44 - Labor of Love

Although I find myself anxious about writing the blog, or not writing to be more accurate, I feel it as more of a motivational pressure rather than a suffocating snuff out the candle flame kind of deal. When I fall behind in my normal tasks I tend to feel smothered, but not so much for this project. Every day life has begun to cascade a little bit, covering up the low priority of playing games to write for strangers: work needs to be done, obligations fulfilled, errands, & c. Pressure builds up, but never to the point of stress which is a welcome feeling for someone as high strung as me. Being able to sit down and complete two levels of Ultima Underworld in one night felt extremely good. I would estimate myself to be 60-70% finished with the game and am having a blast. That being said, I am looking forward to getting into something that doesn’t take as much investment for the next game.

DO feed the trolls!

Level 4 is very straightforward. The entire floor is symmetrically laid out into quadrants: the southwest contains a faction of knights known as the Knights of theOrder of Crux Ansata, the southeast hosts a clan of trolls, and the northern half is made up of two substantial puzzles. What is also interesting is that unlike the other levels I have experienced, the entire southern half of level four is relatively safe with no hostile monsters aside from a few spiders whereas the northern side is a death trap. Taking the time to speak with each faction, I was able to piece together a much bigger picture in terms of lore and how the abyss had been settled.

[The map of Level 4.]

The Stygian Abyss is only a dungeon because it has been retaken by nature. When it was being settled by Sir Cabirus, the entire Abyss was meant to be a shining example of understanding and virtue. Before his death, the entire colony was living in peace and working together to make life underground more comfortable, but since his death, everything has reverted back to its original state. Not to mention that this puts a very sinister slant on the entire situation of those remaining factions being locked in with prisoners being added to the population all the time. What in the heck was Lord British thinking?

Regardless, level four is in relative peace as the Knights and trolls live side by side in a sort of détente even though a few feral trolls and crazy knights have run off on their own. This is where I entered the picture. Speaking to the trolls, I found they did not have much to say but were in possession of their own shrine of virtue I was able to use to gain some more skills. I was also able to trade a rotworm stew I had made with a recipe from the goblins of level one for a set of dragon scales with one of the trolls. The Knights were more helpful and even offered to make me a member of their order if I recovered some lost artifacts. The first of these was a eulogy that was lost in the trolls’ shrine I was able to return immediately. I was then sent to find a lost golden plate in the maze to the northwest. Talking to a few of the order’s members, I was also told of another puzzle known as the “bullfrog puzzle” to the northeast.

What excited me most about this portion of the game is that the main quest finally started to gel a little bit. I love the moment in many old games where the mists begin to clear and I find seemingly unconnected pieces suddenly falling into place. Since there are no mission markers or objective lists being ticked off, it is completely up to me to gauge my own progress which can be overwhelming sometimes. I find myself missing this in modern games as everything seems to be shepherded along in fear that players will get confused, which they very well may. Ultima Underworld began this process here as I completed the Knights’ quest.

Charged with the task of killing the renegade ‘Chaos Knight’Sir Rodrick, I headed to the former feast hall of the humans and trolls to face him. I had leveled up my combat and cudgel skills to take him down and was able to after a bit of running and hiding to heal. A key he dropped opened the maze I was looking for, at the end of which I found the gold plate. I returned it in exchange for the Standard of Honor; one of the eight talismans of virtue! This luck continued as I talked to a knight lamenting the theft of the Taper ofSacrifice by a crazed madman obsessed with staving off darkness. Knowing I had talked to a guy fitting that description on level three, I quickly returned and easily traded some food for it. I was now in possession of two out of eight talismans within twenty minutes. The pace was picking up quickly.

[Rodrick is on the line, here.]

This streak continued as I traded the gem cutter I got on level two for defeating the gazer in the mines to another knight who clued me in on the switch sequence to get the ring of Humility! I used this momentum to propel myself through one of the hardest puzzles I have faced in the game so far: the bullfrog puzzle.

More platforming…

The bullfrog puzzle harkens to one of those idiosyncrasies that most games with dungeons have: weird and obtuse puzzles. This one is especially esoteric as no instructions or hints are given at all. The room is simply a platform with two rotating levers with eight positions, two buttons that are either on or off, and a giant square plot of dirt surrounded by a moat. After ten minutes of messing around and getting frustrated, I had figured out that each press of the top button moves a piece of dirt up one ‘level’ while the lower button moves it down. Despite this revelation, I was unable to see what relation the rotating dials have to do with what area is raised. As far as I can tell, one lever corresponds to the ‘x’ axis of the square while the other is the ‘y’ axis, just like on a graph. Then, each button press raises the level of the selected coordinate. The complicated part is that a few squares SURROUNDING the selected coordinate are raised too making my ‘just raise every position two levels’ strategy non-workable. Somehow, I accidentally cleared a path to the far northeastern corner of the room where another platform was made available. I still don’t understand how it worked or what I did, but it’s done.

Proceeding through this newly revealed corridor, I found stairs down to a set of tombs in level four in which I found the hilt of the sword of justice! Returning the sword to Shak, he agreed to repair the thing in an hour giving me three out of the four required talismans to complete the game! The only problem is repairs are in real time. It literally takes an hour of in game time. Luckily, I was able to use the bedroll to sleep for this one and get the sword immediately, but repairs I had done for lesser equipment had consisted of me bringing the weapon or armor to Shak and leaving the game running while I did something else for ten minutes until the repair was done. I am not a big fan of that design decision.

[I sure waited long enough.]

In the end, I had three out of the eight talismans and had completed level four of the abyss. With things coming together quickly, I am hoping I can complete the game within the next two weeks. But… we all know how my scheduling goes so this may not come to bear. Anyway, it’s time to pump my sword stat so I can use this indestructible Sword of Justice for the rest of the game. I hope all of the other items are as useful as this one.

What’s next?

I have already completed level five of the abyss and will be posting about it shortly. In the meantime I hope to work ahead of schedule and have the game finished ahead of the blog content so I can post more regularly. I apologize for the slower pace, but daily life has been hectic lately and I’m trying to play in the middle of all that. Until next time, see you on level five of the Stygian Abyss; definitely the strangest one yet.

--Backlog Killer

43 - Holidays

Well, Chinese New Year was a good chance to get away from work for a while, but not a great way to get any gaming done. I had hoped to use the five day break as an opportunity to knock out a lot of Ultima Underworld. Unfortunately, you can see by my lack of updates, this was not the case at all. Much like Christmas or Thanksgiving, my wife and I spent about twelve hours each day sitting around my in-laws' house eating, watching television, or sleeping. Ultima Underworld did not fit anywhere into this schedule. Too tired to get into a long gaming session after each day, we simply hit the sack and did it all over the next. I was left with about two truly free days to clean up the house and get various things finished which amounted to roughly forty-five minutes to one hour of actual play time. Luckily, I was able to finish Level 3 and actually acquired part of one of the talismans! Thank goodness…



“We’re right in the middle of a reptile zoo!”

Consistent with my impressions given by the previous floor and those gathered from the Looking Glass podcast, each floor of the Stygian Abyss has its own particular flavor and design. Unfortunately, Level 3 is one of my most disliked tropes in games: water levels. Stepping out of the periphery of the level into its large central area, it became immediately apparent I was located in the middle of a giant swamp.

[I hope it's better than the Crawl Stone Soup swamp.]

I blame my aversion to this kind of level on the fact that it is mostly wide open and requires ages of searching nondescript areas to find a small important item but inevitably missing some. Hopefully this is not true for Level 3 because I have been swimming around the lake for quite a while and think I have found almost everything and don’t plan on doing much more of that. But, let’s not jump ahead, before exploring the dangerous waters I skirted around to discover the circumference of the shore. While looking around this area I encountered a bizarre dead end hallway that unceremoniously teleported me to an identical hallway. Reentering this same zone then proceeded to send me to yet another identical hallway on the other side of the map! This one was only a one way trip and I was forced to start exploring after being separated from any previously mapped out exits.

[Thank goodness for automapping.]

Avoiding the water because of the dangerous squid creatures in the swamp, I found what looked like an artificially excavated dungeon with several locked storage rooms and an agitated bandit. I tried to talk politely to him, but must have made a mistake and was attacked. After an awkward battle and several degraded weapons later, I was finally able to dust myself off and move beyond their hideout to return later when I found away into those rooms.

Just beyond the hideout was another complex filled with giant lizardmen. I had been warned about these creatures before and decided to treat them with as much respect as I could. This proved difficult when they were unable to speak English. They seemed to understand what I was saying, but could not respond in kind starting one of the most interesting puzzles I have encountered in the game so far.



Deviation: Old vs. New Game Expectations – An off the cuff half baked argument.

Even though, as far as I can tell, learning the language of the lizardmen is not “required” for finishing the game (talisman hints are provided by rare English speaking lizardmen), it was certainly expected by the designers. Just a little beyond the main entrance of the compound I found a prisoner. The poor guy had his tongue cut out and was unable to speak but begged me to secure his release. To do this, I had to talk to the lizardmen whose language I have no idea how to speak, write down vocabulary, go back to the prisoner, type in the word for translation, interpret his pantomime, and piece together the language myself. While performing this task I kept thinking to myself: “Would this ever happen in modern game design?”

The quick answer for me is no; absolutely not. Many modern games place similar puzzles in players’ paths to vary game play or slow progression through a story. A lot of these modern puzzles are nothing more than slight diversions that may take clues from the environment or some short amount of thought to get through so that the player will not get frustrated and quit altogether. Very few games will demand a player think outside of what is directly presented to him or her and use systems in ways not explicitly illustrated to come to these conclusions. The lizardman puzzle has several layers of work that make it a very satisfying problem. After seeing similar conversations I was able to find commonly repeated words and take them to the prisoner. Interpreting his actions, I made a short list of words including “lizardman”, “friend”, “kill”, “trade”, etc. to test out in conversations. With a few adjustments I was able to have functional interactions with these creatures in their own language. I was even able to understand the language without consulting my notes after twenty minutes or so. I felt like I had actually learned something and I fully expect to be required to make use of that knowledge further down the road.

[Negotiating the prisoner's release.]

Some games will have quick and dirty puzzles involving physics or button patterns, but that knowledge is rarely ever touched on again in my experience. It seems like a kind of slap dash diversion from the system you are supposed to be having fun with in the first place. Unlike a ham handed slider puzzle in Resident Evil, learning a language of cultures sequestered in this dungeon seems to make sense in the context of the game. I did not feel lifted out of the world but more invested in it. These lizardmen were helping me to patiently learn to communicate with them as a people. It felt like something I had accomplished.

In my opinion, game designers (mostly AAA, sorry ) do not put enough expectations on players. It seems as if any challenge falling outside of the particular feedback loop a game is presenting will instantly be left on the cutting room floor as being "not fun". I am afraid that inflated budgets and comparmentalized production systems have diluted the feeling of authorship and intimacy with a game. In order to satisfy the huge investments in game production, the product itself must appeal to a large group of consumers. In many cases this can lead to not necessarily a "dumbing down" of games, but certainly a more bland experience. I would compare my experience to that of playing Skyrim where experiences just seem to move past me like water past a rock in a river. I barely have any meaningful influence on anything and am simply letting content wash over me. In Ultima Underworld I feel as if I have interacted and learned from the systems and environment, not just consumed them. This is the kind of design I am looking for and the recent resurgence of independent developers asserting their vision has given me hope.



