the end, the game is a dialogue between Garriott and the gamer, performed through their alter egos, in which he proposes a philosophy for living. While not deep, it’s a clever amd compelling way to convey a personal message, and I don’t think any other game has attempted the same thing.

I’m glad that I finally experienced what many CRPG enthusiasts remember fondly playing 20 years ago, but I’m not as affected by it as they were. I can enjoy an old game and look past all considerations of graphics, sound, and interface if the gameplay at the core is fun. I honestly don’t think I would have enjoyed Ultima IV more had I played it when it came out. I didn’t even enjoy it as much as the original Ultima, which I tried only a few years ago and loved for its goofy surprises and manic, mirthful pace.

Ultima IV is a good time, but I had a lot more fun Photoshopping it.

Rating: Two-and-a-half cosmolithic hamburgers (on a scale of zero to four).