Back to the adventure.

After learning a new language and freeing the prisoner, I was finally able to take care of the largest piece of business in the entire floor: discovering a piece of one of the talismans. Some English speaking black lizardmen sent me to find a lost expedition in return for a reward. All I found were a few paper scraps and bones, but I also got a clue as to where the blade of the sword talisman is. The note informed me that the piece is hidden under a pond in the southeast, but how could I find it if I couldn't swim? This caused a little bit of a problem.

I had previously discovered a suspicious area with a ramp leading down to nowhere and had noticed a glitch while walking down the hall that wouldn't let me proceed when too close to the wall. I clicked the 'look' and 'use' actions on a strange piece of vine-covered wall, but nothing seemed to happen. It turns out the player is required to 'look' at the wall multiple times before the vines are removed and a secret door is revealed. This is the first bad design decision I have run accross in the game. It is not unreasonable to think that many players may click the wall, see nothing happen, then discount it much as I did. If I had not tried several times then it would never have been found. I'll let it slide, though.

[Looks normal enough...]

[...but it's not.]

Behind the secret door was a lever that drained the pool in the southeast corner of the floor allowing me to go through a sunken door. After fighting a ghost I found a shrine and the blade I was looking for. As soon as I find the hilt I think I may have a good idea who can put it together. I also hope that I can use the sword as an unbreakable weapon for the rest of the game. That would be very welcome after going through at least ten or fifteen swords and cudgels.

[Finally, one piece of one piece of the puzzle.]

Packing up my silver resurrection tree, new found blade, and knowledge of the lizardman language, I descended further into the unknown depths of the Stygian Abyss. Level four awaits me.

[My map of Level 3.]

What's next?

Besides the obvious Level 4 content, I sincerely hope to push out the next update sooner. This one was almost finished for a week, but I couldn't quite mop up the rest of the level to have enough to write for a full post. The holiday proved to be much busier than I expected and I hope to push forward a little faster. Wish me luck, and if you have any tips about some things I may have missed feel free to leave a comment or contact me.

As always, follow me on Twitter (@backlogkiller) for mini updates and news about what I'm doing. I also urge you to listen to the new Dark Souls podcast produced by friends of the blog Kole Ross and Gary Butterfield: The Bonfireside Chat. The show progresses through Dark Souls, one of the best games of the past few years, discussing gameplay, lore, and boss battles. It is one of my favorite shows that I look forward to every two weeks. Whether you are a Dark Souls expert, a new player, or someone looking to get into it, the show is great and has some good discussion and interesting guests. Give it a test run!

That's all for now. I hope to see you sooner than later for Level 4 of Ultima Underworld. Also, please get System Shock 2 from GoG.com. It's truly one of the best games I have ever played.


--Backlog Killer

42 - Dwarf Fortress

After going through the head-twisting roller coaster that is Spec Ops: The Line, I am back on board with Ultima Underworld and making progress. I explored and cleared out the second level of the Abyss and feel good about my progress. My character, Pemulis, is a level eight druid who is focused mainly on hand to hand combat and spell casting… although I haven’t used any magic besides healing spells. As combat gets tougher I may need to cast ‘Resist Blows’ or offensive spells, but that’s for later. For now, join me in my journey through the land of the dwarves.



Semi-Accurate Predictions

In the last blog post, I had commented about the shored up wooden walls and how it may indicate that I was in some sort of mine. This was not too far from the truth since it turns out almost the entire floor is populated by dwarves. What is interesting is that Ultima Underworld was released AFTER all the extra races aside from humans were retconned out of Britania in Ultima 4. Looks like some vestigial elements are showing up from the original game design. Or maybe this is what happened to all the dwarves that disappeared… Anyway, the level is a huge and organized complex with very little in common with the disjointed and ad-hoc construction of level one. I hope that each floor holds a different personality making them exciting to explore.

The first friendly entity I encountered was a crazy dwarf named Ironwit. He wasn’t much help, but was able to string enough interpretable sentences together to ask for help retrieving his blueprints. Always wanting to help in hope of rewards I agreed. The directions I received were just as mixed up as his brain and consisted of these notes I jotted down:

- Prints in store room, need flying?
- Flying potion in ‘spiral room’
- Key to potions in ‘golden maze’
- One potion is poison, the other flying. Which is which?

This is all I had to go on. Fortunately, the ‘spiral room’ was easily found and is exactly what it sounds like: a spiral walkway leading down to the potion store room. I was able to jump to the ‘golden maze’ which did not seem to be a maze at all, but rather a room with a strange golden path on the floor and a key at its end. I thought it may be a trap if I stepped off the path but nothing happened. Taking the key and opening the store room I found the red and green potions. Because Ironwit could not tell me which was which, I had to experiment on my own with the aid of leeches in case of poisoning to remove the venom. After identifying the flying potion, flying to the store room, and returning the blueprints, I did get a reward: another flying potion. Great, I already had one and it just got replaced. Fortunately, it came in handy later.

[Thanks a lot crumb bum.]

I continued exploring the level and did not find much of note architecturally. There is a central hub with hallways extending in the cardinal directions. The northern passageway leads to a group of hostile goblins I was able to take out with a lot of retreating and healing. Much less friendly and more formidable than the goblins on level one, I do not think I have much to gain from them besides experience and some loot. I had come from the west which held only a portcullis that (I thought) couldn't be opened, the mad dwarf’s fun house, and the shrine I used to level up. The eastern path led to a strange room with a crystal ball and another resilient sphere, while the southern path revealed the dwarven mines and a locked door. As I explored, I found several scraps of paper with various mantras used to level up different attributes at the shrines. Even though all of the mantras from Ultima 4 are here, there are some new words that raise different stats. Some can even be combined to level up more than one at a time.

[Level 2 of the abyss is very different from Ultima 4...]

Checking the mines led to some fortuitous discoveries. I found a blacksmith named Shak who filled me in on some seriously important information. On level one, I had been told that eight ‘talismans’ must be gathered in order to complete my mission, but I was unsure what they were. Shak informed me that at least two of them were a sword and a shield. He also said that they were split up among the factions to grant equal power but are now held out of spite. Looks like I will have to revisit these groups to find which talisman they all have. Taking this information, I attempted to find a way to enter the fortified area marked with the ankh and blocked by the portcullis.




Inside the Walls

I attempted to pick the locked door in the southern passage about fifteen times before it finally opened. Luckily, lock picks do not seem to break and I can keep one for the entire game. It turns out I had found the back door to the dwarf king’s court. A quick exploration showed that there was, in fact, a guard just behind the portcullis I could have asked to open it, but my light source was not powerful enough to reveal him. After speaking to the king for a while, he revealed that the mine was being terrorized by a gazer. You may remember these from Ultima 4 as beholder-type creatures that can put players to sleep. Fortunately, they lack this ability in Ultima Underworld making the fight much less scary. I agreed to help the dwarves with yet another hope of a reward.

Returning to the mines, I destroyed the rocks workers had caved in to trap the gazer and engaged in battle. After several minutes of swinging and a few close calls requiring cat and mouse healing, the horrible monster popped like a balloon. When I told the king the good news he rewarded me with a sacred symbol of honor for the group: a small chisel. He also asked me if I wanted to see his treasure room and gave me the password. This was unwise.

[It may look goofy to you, but this was a tense fight!]

The king’s treasure room is basically a giant pit containing an earth golem as a guard. I took the opportunity to use my flying potion to dip into the room, fly a few circles around the golem, pick up all the loot, and fly out of there. Now, this may seem a little immoral, but I’m trapped all alone down here! (I am also hoping that one of the pieces I snagged is a talisman needed for the end of the game). Having explored all that I could, I prepared myself to descend to level three.



Mechanics: Boring Conversations

Ultima Underworld is an adept dungeon simulation. The exploration of unknown mysteries, shock of monsters emerging from darkened passages, and discovery of hidden areas are things the game does exceedingly well. NPC interaction is something it does not do well. Every action in the game is built into the main user interface, including magic which is performed by organizing runes that can be clicked on to cast spells. The only action that takes the player out of the main dungeon view is starting a conversation.

This is not to say that the NPC interactions are particularly bad, but they are not very fun. I have yet to accidentally aggravate an NPC to the point of them attacking me, but I have angered them into ending conversations. What is the penalty for this? Having to reenter the conversation window, traversing the same choices, and hoping to make better use of time to get on the character’s good side revealing information. Ultima Underworld is essentially interrupting a fun and fascinating game (dungeon simulation) to play another game that is less fun (conversation tree exploration).

[An annoying mini-game.]

Even though this caused some problems in the Underworld series, Looking Glass developed a sublime solution for their other, more futuristic, dungeon crawling game called System Shock: every NPC is dead.

It’s actually genius. Instead of tracking the movements of entities and forcing the player to interact with them to get information about the world or plot, the team transferred this duty to recorded audio logs that could be filed away and listened to at the player’s leisure. This completely eliminated the need to interrupt the main game play element of simulation and still conveyed every bit of information needed to the player. This design trope continued through System Shock 2 and even into Bioshock, making the strong parts of those games shine (Action/RPG and first person shooting, respectively) while avoiding problems that may cloud or interrupt the experience. I only wish the team had figured this out earlier. Sucking me out of a dank dungeon and into a wall of text imposed on a digital parchment is not terribly fun, but it was the best they could do.

If you are interested in these kinds of things, definitely listen to this interview with Ultima Underworld programmer Dan Schmidt. He discusses how the game got started and built making it a great resource for my blog, too. I would also recommend you listen to all the other Looking Glass Podcasts. I really loved that studio and the stories are really great. Even Ken Levine, lead designer of Bioshock, got his own episode.



Next Time

Next update will be my adventures through level three of the Abyss. I was initially worried about travelling up and down between the floors to complete larger objectives because I am used to respawning enemies, but this does not seem to be the case in Ultima Underworld. Once I have cleared a floor, I am able to explore it at will without the fear of getting ambushed. I have no impression of the third floor since I only went down the stairs for a few seconds immediately after finding them out of habit from other games. (If you fall through trapdoors to lower levels, you at least know where the ascending stairs are on the map since they were marked earlier.) Hopefully I can make nice with whatever civilization is on the third floor and take that all important talisman off their hands.



--Backlog Killer

Spec Ops: The Line

After completing Spec Ops: The Line I have been thinking about it compulsively. I cannot shake it, the game is haunting me. I feel the need to write down my thoughts about it to sort everything out so please indulge me. I will not be saying many different things than what many critics and the writer of the game have said, but I need to state my opinion. I will include a ‘press package’ at the end of the post for you to check out other extremely good reactions to the game.

Also note that this blog post will be FULL of spoilers. I will not be holding back. If you intend to play the game or are in the middle of playing, please stop reading and play/finish it. As for me, business as usual will resume once I get these thoughts out of my head. I hope you all enjoy it.

Spec Ops: The Line


In my opinion, Spec Ops: The Line is the most important game to come out during this console or PC generation. I place it above the sacred cow of Bioshock. Spec Ops is the new standard, the first true fully realized exploration of a video game as a piece of art by a big budget studio. Bioshock lambasted the medium of video games. Spec Ops condemns the players who play them. Everyone who owns a piece of technology capable of running the program should play it.

Spec Ops: The Line is a third person cover-based shooter that looks very similar to every other modern military game you see at the store or on Steam. The plot takes place in the immediate future where a freak sandstorm has almost completely buried the booming city of Dubai. Giving somewhat contested international aid, the United States dispatches its "Damned" 33rd infantry battalion to aid the emergency evacuation of refugees. Soon after, communication with the division's commander, Colonel Konrad, is lost when he is ordered to pull out and refuses, opting to set up a martial government to organize a new evacuation plan as more sandstorms erode the city. You, the player controlling Captain Walker, are sent in with a two man recon team to seek out any survivors and report back to headquarters. Upon reaching Dubai, the squad finds slaughtered US soldiers in the desert and is soon confronted with armed civilian resistance who open fire on the squad. You and your teammates, Lugo and Adams, take down the aggressors and push on under the impression that Colonel Konrad has established his own military force of refugees and US soldiers and is occupying the city much as Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness and the film Apocalypse Now did. Of course, the name Konrad is an obvious reference to this.

The game only uses Heart of Darkness as an inspiration and is not an adaptation which is made evident as things fall apart. Walker declares that the recon mission has now become a rescue and leads his squad into the buried city to evacuate the refugees and seek retribution on Konrad.




Mechanics, Game Play, and Meaning


The portrayal of Spec Ops as a standard, by the numbers modern military shooter is completely intentional. The game is a honey pot meant to attract people who play these types of games all the time only to pull the rug from under their feet unexpectedly. What may not be intentional is that the mechanics of cover-based shooting feel dated and do not work well. This makes for very frustrating play and many player deaths causing combat to be tedious and unfun which I think works in the game's favor. Why should killing people be fun? What I am sure IS intentional is that each 'action node' is easily identifiable with lots of 'cover' objects like sandbags appearing and endless waves of enemies emerging. Some battles result in the deaths of dozens of soldiers, and lest we not forget these are US Army personel even though we assume they are deserters. What this does is push the player into the mindset of most shooters where killing ceases to have any meaning beyond the idea that as soon as everyone is no longer moving the game can go on. This is on purpose. I even found myself saying "Jeez, how many more guys do I need to kill?" which horrified me in this context.

Do you want to go on? Ok.

After several chapters of fighting through luxury condominiums and hotels, the team sees a white phosphorus shell detonate, showering molten metal onto innocents and soldiers alike. A front row seat for its destructive properties as people scream and writhe on the ground while their flesh falls off of their bones. Only a few minutes later, your squad is brought to a standstill by the retreating 33rd Batallion. An army is guarding the retreat and is about to open fire on you leaving only two options: one is to use conventional weapons to attack, and the other is to use a nearby white phosphorus mortar to take out the troops. This is not a choice. Using standard arms results in your position being quickly overrun as you are outnumbered. When setting up the mortar, Lugo says "We shouldn't do this! We have a choice!" to which Walker responds "No. We don't." This is the discussion between our own conscious and that of the game designer. We want a way to progress without doing this because we've seen what white phosphorus can do, but the designer says "YOU MUST" and so we do, presumably given a free guilt pass out plot necessity. This is on purpose.

Do you want to go on? Ok.

After raining hell down on the troops, the squad treks through the mangled bodies. Survivors scrabble and ask for help. I put one troop out of his misery by shooting him to which Walker states on the screen "He was going to die anyway." After traversing the scorched battlefield, it is revealed that civilian refugees were at the head of the retreating column and were also caught in the rain of fire. The camera focuses on a dead mother holding her child, their smoldering flesh falling off the bones. Walker says "We didn't have a choice. Konrad forced us to do this." I felt sick. The game has tricked me, tricked the player into doing something I didn't want to do. What a betrayal.

Do you want to go on? Ok.

The loading screens get more and more bizarre upon each death. Their previously helpful gameplay tips of "Use your squadmates to flank your opponents" and "Press Q to throw a grenade" now read "Do you feel like a hero?" "How many Americans have you killed so far?" "You are still a good person."

There are only two options: either turn off the game or keep committing atrocities at the behest of the game designer to get to its end. Do you want to go on? Ok.

The squad fights through a shopping mall to reach a helicopter it uses to destroy a radio tower filled with US troops broadcasting propaganda. Adams yells "THIS IS FUCKED UP! THESE ARE AMERICAN SOLDIERS!" Do you want to go on? Ok.

After countless battles and the eventual death his squad mates who slowly became unhinged along with him, Walker arrives at the penthouse where Konrad is based. He is dead, having shot himself several weeks earlier. The entire hero fantasy has fallen apart. All the radio communications, interactions, and admonishments of Konrad were a delusion. Walker's only orders were to find survivors and radio for backup. If he had stopped at the beginning and never entered Dubai, none of this would have happened. The 33rd battalion had been fighting Walker's squad under the impression that he was working with the CIA who were attempting to cover the whole embarrassment of Konrad's evacuation. A simple misunderstanding that we were dragged into along with the gung-ho heroism that is the center of all modern military shooters. Did I feel like a good person? No, I was the bad guy. Before disappearing, the imagined portrayal of Konrad asks Walker, asks ME, "Do you feel like a hero yet?"

We have arrived.



My critique and critique of the critics.

Spec Ops: The Line is not perfect, but it affected me so deeply that I had nightmares of failure and misplaced confidence in myself the night after finishing the game. Many players I have read reactions from feel betrayed that the game forced their hand to commit violent acts and then blamed them for it. Is this incorrect? Not if you judge it solely based on this game. You are playing and have no choice about the matter while interacting with the mechanics. What it DOES do is recontextualize all future interactions you have with video games. You DO have a choice as to what you want to play and do. Does using an attack helicopter to mow down infrared blips on a television make you feel like a big man? Go ahead, I probably won't. Do you want to unleash your heavy machine gun on a crowd of huddling innocents? I sure don't, but you can do what you want.

Spec Ops does NOT give any choices because we own it and the designers have made this the only way, but does that remove any culpability from us? Maybe it does, but having played through this experience I will certainly think more about all of my game choices. We only have the options to accomplish what the designers of games craft for us, but we also have the choice to never enter Dubai. We do not need to buy these games that upon closer examination are glorification of violence perpetrated by us through mechanics. I am not against violent video games. I am against engaging with them at the cost of forgetting what they mean. In a way, I am a paradox with respect to what Spec Ops is attempting to communicate. I do not buy military shooters, but I am very interested in using games' mechanics, narrative, and visuals to deliver a deeper meaning to the player. This is what art does. My only hope is that others who NEED to experience its message play the game.

The intentions of Spec Ops are not a resounding success, but they are closer than anyone has come so far. That gives me hope.

Walker out.

Press Package of Reviews:

Errant Signal's discussion.
(Errant Signal is one of my favorite game bloggers and meshes well with my ideas. Please subscribe to his YouTube channel.)

Yahtzee's (uncharacteristically glowing) Zero Punctuation Review 

Something Awful Discussion Thread -- Hugely Impassioned opinions both for and against the game.

Tom Bissell's Review

Horror and Badassery

Alright, let’s get one thing straight: I apologize for not posting, but I can’t really feel bad about it because I didn’t have much time to play or write this week. I have been able to explore roughly half of the second level of the Stygian Abyss, but I don’t think I have enough material to make a whole post. I don’t want to leave you high and dry, so I thought I would go back and touch on a subject I mentioned during the last entry (item degradation) and use it to attack a larger subject about empowerment in video games.

One of my favorite mechanics for evoking fear and desperation from a player is knowledge that each use of a weapon or item will bring it one step closer to destruction. The problem is that this game play element also requires some serious balancing and play testing to prevent frustration or outright invalidation of the game. If the items degrade too slowly there is no need to be careful with their use, but if they wear down even slightly faster than they should it can lead to frustration and possibly the inability to finish. I am still not sure where Ultima Underworld falls on this spectrum as my character is low level and I have only found one weapon that I would honestly say is in good shape. My ability to get more efficient use from weapons should improve as I level up in the game… hopefully. Regardless, it has made me reflect on this mechanic used in other games and how it may be one of the most effective building blocks of an experience that exists.

The Horror of Survival

“Survival Horror” is a genre that gets tossed around regularly as a misnomer for games featuring zombies and Lovecraftian abominations. These elements are scary and can be outright terrifying in some cases, but only pay service to the second half of the label. What about the capital-s survival? Many games that were developed early in this genre (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, System Shock) starve players for resources including ammunition, guns, consumable items, and all other matters of aid. While playing Silent Hill, I remember being afraid to enter the next door because I knew I only had one health drink left and my character was already bleeding from every hole in his body. What could be in there? Another health drink? Just more monsters to finish me off? That is the horror of survival that I associate with the genre.

Ultima Underworld can be classified as survival horror since it not only features darkened corridors, headless monsters, and maze-like architecture, but also stretches the player’s limits by (literally) starving him or her of resources. Old daggers lying around the dungeon snap like firewood in the middle of battle, torches burn out while traversing ledges over chasms of unknown depth, and meals must be sought out by raiding goblin camps while starving. The knowledge that each use of life giving equipment could be its last brings anxiety and outright discomfort to me in some cases. I like this feeling, but am afraid that the rapid degradation I have experienced may leave me in a lurch as I head further underground.

[The gun or the wrench? Your choice.]

System Shock 2 also walks this line, but to much better effect. Unlike Ultima Underworld, System Shock placed much more emphasis on ranged combat using pistols, grenade launchers, and even more exotic alien weapons. Unfortunately, these powerful weapons also suffer from loss of quality that you can see ticking down from ten to one until they finally jam in the middle of a deadly firefight. The genius trick up the sleeve of the developers is that melee weapons do not degrade, giving players another equally horrifying option: run into the face of these terrible creatures and begin bashing them in close combat. I enjoyed this approach much better when combined with severely limited ammunition as it made me less likely to be stuck in an unwinnable state. I had the knowledge that it is possible to defeat enemies throughout the game using melee weapons, even though it is much more dangerous. If all of my weapons turn to dust in Ultima Underworld, I may just be in serious trouble. Of course… I could rely on using more magic…

The Real Problem

A common saying these days is people ‘play games to feel like a badass’. Well, that may be true, but simply giving me tools I did not earn does not make ME feel like a badass. It makes me feel like I am playing a boring game. Let’s take two examples: God of War and Dark Souls. Now I know I keep heading back to the well of Souls, but I think it’s important to stick to similar genres when comparing games. On the surface, these two games can be described in very similar terms: you are a hero who must head into danger, fight enemies while increasing the effectiveness (i.e. ‘level) of your weapons, and become powerful enough to face the final boss in an action game focused on melee combat. Please just allow me to jettison the fact that GoW is not an RPG among other fundamental differences, but I do think they look similar to someone who has played neither and is a good starting point.

God of War chooses the more common focus of games produced recently in that it throws hundreds of weak enemies at the player making him or her feel amazing and following it up with a boss that has some puzzle or gimmick to it. This can be fun, but in my experience it ends up with me pressing X on the Playstation controller for an hour until I get bored of waiting until the next cut scene. (Please remember this is editorialized on purpose, so don’t go nuts GoW people). The ‘badass-ness’ of the game comes from killing hundreds of puny enemies, but I just feel annoyed and empty at the end. I don’t feel like I necessarily earned it.

[Even two of these 'easy' enemies together can ruin your day when you start Dark Souls.]

Contrast that with Dark Souls which makes literally every enemy in the game deadly. I’ve been killed by the lowest hollow in the game as many times as I have by the final boss. The difference is I return to the game a player who can now defeat almost every enemy with no problem and I feel like a DESERVING badass. I feel empowered because the designers gave me the opportunity to improve and grow my skill rather than copping out and tossing walking bullseyes at me that I can roll over to make me feel important.

What does all that have to do with degradation and survival horror? Well, let me hit it. The player cannot truly feel like a badass who has earned his status until he or she has truly had everything taken away. Left to scratch survival from meager resources and skill pools that grow with experience and knowledge of the rules of the game rather than being bestowed by the god of the game: the designer. Ultima Underworld and other true survival horror games do this effectively by making the player grow along with the game and trusting that he or she has enough patience to invest some time into developing skill and knowledge.

This isn’t just restricted to survival horror either. How great does it feel to return to original towns in Might & Magic to find you can slay monsters that used to eat you whole with the flick of a finger? Or what about replaying challenge stages in Peggle after trudging through the campaign to find your skill has increased to a Zen-like status when you clear an entire course that you used to struggle with. What about when you finally beat the Heat in NBA 2K when you used to struggle with whatever team is the worst? (I don’t really know basketball.)

The key is to produce a badass player and not simply make him or her ‘feel like a badass’. Provide the tools and means to become great, but do not simply grant it. This feels cheap and unearned, much like in real life.

--Backlog Killer

41 - The Next Level

I was a little worried I would end up eating some of my words after the initial gush about Ultima Underworld, but after exploring the first floor of the Stygian Abyss my hopes are high that this will not be necessary. I will divide the post into two sections: Adventuring and Mechanics to separate the story of my travels with discussion about the game itself. These adventures have revealed some things I really like about the game and others that don't sit as well with me. However, none of these are serious problems and tend to pop up in most old games.

The Adventure

When I last posted, I was flying very high while exploring Level 1 of the dungeon and had stopped after mapping about 30% of its layout. I continued the project by swimming up every branch of the river that runs through the dungeon and investigating any shores I was able to wade onto. What I did NOT count on is this little swim delivering me directly into the backyard of the Grey Goblins! When I emerged from the source of the river at the far north of the map, drenched in slimy water, I opened the first door I encountered and found a room full of the things. Remembering the advice of the human I found I was immediately on guard, but they did not attack me. In fact, the goblins seemed to be relatively intelligent.

After chatting to a few of the grunts wandering around, I actually had a chat with the leader of the Grey Goblins who was quite pleasant and also a bit under his wife's thumb. I did not find much equipment, but I was very interested in the implications of my discovery. In many old games, including famous ones like Baldur's Gate, intel you receive on potential enemies is mostly correct save for plot twists that may occur. I was not expecting to get a biased or even racist opinion that held no real consequences besides that of bringing believability to the world. The goblins had captured Bragit and held him, but they didn't attack me. Had he done something to them? Was he not what he seemed? Was there a misunderstanding? It also allowed role playing options such as trying to pry information out of the leader, lying about having talked to the Green Goblins, and other interesting choices. I kept honest and said I had not spoken to the other groups and was given a little background on the factions.

[Just like trying to get my buddy on the horn.]

After talking to the Grey Goblins, I decided to visit the Green variety that were just as amiable. I discussed the history of the groups with their leader and learned that both the humans and goblins were commissioned to colonize the abyss. Unfortunately, the leader of the expedition was killed leaving each faction to fall apart without guidance causing the current situation. I found the grave of this leader, Korianous, and several nearby items including a strange resilient sphere. I'm sure these will come into play later. I was also able to convince their chef to reveal his special recipe for "Rot Worm Stew". Yum.

Getting to Korianous’s grave was easy and involved the jumping puzzle PetrusOctavianus mentioned in the last post. The puzzle consists of a room with eight pillars, four of which are each a little higher than the last to form stepping stones going up. The other four are flush with the ground and have different textures: dirt, stone, or marble. Using levers in a nearby room, these can be raised higher or lower to form the lower set of "stairs" allowing the player to jump up to the highest. By simply setting each lever one setting higher than the last this is easily accomplished. The jumps are also aided by the use of SHIFT+J which does a standing long jump instead of having to run and jump. Sometimes this can result in a physics bug and the player bouncing off of walls and into pits. The standing long jump has a set distance and is far more stable. Retrieving the rewards listed above was also a huge help. (Especially the giant axe I got!)

[A bit of world building history to be missed if you don't talk to the goblins.]

After talking to all of the factions, including the humans, I mapped out the rest of the level as thoroughly as I could. The only event of note was a harrowing fight against a giant poisonous spider the Gray Goblins had been complaining about. After defeating it (with lots of healing spells) I picked up some of the strong thread that makes up its web. I will probably try to attach one to a pole I have to make a fishing pole, but who knows what else it may be useful for?

I also found the door to the shrine on the first level. Much like Ultima 4, the abyss contains shrines corresponding to each virtue that can be prayed to in order to increase character stats. Unfortunately, the door is locked and I cannot find a key that works anywhere. Should I come back to this later or have I missed something major? Anyway, having done all I can, I took one of the dark stairways down to Level 2 to face even nastier dangers that surely await me!

[(Almost) Complete map of Level 1. Conspicuously missing the ankh shaped shrine, though.]

The Mechanics

I discussed the mechanics of movement and manipulating items a little in the last post, but I did not mention anything about the use of the items. I have not really had any problems using items in the world. It is easy to click on food to eat it or the bedroll to sleep. Keys are selected and then used on doors in the environment to unlock them just like in a point and click adventure. One mechanic that I AM having trouble with is item degradation.

As the player uses weapons in combat or gets hit by enemies, both weapons and armor gradually degrade. If they are completely destroyed, they disappear from the game and a replacement must be found. I think this is a great mechanic that stresses the importance of items and their scarcity in the dungeon, but it could have been better balanced. Almost every swing of my weapon causes the message "Weapon damaged" to appear in the feedback window. In one battle with two goblins I went through one dagger and two cudgels. Since this battle, my backpack looks more like a kitchen drawer with all the knives and other stuff in it just in case my weapons give out. It has not caused any serious problems for me yet, but I can imagine it being a huge problem as situations get more dangerous. I will have to be more careful to avoid combat unless a more permanent solution is available. It may be time to dip into some offensive spells...

I will discuss more mechanics that interest me as they show up, but you are more than welcome to bring up any other topics you would like to discuss in the comments section. I am very impressed with the design of the game, so far, and consider these minor complaints to be nothing close to serious problems for me.

What's next?

Moving down to Level 2, I have planted my silver seed and am ready to start exploring. The level looks more like a mineshaft with wood paneled walls. I hope it is not too mazelike, but the inclusion of an automap makes this a mild annoyance. Stay tuned.

I have not had much time to play my other games, but I have started playing Spec Ops: The Line after learning that it is more than just a modern warfare shooter. I look forward to seeing what happens as I understand it is a commentary about video game violence and goes beyond what most games attempt to do to make a statement. Whether it succeeds or not still makes it admirable. I just hope that game designers don't get too mired down in irony and satire as this can lead to even bigger problems.

Follow me on Twitter (@backlogkiller) and feel free to leave any comments or suggestions you have. I am also thinking about getting some software to record moments of game play, but I am not sure where to start. If any of you have any experience with this, feel free to leave a message as well.

--Backlog Killer

40 - Past is Future

After playing only five minutes of Ultima Underworld, I was already floored by its brilliance.

OK, that may sound a little dramatic, but I am extremely impressed with the quality of game design and imagination that has presented itself while playing Ultima Underworld. It plays like a modern action dungeon crawler that has been stuffed into a retro game wrapper. The clunky user interface and cumbersome controls cannot weigh down the innovative game play and feeling of immersion that shines through. Although this may sound gushing, and my tune may change in the future, I can certainly see why Ultima Underworld is held up as one of the greatest PC games of all time. It is a technological marvel for the time it came out and this experience will have a huge impact on my feeling about all similar games I have played and all those I will play in the future.


The background of Ultima Underworld.

Ultima Underworld does not have much of a story, admittedly. I mentioned that the original design was hastily shoved into the Ultima canon in the last post and it shows. The introduction starts with the player being pulled into the world of Britania, much like in the other games, except this time through sleep instead of a moon gate. The player appears in the bedroom of Baron Uldrich’s daughter only to see a cloaked form kidnap her and toss her to a lumbering troll waiting below her window. As she is carried off into the woods, castle guards burst into the room and assume that I am responsible for the kidnapping. Even though I claim to be the Avatar, the savior of Britania, they do not believe me and tossed me into the Stygian Abyss to rescue the young girl. This ridiculous theme of not recognizing the most famous hero in all of Britania’s history occurs in almost every Ultima game and is often used as a cover for copy protection to make sure “thou art truly the Avatar”. To prove my worth and innocence I am thrown into the Stygian Abyss dressed only in what I can assume are my pajamas and given meager rations and a torch. It seems like they would have given me more resources if they wanted to ensure my success in the rescue of the Baron’s daughter.

[I think the voice actors were in house talent.]

I have no intention of lambasting the story of Ultima Underworld since it was added so late and was never intended to be there in the first place. The real star of the show here is the simulation of dungeon exploration and the discovery of exciting places and scary creatures. It does well enough to set up a simple plot and motivation for exploration which is more than I need. The real story emerges as the player explores the dungeon and deals with its dangers.


Exploring the Underworld

Ultima Underworld fits squarely into a family of games that I like to describe as ‘respectfully difficult’. Not that I want to be punished all the time, but I appreciate when the designers of a game give the player enough information and tools to get started while also trusting him or her to be clever enough to head off on their own. Many games I have loved do this including STALKER, Deus Ex, and Dark Souls.

This game begins the minute you step into the dungeon from the outside. Lighting up a torch, I found a bag containing several useful tools including a dagger. The wall also bore etchings describing a previous attack by a group of dungeon denizens that evidently went poorly, thus removing any hope that I can escape the way I came in. I continued down the hallway toward whatever dangers awaited me.

[Who knows what adventures await down this first darkened tunnel?]

Exploring the dungeon is both tense and exciting. Every corner reveals new secrets and possible treasures. Trash scattered on the ground can be examined to find useful equipment and items. In true Ultima fashion, almost all of the objects littering the dungeon can be picked up or moved around. Just around the corner from the entrance I found two magical runes that can be arranged to cast spells. I found more runes and a rune bag on the corpse of a previous adventurer so that I could begin experimenting with magic, although I have not had the chance to yet. It is already evident that I need a keen eye to make sure I check every item to give me the best equipment and chance of survival. I also found a silver seed that I can plant and remove on any patch of dirt so that I may be resurrected from the sprouting silver tree. It operates like the VitaChambers in Bioshock, but encourages some strategy because it must be moved to safe places so that the player may regroup and continue after each death.

[Low-tech VitaChambers!]

The twists and turns of dungeon passages guarantee that no player will follow a set path through. It is more than likely no two players will explore the space the same way giving very different experiences each time. I found myself getting lost on several occasions, even though there is a highly functional automap system in the game. Not only does it display hallways and natural features, but also allows the player to write notes on the map to remind him or her of any notable locations. I plan on using this feature liberally.

[My discoveries and various notes.]

The coolest thing I have found on the first level of the dungeon is an entire river running from East to West. I was glad to find it is not an instant death trap when I fell into it and swam up the river for quite some time discovering secret alcoves and item caches. The scope of the map blew me away. I was expecting a quick start to the game as it is only the first level, but the designers had other ideas. Not only do the mysteries of the river interest me, but I also ran into an NPC who informed me that the world was much bigger than I had ever imagined. He had wandered from an entire colony of humans living INSIDE the dungeon and warned me about warring factions of goblins that infest other parts of the level. I ran into a few green goblins and am not looking forward to the more dangerous grey breed he described. I have yet to find the human base and am just bumbling about trying doors, exploring nooks, and fighting small animals.

[Getting the low down on level one from this dude named Bragit.]

Combat in Ultima Underworld is very simplistic so far. All that is required is to enter combat mode by clicking the icon in the UI (or pressing the F5 key) and holding down the attack button until the gem glows green indicating the character’s wind-up is complete. Upon releasing the mouse button, the character will swing/thrust the weapon hitting any enemy the player is facing. So far I have only fought weak cave dwellers such as slugs, bats, rot worms, and a spider. I also ran into a green goblin that pelted me with rocks from a sling but went down without much trouble. I picked up the sling but haven’t tried ranged combat yet. A major problem is that the small window and slowness of looking up and down make awareness of monsters difficult. On several occasions I did not realize I was being attacked until I noticed my health indicator (the read vial) dwindling to almost nothing. Luckily, the game includes dynamic music that changes in the presence of monsters making this occur less often as I learn the game. I was able to heal myself by taking a nap using a bedroll I found, but I forgot to extinguish my torch. When I awoke it was completely burned out forcing me to light my only remaining torch. I need to remember this is a simulation and there is no ‘easy mode’ here. I love it.

[Bragit says the ankh represents safe areas with humans... how do I get in?]

Next...

I hope to complete the first level before the next update. My current plan is to explore the rest of the river and use a silver key I found to unlock a door marked with a skull that I had to bypass earlier. After that, I will search for the group of humans I was told about so that I can trade for more items. I am running low on torches and food and do not feel comfortable going too far until I get more. I have found pieces of armor here and there, but it is mostly leather and will need to be upgraded before I face more difficult enemies. Wish me luck on that front.

As for other news, I have been playing a few other games when I have shorter periods of time available. The Binding of Isaac is an action roguelike that has been eating lots of my fifteen to twenty minute gaps and I recommend it highly. It plays a little like The Legend of Zelda with top down dungeon exploration and items, but it is much more difficult. The challenge is refreshing and the strategy of finding and using certain items is very deep. The imagery is also haunting. Most of the art draws on the themes of mental illness, psychosis, and religion to produce a very disturbing game world consisting of deformed monsters, feces, and other darker corners of the mind. I recommend you check it out because the game is very good, but certainly not for the faint of heart.

In addition to The Binding of Isaac, I have also started replaying one of my favorite games: Dark Souls. This is in anticipation of the new show friends of the blog Kole Ross and Gary Butterfield are releasing later this month titled The Bonfireside Chat. The show is a podcast about any and everything Dark Souls. Each episode will be dedicated to certain areas of the game discussing their lore, monsters, and strategies. Given how deep and opaque these are in Dark Souls, I am anticipating a very stimulating conversation. Be sure to check it out and join the Facebook group to give them some support. As always, I highly recommend you check out the other shows on Duckfeed.tv as well.

Join me next time when I will (hopefully) be finished with the first floor of the Stygian Abyss and ready to dive deeper into its mysteries. Also, follow me on Twitter (@backlogkiller) to get real time updates to my progress!


--Backlog Killer

39 - Ultima Underworld

Ultima Underworld (along with the rest of the Ultima series) is one of the major reasons I started this blog. Despite my broad experience with games, I still have major blind spots I was seeking to fill during my spending binges by buying classic games as they came out on modern distribution platforms. Ultima Underworld was one of the major games  I was unable to play when it was released because of availability or insufficient PC power. Now is my chance to finally leap into what many PC gamers consider to be one of the best (and earliest) first person adventures in gaming history.


History of Ultima Underworld

Released in 1992, Ultima Underworld is a three dimensional dungeon exploration simulator developed by Blue Sky Productions and published by Origin Systems. If Blue Sky Productions does not sound familiar, it is probably because it became more famous after a merger when it changed its name to Looking Glass Studios. Looking Glass developed many other classic games such as Thief 1 and 2 as well as System Shock 1 and 2. The influence of Ultima Underworld can easily be seen in these projects as they all set out to simulate their environments with maximum interactivity and innovative concepts. The original System Shock was even developed as a direct response to Ultima Underworld. A dungeon in space.

[A space station is awesome for a cyberpunk horror/adventure/rpg.]

Despite its many advances, Ultima Underworld was still very much a product of its time with obvious similarities to other three dimensional dungeon crawlers such as Wizardry and Might & Magic. What it did differently was attempt to remove any abstraction from game play by allowing as many actions as possible. Players were able to look up and down (this wasn't even possible in Doom), pick up or move any object, move freely without a grid system, and interact with systems in the dungeon such as fishing and traps. The game engine even featured fully texture mapped architecture and creature sprites moving around in real time! These concepts and design decisions have lived on to this very day as evidenced by the recent blockbuster Skyrim. Heck, it even did slopes and I don't remember that really happening until the Build engine.

The innovations did not come without any growing pains. Even at the time, the interface of Ultima Underworld was clunky and unwieldy, encouraging the player to use the mouse for movement, spells, and combat. When compared to the use of hotkeys and buttons on the user interface, this seemed to be a bit of a step back in terms of efficiency. But who had ever done anything like this before? The developers and players were still trying to find their legs in this new type of game. I remember playing System Shock which uses a similar user interface and only being mildly annoyed. I would do anything and fight any system to simply walk around and marvel the beautiful, interactive 3D environment.

[The UI is a little obtrusive, but it also allowed faster rendering of the 3D environment!]

Other players felt the same way, too. The game sold well enough to warrant a sequel that was released the following year, even though it is not spoken about as fondly. Another interesting fact is that the dungeon simulation was being developed on its own with no association with the Ultima brand. Richard Garriott, creator of the Ultima series and then CEO of Origin, thought it would be a good idea to attach it to the series and the rest is history. Despite difficulties in production, implementation, and the risk of it not even being released, Ultima Underworld came out and was a hit. It truly was a "Change the world project" as Warren Spector stated as shown by the success of similar games like the Elder Scrolls series. Ultima Underworld may truly be one of the most important games ever made.

What is my history?

I have no history with Ultima Underworld. It is probably one of my largest blind spots in gaming history and will most likely color many of my opinions regarding games I've already played and will play in the future. I came to know Origin Systems through the demo for System Shock which appeared on a PC Gamer demo CD that I got along with a magazine from the grocery store. My friends and I played it endlessly, enamored by the seemingly infinite possibilities the engine and systems provided. I did end up finding the full version of System Shock, but Ultima Underworld went completely under my radar since we bought our PC around 1994 or 1995.

Incidentally, System Shock has been worked on tirelessly by modders to get it working on modern systems. It is freely available and can fit on a thumb drive to move to different computers. I highly recommend you try it!

Even though I have only performed minor play tests with Ultima Underworld to ensure its functionality, I can already see many yarns being pulled and attached to other gaming experiences. It is early in the evolution of first person action RPGs, but contains all of the required systems that make them fun: combat, NPC interaction, mapping, dangerous traps and tricks, and other goodies I will discuss as they come up. I am looking forward to stepping into the dungeon and seeing how long I can survive.

It is also apparent that the game was hastily brought into the Ultima canon and is tangential at best. I will include it with the games, but will also try to avoid any slams that relate to the game not adhering to the Ultima stories with regard to the Avatar et. all.

I look forward to seeing you next time when I finally enter the Stygian Abyss in 2013, twenty years after Ultima Underworld’s release.

If you are interested in the story of Looking Glass Studios, you simply MUST listen to the Looking Glass Podcast in which former employees of the development team talk about their projects, the culture of the studio, and tell tons of other interesting stories. The development of Ultima Underworld is frequently discussed and some of the interviews include well known names such as Ken Levine. I listened to the whole series last year and enjoyed every minute. The podcast series has finished so you can listen at your leisure.

Feel free to leave any comments or hints you have for beginning my journey, but please try to avoid spoilers. I also hope you will follow me on Twitter @backlogkiller. I like to live tweet games I am playing as well as updates about the blog. I hope you all are having a wonderful new year and I can't wait to see where it goes.


--Backlog Killer

Happy New Year!

Happy (Belated? Early?) New Year depending on where you are! I look forward to more backlong conquering in the year to come and hope you, too, finally decide to tackle your games sitting in the corner. Be sure to have a good one!

The Ultima Underworld intro will follow shortly.

--Backlog Killler

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas everyone! And if you don't celebrate Christmas, happy holidays! I've had a great year and a good time working on this blog and I really appreciate all of you, even the silent readers. I've accomplished more than I thought I would when I started writing. Heck, I'm happy I finished Planescape: Torment for the first time since high school since I've had so many false starts between then and now.

I have really come to appreciate games in a different way than I used to and enjoy weighing their pros, cons, and meaning to me in a constructive manner. I never thought I would be writing about The Nameless One representing capitulation with your past or Psychonauts being a metaphor for mental illnesses, but there it is. I have also gotten used to using a more editorial voice to add a personal touch to the blog instead of the standard "I did this then that" play through. It has helped me personally and it feels therapeutic to be as open with all of you as I can.

 I am afraid I won't be able to leave a message tomorrow (Christmas ticks over in 4 hours here), so I wanted to be sure to get it up here.

Thank you so much for reading, for your contributions, and for your interest. I really appreciate it and look forward to even more fun in the new year!

Sincerely,
Backlog Killer

38 - Going Underground

Well I apologize for the lack of updates, but I have been doing pretty well. Christmas is coming and I finally get a nice (two day) vacation to relax and do whatever I want. In the mean time, I have been spreading myself a little thin game-wise by testing STALKER: Call of Pripyat and getting back into some games I have finished before such as Fallout 2 and Dark Souls. I have also picked up the THQ Humble Bundle to add to my list of games, but I am not too optimistic about Metro 2033 after my STALKER experience. Suffice it to say, I have plenty of games to keep me busy for a while.

So what’s up with STALKER?

Basically, I can’t get the game to work well enough for my schedule and sanity. The game looks great and runs pretty well while I am playing, but is extremely unstable when loading and unloading data. In my experience, the X-Ray engine crashed every time a map was unloaded, loaded, or reloaded after a death. Considering how threatening the game systems are and how painfully mortal the character is, this problem is a huge barrier for entry. I also experienced random crashes when just exiting to the menu making saves that are not quicksaves a dangerous prospect.

[The game looked better than it worked.]

I am very disappointed because STALKER was one of the games I was looking forward to playing the most. I completed the first game and played over thirty hours of Call of Pripyat a few years ago but never finished it. Dipping back into the game, I realized that I love it so much because it is not so much an FPS but a simulation. The game is based much more around dealing with its systems than finding stuff to shoot. It is one of my favorite set-ups for a game in which you are given a mission, dropped in the play area, and told “good luck”.

STALKER literally begins in the middle of the wilderness with nothing but a few rations, a rifle, a pistol, and some ammunition. It is up to the player to get to know the area, establish contact with other STALKERS, get some better equipment, and investigate some crashed helicopters. How it is done, when it is done, and even IF it is done is entirely up to the player. It is possible to get lost in the world and become a bandit who murders and steals from STALKERS who wandered to far from the base camp if you want to. The experience does a good job simulating what it is like being alone with no authority figure telling you what to do and it works very well. The game is brutal (in violence and difficulty) and bleak, but very deep in terms of things to explore in the world and things to do. I wish I could have taken the journey with you.

What I’ve been playing.

After listening to friends of the blog Watch Out forFireballs play the original Fallout, I was inspired to begin playing Fallout 2 again for probably the first time since I beat it in high school. When I wasn't feeling so well, I would always decide to begin with the first Fallout with the intention of finishing the entire series. Of course, this never happened and, even if I completed Fallout 1, I would not want to continue. Being more patient and ready to engage has been a treat. Even though I am still currently in the first major location, the small trapper town of Klamath, I am enjoying the game immensely. The vivid descriptions and humorous writing are excellent for filling in the holes left by low fidelity graphics. It is very similar to my experience of playing Planescape: Torment for the blog in which developers recognize the limitations of their technology and play to its strengths rather than trying to pull a smoke and mirrors act to cover them up. Hopefully, my gunslinging, fast talking gamblin’ ramblin’ man will be able to save his village and unlock other sinister mysteries that may threaten the post-nuclear American southwest before it's too late!

In addition to Fallout 2, I have started a new character in one of my favorite game releases of the last few years: Dark Souls. I’m sure all of you know about this difficult game, so I won’t harp on it too much other than to say it’s great to be treated with respect by a game. Much like STALKER, Dark Souls drops the player into the world, says “good luck, jerk”, and immediately begins to assault him or her. I finished the game before with a min-maxed build that makes the game relatively easier, but this time I am using a decidedly more challenging dexterity based build relying on avoidance and backstabs. Wish me luck!

What’s next?

Ah yes, what is next? I thought about making my own choice, but I decided to leave it up to the random number generator. I was pleasantly surprised:

[Check the games list.]

Well, folks, just after traversing the Stygian Abyss in Ultima 4, it looks like I need to re-enter in Ultima Underworld. This is a huge blindspot in my backlog considering I’ve never played the game at all. I assume a lot has changed in the Abyss since I found the Codex of Infinite wisdom, so join me as I investigate what has happened.

And finally…

While the blog is growing slowly but surely, I would like to thank those who have helped and encouraged me. My good friend, Nathan Madison, has been a big encouragement for my writing and has recently published his own book: Anti-Foreign Imagery in American Pulps and Comic Books, 1920-1960. It is being published by McFarland Books and is well worth a look if you are interested in pulp fiction and classic comics. He continues to work tirelessly and I look forward to what he does next. (Watch out for those spiders in your comics, though, buddy.)

I also want to thank Kole Ross and Gary Butterfield of the Watch Out for Fireballs podcast, once again. They produce one of the highest quality video game podcasts I’ve listened to and are continuing to have great conversations about classic games. I encourage you to listen to their recent discussion of the original Fallout and other classic games on Itunes or Stitcher. I also HIGHLY recommend you check out the other shows on their network Duckfeed.tv: The Level is a round table modern video games discussion show, Those Damn Ross Kids which is a comedy podcast featuring brothers Kris and Kole Ross, as well as Gary Butterfield’s new show The Pitch in which he and his pal discuss cockamamie schemes for new products. While you are there, please be sure to listen to Gary’s Dead Idea Valhalla Podcast which was an inspiration for my openness in this blog. It’s a great show with good stories, comedy bits, and cool music to listen to.

Finally, be sure to check out the gaming community website CheerfulGhost.com. Jon Dodson has created a community where you can easily discuss the games you own with other players. Link your account to your Steam ID, Playstation 3 account, and XBOX account to have all your games added automatically! Part of the reason I started this blog was to start discussion about what I find interesting in games and this website is a great place to do the same.

I’ll see you next time when we venture into the Stygian Abyss in Ultima Underworld.

--Backlog Killer

An Unfortunate Announcement

Well, I hate to say it, but STALKER: Call of Pripyat will not be featured for the next entry. After modding, umodding, and experimenting for several hours, I have found the game to be too unstable to play for the blog. This is probably because of my shoddy graphics card (didn't buy a "gaming rig"), but I had hoped the game was old enough to make this a non-issue. Compounded with the instability of the X-Ray engine the game runs on, the whole process has been a nightmare.

Here's the problem: STALKER crashes almost every time I die and the map needs to reload, I switch to another map, or other reasons I can't seem to determine. Seeing as dying happens a lot and has already caused serious frustration, I don't want to put undue pressure on myself. This game is going to the bottom of the pile until I get a better computer.

As a younger gamer, I used to be obsessed with keeping up with the latest technology and having everything run perfectly at maximum graphics settings, but now I just can't seem to get myself to care that much. I want to enjoy the game rather than fighting with it to get it working. I realize this is a major part of PC gaming and I learned a lot about computers by dealing with conflicts and boot orders, but I don't have time for it anymore.

I am going to take a few days to figure out where I will go next, whether it be picking another random game or doing another Player's Choice. Thanks for your patience, everyone.

--Backlog Killer

37 - Story of a game named Braid

Having played Braid and thought about it for a week or so, I can honestly say that while its gameplay and mechanics as metaphor are extremely strong, the actual meaning of the story makes almost no sense to me as an authorial choice. Although disappointed, I do not think this choice necessarily ruins interpretation or application to other subjects that are easier to relate to. As a whole, though, “No sir, I don’t like it”.


Story through mechanics

I discussed a lot about the mechanics of Braid in the previous post, but I tried to avoid most of the interpretation of them relating to the plot. Well, when I say ‘plot’ I mean what few words are displayed at the beginning of each world. I am not necessarily criticizing those ‘elliptical’ passages I mentioned as they do leave lots of room for interpretation and mystery as the story develops. The rest of the meaning is experienced while playing the game.

The basic story laid out in the block text tells of Tim, the player’s character, and his search for the Princess whom he lost and is now trying to recapture. It describes his long working hours, times of abandonment, and yearning for her since she has left him. When combined with the mechanics of reversing time and changing previous decisions, the game takes on the form of an extremely strong metaphor that constantly reshaped and adjusted every time I received more information.

We have all made decisions we regret and many people have the experience of the proverbial “one that got away”. Luckily, I have not had to go through that particular trial, but it is easy to substitute that idea with many other Princesses. Careers, notable experiences, or even lost youth are all compelling and relatable ‘Princesses’ to seek and attempt to possess again. The final scene of Braid that was captured in a video of the last post shows the poignant partnership of Tim and the princess that suddenly becomes sinister when run in reverse. While Tim is attempting to find the princess again, we see that she is trying to block his return when he left in the first place. A very meaningful scene when relating it to analyzing those situations in which we are trying to find something we lost, but are blocked from return for various reasons.

Unfortunately, after such an impactful set piece, the game took a complete left turn and moved to associate it with something I did not expect and, to be frank, turned me off at the end.

Note that I will be talking about the only real plot spoiler that exists in the game. If you plan on playing Braid, it may be worth it to take three or four hours to play through before finding out what it is. If you are ready, read on.


What is Braid about?

Braid is about the regret of a scientist who helped developed nuclear technology to be used in bombs.

Although it may still be a little cryptic at the end, the inclusion of the quote “Now we are all sons of bitches” literally made me stop and say “What?” Why choose such a grandiose theme to apply the metaphor of Braid to? I can’t relate to unlocking a secret that led to the cold war or terror about all future wars. I thought the story was about lost love or innocence. I was slightly betrayed by how serious the game seemed to take itself at this point.

Although this may not sit well with you, dear reader, I cannot help it as an audience member to what is ostensibly a piece of art. It is not relatable in any way for most players, even those that may have grown up in the Cold War era. Maybe I am not the intended audience, but I must say that the choice of subject put me off enough to pretty much dismiss it completely.

Despite this, the metaphor of regret and the desire to re-write history is very strong and can be applied to many more appropriate and relatable subjects that I listed above. I would much rather had Mr. Blow leave his subject nebulous or make it easier to get on-board with. But, it is what it is and it shall remain forever.

Please let me know what you think of Braid and if you disagree with me. I think it is interesting that it can inspire this sort of reaction in me and divisiveness among gamers. I certainly understand why it is such a unique game and why Jonathan Blow a controversial designer.

Joint me next time when I will discuss a little about S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat. It is just as bleak, but a little less heady than Braid. I’m looking forward to it!


--Backlog Killer

Interlude - The Next Game

Before putting my thoughts about the story of Braid out there, I've decided to release the name of the next game I'll be playing. I appreciate the comments about Braid and I look forward to hearing any more you may have. It really is a good game but has some flaws that make me very ambivalent. Hearing arguments from both sides would be great!

Anyway, as for the next game, I don't know what it is. I have recompiled my list of games based on my experience doing the blog and have removed some games I do not think will make good entries. On the other hand, I have bought a few new games as recently as the newest Humble Bundle that you can see. The list is now a Google document that can be changed at any time.

Check it out!

I will now use the online random number generator to choose the next game which is...

Number 44! STALKER: Call of Pripyat. This is another serendipitous occasion as I was just thinking about playing the game again and was actually considering it for the Player's Choice that ended up being Braid.

Join me next time when I will talk about my opinion regarding the strengths and flaws of Braid's story. While preparing that, I will try to get STALKER going with just a few mods because, let me tell you, the game is gorgeous. See you next time!


--Backlog Killer

36 - Braid: The Game, The Myth, The Legend

[Please enjoy my video review of Braid. *Naughty Language Warning*]

Just kidding about that.

I am proud to say that I have played through the entirety of Braid in just over four hours and enjoyed it very much. Although, you can see how my schedule works based on the fact that my last post was dated 20^th of November while this one is over a week later. In the mean time, I have been doing the same old same old with a break to celebrate Thanksgiving in this far away land. Even though it was in an Italian restaurant located in Tsuen Wan, it was still enjoyable for the food and the company. Maybe next year I can make it back for a full family gathering in America.

Anyway, this post will be more of a discussion about the mechanics and my experience with the game while the following will be about what it means to me thematically. I will go ahead and tip my hand by saying that I have enjoyed the game play very much while the integration of story and mechanics has been quite disappointing. This is absolutely no problem for me as a huge amount of control and agency is given to the player within the structure of the game with the story being established as a secondary thought.

My perception of games as a spectrum running between Mechanics and Story still holds up.

NOTE: There will be spoilers contained in videos. Watch at your own discretion.

What’s the deal with Braid?

If you have been living under a rock (like me) and haven’t heard much about Braid, I will put it in simple terms. Braid is an independently developed platformer that focuses around the manipulation of time. That is to say there are three major controls: moving left and right, jumping and reversing time like a tape recording. These simple concepts are put together to design devious puzzles that will twist your brain and challenge your concept of linear thinking. As more world-specific rules are introduced, these challenges only become more complex. The goal is to use these powers and limitations to collect jigsaw puzzle pieces scattered around the world to form a complete picture at the end of the level. These pictures are then displayed in the world select screen which is represented as a house with several rooms. As each puzzle is solved, a ladder is constructed allowing the player to move into the attic for the final act.

Jonathan Blow, the designer of Braid, meant the game to be a “critique of contemporary trends in game development” which seems a little broad to me. Besides the beautifully drawn worlds and music, the only analytic part I have found are elliptical passages at the beginning of each world. These tell a story about Tim (presumably the main character) who is seeking a princess that has been captured by a monster. I am not sure if this is related to the jigsaw puzzle pictures or the house, but it is something neat to think about. I will discuss these in the next post.

 Purely Gameplay.

It is rare that I feel psychically drained after playing a game, but Braid certainly makes me feel this way. Time travel is a strange beast to contend with in any context, and the fact that it is ubiquitous in Braid makes it even harder to parse. The player is allowed to rewind at ANY time during the game. This experience may be affected by other special rules at play in the level, but, for the most part, your character and every other element on the playing field will retrace their steps to where they were. The first world (labeled World 2) is very easy and simply introduces the rewinding mechanics. This allows for simple puzzles such as retrying missed jumps or falling down a large pit with spiked obstacles, seeing the position of these traps, rewinding, and falling down safely. Even though it is easily completed, there is one tricky puzzle involving the jigsaw puzzle itself that I felt was a little unfair since this mechanic will never be touched again in the game.

As Tim moves into the other worlds, stranger and more difficult permutations begin to appear. World 3 features elements and monsters that sparkle green and are immune to all time reversal. My favorite use of this is a puzzle piece hidden behind three locked doors. Each door requires one key which will break after usage. There are two keys in the level which is obviously not enough for three doors… unless time is not a factor. The trick is one key is sparkling (immune to time) and will remain broken when rewinding while the other unsparkling key CAN be unbroken through time manipulation. Combined with the fact that one of the doors is sparkling, the solution is evident: use the sparkling key to open the first door, pick up the regular key to open the sparkling door, rewind time, and the use it again on the last door to collect the puzzle piece. If that seems confusing, here is a video of what I mean:

 

[Puzzle at 5:40.] 

As you can see, a large degree of spatial thinking is required and I spent a lot of my time simply looking at the screen and trying to figure out what to do. Things were to become even MORE complex in World 4.

World 4 takes a very literal interpretation of time in that every time the character moves towards the right side of the screen time moves forward at the speed he is walking. When the character walks back toward the left, time is reversed and all the elements of the level return to their original positions. Enemies that have been killed come back to life, platforms move back into place, and even the soundtrack rewinds to the beginning of the song. This makes for a very solid set of puzzles that are pretty easy since all of the elements are gauged to be at certain areas depending on your position to block your progress. I had no trouble with this one.

World 5 introduces a shadow that literally repeats the past. When running through each level, the player can reverse time for up to thirty seconds or so and watch as a shadow of Tim’s former self repeats every action that was just taken. (For better or for worse.) This allows the player to be in two places at once. For example, if Tim needs to ride an elevator up to get a puzzle piece but the switch is behind a wall, the player can stand on the elevator platform, run to the switch, operate the switch, and rewind back to the point Tim was on the elevator in the first place. The shadow will then run to the switch and operate it allowing real Tim to ride up and get the piece. I know it sounds confusing, and it is, but experimentation makes it very interesting and fun to work with.

 [All the puzzle are interesting, particularly at 2:00. Just give the key to yourself!]

The last numbered world, World 6, introduces a magical disc that Tim can drop on any platform that acts as a time vortex. Any object or character that approaches the center of the disc gradually slows until movement is reduced to a snail’s pace, after which it increases while moving away from the center. I know it is a little difficult to explain, so here is another video:

[The time disc of World 6.]

The puzzles of this world are mostly about manipulating time in certain areas while others progress normally to adjust the timing of objects and monsters. This format also guarded the piece I had the most trouble getting which is featured in the video at 7:00 minutes. I thought I had reached the end of the game but was faced with one last world named simply “1”.

1 is played entirely in reverse. Enemies walk backward, the music plays backward, the only thing not backward is Tim. The puzzles are simple since the first two levels are just finding ways to bounce to a high platform by bouncing on a monster repeatedly. The monster cannot die because it is constantly going back in time which is interesting. What is even more interesting is the final level in which Tim tries to help the princes escape a wall of flame as she helps him progress toward the right side of the level using what seems to be teamwork. Here is a video of that level:

[The "boss" of Braid.]

The entire second half of the level is running the entire process in reverse time where the meaning is completely changed. Instead of the princess helping Tim progress, she is actually blocking his return to the house and she is ultimately rescued by an armored prince carries her into the sky. After this sequence, the player is allowed to enter a room titled “Epilogue” in which more cryptic passages describe the rest of the story.

As for what I think…

I will stop here because I do not want to touch story and meaning yet, but, as you can see, there is quite a lot to discuss about the game. The mechanics of gameplay are extremely innovative and make for a very compelling puzzle platformer. Each level contains what has become the gold standard for puzzles games: What first looks like an impossible situation is gradually sussed out by the player who, after ultimately solving the puzzle, feels like a freaking genius. Every time I solved a difficult puzzle I felt so proud of myself. Putting the last jigsaw piece into the puzzle is satisfying every time and makes a 100% enjoyable game. I would compare the feeling to Portal 1 and 2 in terms of puzzle construction and ingenuity. It is a masterpiece of gameplay.

What did I not enjoy: the story of the game. What could have been a very personal and interesting story just went off the deep end AND jumped the shark for me. I will discuss this next time by covering what I thought the story would mean and why I was excited versus what really happened. So hold on to your spoilery butts, I’m going to blow the lid off of Braid and out myself as a philistine who does not love what has become the darling of indie gaming!

I still like it though.

--Backlog Killer

p.s. I would like to thank MorroJ who's YouTube videos I linked to. Maybe he can get some more hits on his channel from it.

35 - Braid

After finishing Ultima 4, I will be moving into my “Player’s Choice” for the blog. I have decided to go with a game that is highly recommended and respected in the media: Braid. I will be starting the game relatively cold having only completed the first world a few months ago in passing. Hopefully, this puzzle/platformer will have a little more pick up and play qualities than Ultima 4 did to provide a break from longer gaming sessions that are hard to schedule.

I do not know much about Braid other than it was designed by Jonathan Blow as a meta-commentary on games and is built around the concept of reversing time to solve environmental puzzles. The deeper contexts of the game should make for interesting writing and analysis. Unfortunately, that is literally all I know to write about thus far since it seems going in without any knowledge is the best way to play the game. If you have played it before and have any advice or tips for me, feel free to leave comments. I may also ask for help with prizes given for the most creative or helpful answers.

In the meantime, I have finally gotten around to playing the new Xcom game by Firaxis. Although it plays quite differently from the original UFO Defense, it has a lot going for it and suits my time schedule much better. As much as I would like to get mired in the stats of each soldier, micromanaging each base, and using large squad tactics, I just don’t have the time. Xcom streamlines many of the features that were tedious to perform in the original and has a great atmosphere about it. The plot is much more front loaded and does not emerge as a result of the missions themselves, which I am a little disappointed about, but it does hold true to the feeling of the original. The frailty of your assault teams and the inscrutable intentions of the aliens causes constant tension.

The only major complaint I have about the game is that the battlefield treats the enemy as ‘mobs’ that need to be activated before they begin moving. One of the scariest parts of the original X-Com is the inability to do anything as aliens wander around a populated city killing innocents while your troops desperately advance. Removing this makes the game feel less ‘real’ and reduces the sense of urgency in each mission. Other than that, I’m loving it so far.

[Oh no! I've 'agroed' the 'mob'.]

This has been a short announcement post, but I have the blinders on for Braid to save any surprises that may come in the game. Wish me luck as I know the puzzles are quite mind bending.

--Backlog Killer

34 - Ultima 4 Has Been Completed!

A huge push in the last week and a half has brought me back to the point I lost all my game data for Ultima 4. About six hours of game play has led to attainment of all eight virtues, the three items required to enter the abyss, the eight stones of virtue, and the three keys to open the access the Codec. Rushing through the game has also provided more frustration by laying bare its inner workings. The enjoyment of Ultima 4 comes from exploring the world and talking to its inhabitants. This naturally leads to acquirement of virtues, experience, and items. When rushing through the whole thing, these tasks are reduced to menial actions such as donating blood over and over, giving away money over and over, praying at shrines over and over... It's sort of like when you are driving to a new place and don’t notice traffic or other things going on besides your destination rather than being bothered by other drivers and minor delays when you know EXACTLY where you want to go. Fortunately, I had trained myself well to complete these tasks and was only mildly annoyed.



Gathering the masses


Before being so rudely interrupted during my other playthrough, I was just getting ready to collect the rest of my party. I visited the other cities to recruit the characters I had not taken into the dungeons (Minoc, Skara Brae, Jhelom, and Magincia) and put them in my party. I have three big problems now:

1) These characters have almost no experience and couldn’t hit the ground if they tripped and fell

2) The new followers need better weapons to make them useful in the Abyss

3) Combat is now TORTUROUSLY long as I have to complete eight moves instead of two or three


Just walking around the world has become a chore since any weak monsters that attack me will require at least two to three minutes of fighting. The new followers are almost no help and cannot hit anything. I was going to level them up initially, but now I think I will just make some resurrection spells, let them eat it, drag their bodies to the last part of the abyss, and resurrect them for the reading of the Codex of Infinite wisdom. I was at least able to equip them all with mystic armor and magical weapons to give them a small chance of survival.

My three strong companions, four underwhelming partners, and I board a boat to set sail for the final battle on the Isle of the Avatar.



Reaching the Island

[Deja Vu...]

Here we are again, invoking the power of the HMS Cape to strengthen the hull of the ship before engaging the pirate blockade. Using the same strategy, I simply move next to each ship and eliminate the crew to disable them. After reaching the shore, our expedition hikes through rocky terrain into the volcano itself to destroy Mondain’s Skull and open the Stygian Abyss.

The abyss is just like any other dungeon in the game except it blocks the player from casting Up or Down making traversal of every level necessary. At the end of each level is an altar that asks a question about each virtue that must be answered and its matching stone be deposited on the altar opening the ladder down to continue. The upper levels are quite easy and have only minor combat and puzzles in each room. As the party progresses deeper, things become a bit more ominous.

[The abyss looks like other dungeons to the naked eye. Just kidding, it looks identical to other dungeons.]

Around level five or six I hit a room full of Reapers around a corner that did nothing but put my party to sleep. I can honestly say that this is the most annoying part of the entire game. It is even more annoying than finding secret walls or touch plates in the rooms as in those cases it is possible to at least move around. While asleep, I had to simply watch the screen as it spammed the spell over and over while hoping at least one of my characters would awaken. It was very common for almost all of the party to put to sleep and any stragglers who remained awake were blocked by the bodies of their sleeping buddies. I had to wait for the sleepers to wake up, move them out of the way, let the others through, and hope that no more sleep spells were cast. At least I had some Tremor spells to soften everything up so that the first character to make it around the corner had an easier job.

[A common sight: everyone is asleep.]

The eighth and last level of the dungeon had one of the most devious collection of rooms I had encountered. The first group of rooms are full of false leads that look easy but lead into the middle of the map and only emerge where the party first entered. To progress, it is necessary to walk through lava, fight more sleep casting enemies, and find not one but TWO secret doors in a room. (One opens with a touch plate, but this is not the right way. ANOTHER touch plate is revealed allowing the correct direction to be traveled.)

[The final level of the Stygian Abyss!]

The second room group is much easier with a disappointing battle against an evil party matching mine. Hal cast two tremor spells eliminating all but one member of the opposition who was easily mopped up afterward. I completed the last combat room without even knowing it. After finding the touch plates to open the secret door, I approached the final altar nervously and offered the last stone I had: that of humility.




The Real End


After entering the password I learned from the castles (Veramocor), I entered the last chamber.The final part of Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar is a quiz about all of the virtues and principles learned throughout the game. It makes sense in the story, but it reminds me of John Galt's bloated speech near the end of Atlas Shrugged. It's almost as if to say "Well, if you haven't been paying attention to the themes and messages of this piece for the last twenty hours, let me ram it down your throat." (Although this quiz is admittedly MUCH easier than reading that part of Atlas Shrugged) Simply answer the questions with the eight virtues and the principles they combine to form (Love, Courage, and Truth) to form the symbol and reach the final question:

Infinity encompasses everything. The only way to learn this word is to translate the cryptic symbols that appear after each virtue you ascend. If the player didn't learn to do this when the game came out, I bet he or she would be pretty upset. I'm not sure you can even see them again after the initial showing. In any case, after answering infinity, the symbol of the virtues cracks open revealing the infinity symbol and returns our digital Avatar back to Earth.

Even though the ending may be underwhelming by today's standards, the slog through the final dungeon certainly makes it feel like the climax. Although the final dungeon is not very hard and is a little frustrating, it does well to inform the player this is it and brings some closure to the game. And that's it. I've FINALLY finished Ultima 4; the game that has eluded me for so long.




My thoughts after finishing


After finishing the game, I sat quietly and stared at the final screen for several minutes. I am in my home by myself, sitting on the couch with my dog next to me. All I can think is that "I've finally done it." Even though it is not nearly as important as my actual progress in real life, it is a concrete and satisfying way to quantify recovery. This program that brought me so much frustration and inappropriate stress has been completed and brought me happiness. I cannot even fathom how the game made me so frustrated in the past. Sure, some of the mechanics are dated such as the combat flow and the constant sleeping spells, but they are not nearly annoying enough to inspire anger, stress, or hopelessness I felt while playing it previously. It is obvious that I was projecting my own life into the game. Even though this is obviously what Richard Garriott intended, he wanted it to be what it is now: a feeling of hopefulness and contentment rather than frustration and rage.

I feel like the game has almost symbolized my own transformation into an Avatar in my own right. Instead of focusing on honesty, compassion, and the other virtues of Britania, I am a paragon of patience, understanding, empathy, and love. Just like the unnamed protagonist in the game, I certainly understand what it is like to be out of control of my own life and not sure where to turn next. But I have learned that relying on others is not weak or 'cheating', it is necessary to live a happy and healthy life. In a way, after finishing Ultima 4, I have finally returned to my own life's grassy meadow. I am laying comfortably and contented with where I am in my life with my wife and career. Even though the world may be imaginary, I am well aware that I can always return to Britania (my path to recovery in real life) to strengthen my resolve and be the hero that I need to be. A true Avatar ready to help others at any time. Is that a Renaissance fair I hear...

--Backlog Killer

Regrouping

Although I was quite upset after losing my Ultima save game, the accident brought about an epiphany. I’m sure in the past I would have lost control or done something I would have regretted such as yell at the computer or something equally as stupid. This time I thought about the pros and cons of restarting and what it would mean for the blog and my own time. While I was playing through originally, I frequently wondered about how things would flow once all the clues and goals were documented. This ‘tragedy’ is the perfect chance to find out.

The answer is: Ultima 4 can be completed in less than ten hours.

Aside from some grinding virtues and difficulty finding a boat (again), things have progressed about four times as fast. I am about to ascend in all the virtues after about three hours of playing and will be diving into the dungeons to collect the stones and keys once again. I will even be able to better prepare this time to prevent delays caused by my dungeon nemeses: Reavers. These stationary monsters that cast sleep on everyone at once can cause nightmares for the player. Six reavers can cast sleep six times in one turn, put your entire party to sleep, and pound them with electricity and fire. If I can make a lot of tremor/earthquake spells, these huge encounters should be much more comfortable.

[A common sight. (Pic taken from Nakar's wonderful Let's Play of the series.)]

I would put my estimated play time at about six to eight hours. I will be eager to see if this is how it will actually go down. After ‘power gaming’ for a few hours, it must be said that the entire flavor of the game world comes from conversations with the locals and the sense of wonder derived from exploring all the towns. Although I can handle the mechanics easily, it is like opening a television and seeing all the complex and ugly parts that weren’t meant to be observed individually. If you take the time to play, I genuinely suggest you do not consult a FAQ until necessary to fully absorb and appreciate the rich imagination of Lord British.

As for me…

I may be getting too confessional again, but I am very proud of how this entire thing went down. In the past, I can imagine this whole debacle weighing heavily on my mind with regards to time lost, effort lost on writing, my own stupidity and carelessness, and the actual act of giving up. The truth is that I was going to give up initially, but why not go for it? I had just written an entire post about how beating the game was going to prove to myself that I had recovered leaps and bounds beyond my previous mental state. Wouldn't giving up be falling into the same traps?

My wife also encouraged me to do the same, even though she doesn’t understand why I take video games so seriously. In most cases I would not care so much, but Ultima 4 carries so much weight for me. You could call this my last remaining white whale from that time. I cannot think of another project or game I would like to complete that I was unable to because of my problems. This one is more important than others, but only to me. Do you have any games (or books or other projects) that you regret not finishing for any reasons that may seem unreasonable to others? Be sure to let me know in the comments, I think it’s a really interesting idea to explore. I know I have always set arbitrary goals for games to beat such as Wizardry or Ultima 4. Although… I think most of these are super difficult games just so I can say “I finished it!”

I will continue to play, but will hold off the next entry until I have some real progress to write about. I still anticipate the next entry to be a ‘Won!’ post so stay tuned, this ain’t over yet.

--Backlog Killer

A Tragic Mistake

Well, readers, I've really screwed the pooch on this one. I will not be finishing Ultima 4. It turns out I have two copies of the game on this machine: one installed on the hard drive, the other on a flash drive I had used for testing on different computers. It turns out the game I was playing was on the flash drive and not the hard drive. After deleting the contents of said flash drive (thinking it was safely on the hard disk) to copy documents for a friend, everything was lost. It is not in the recycle bin. All of my progress, characters, stones, virtues, boats, all gone. I will not be able to finish the game and I am severely disappointed. I was going to win on my next play session and now I will probably never complete the game. What a shame.

More to follow later.


--Backlog Killer



Edit: I have decided to start over using my existing notes. Although annoying and frustrating, it is going well and should take half as much time as it originally did. Wish me luck.

33 - Lord British's Gift to Me

Playing Ultima 4 has become much more of a ‘face yourself’ situation than I had imagined it would. Even though I am encountering many of the same frustrations I did the first time, it is going much more smoothly. The game is starting to show its age now that I am beginning to poke around underground, but it is definitely not a deal breaker. It is more like suddenly changing the water tap from hot to cold. Let me explain…


The (Partial) Avatar

After the last update, I went on a quest to begin moongate hopping all over the world. In Britania there are two moons; each one waxing and waning at different rates. In addition to this, gates open and close depending on the phases of the moon. The moon on the left represents the departure gate while the one on the right is the destination. E.g. Moonglow is associated with a new moon and Minoc is a full moon. If you are at the location of the Moonglow moongate at a new moon, it will appear and, if the other moon is full, you will end up in Minoc. This is difficult because the moon phases do not always match up with where you want to go directly, forcing you to jump around until it is possible. Although this is useful in the early game, I need a faster way to get around. I need a ship.

[The moon configuration at the top would send me from Yew to Britain.]

Pirate ships are randomly generated. They appear in the ocean and along coastlines where you can board them, defeat the crew, and take them over. I waited for ten real time minutes on an island while passing turns and found nothing. Of course, once I gave up and went to Britain to make some money a boat showed up immediately. They are completely necessary as even though all the cities can be reached via moongates, some of their corresponding shrines cannot and require other means to travel to the remote islands. That may be a blink spell or a boat, but a ship is easier in most situations.

After becoming a sea captain (AHROY!), I was finally able to round out all of the virtues becoming the partial avatar. I have now made it further than ever before in Ultima 4. Now that I am the partial avatar, there are a few other things to take care of. I mentioned that it was necessary to retrieve the stones of virtue before entering the Abyss, but this is for later as most of them are in dungeons underground. I was able to snag two of them (Black for Humility and White for spirituality) since they were lost and scattered around the world. Black was easy. I was given a clue to search at the new moon moongates when two new moons appear. Simply go to Moonglow, stand on the moongate square, and hit search as soon as both moons are new. Easy experience points and stone. The white stone, on the other hand, was quite a lot of work.

Another clue tipped me off that the white stone of Spirituality had been lost in the Serpent Spine Mountains. After walking around the mountains twice it was obvious there was no way to get in there on foot, so I needed a way to get over them. There are no grappling hooks in Ultima 4, so I had to fall back on a little spoiled knowledge that there is a hot air balloon hidden somewhere in the world. It is actually located at the exit of one of the most remote dungeons in Britannia… so how do we get there?

Turns out Lord British has a secret escape route to this dungeon, named Hythloth, right behind his castle! Of course! I have no idea why this is here, but quickly ducking into it and then casting an X-it spell (Exits whatever town/dungeon you are in) leaves me at the main entrance on the other side of the planet from Castle Britain. After walking through the hills I find the balloon anchored next to the mountains.

[Huh, I guess nobody needs this balloon...]

This thing is a nightmare. It is by far the fastest form of travel in the game, but, ironically, the least controllable. It is impossible to change the direction of the balloon manually putting you at the mercy of the wind. There is a spell that lets you change the direction of the wind, but more often than not the wind will change again within the next few seconds. After several minutes of aimless drifting, I was able to find the mountain range again and see a small patch of grass in the middle. I landed outside of the mountains to change the wind to make another pass to line up the balloon with the landing area. I was worried about having to readjust east or west over and over until I could catch a quick Northward wind into the area. Fortunately, I casted wind change and ended up passing right over the grass. The game was kind enough to not change at the last second allowing me to land on my first attempt which I am EXTREMELY thankful for. With two stones in hand, it is time to go into the dungeons.

[So far, this is the most annoying thing in the game.]

Before heading into the dungeons, I hopped into the ship for a quick errand I had forgotten about. Mondain was the enemy in Ultima 1. After he was killed, destructive artifacts of his legacy were spread throughout the world. There was talk about his skull being lost and used for evil, so I decided to destroy it. After sailing around in the ship, I spotted a suspicious formation of three volcanoes. In the middle is a small but obvious area that you can sail into. Searching at two new moons gets…

The skull can be used to the detriment of all virtues to kill everyone in a single city or dungeon, but we aren’t interested in that. We need to destroy it. Rumor says the only place to truly destroy the skull is to throw it into the abyss, much like the one ring in The Lord of the Rings. I took an early trip to the island where the abyss is located, defeated the unexplained pirate blockade there, and tossed that sucker into the abyss to never worry anyone again. I’m sure nothing else from his legacy could cause any trouble in the near future. (Ultima 5, look out folks) To strengthen the hull of my ship for the pirate battle, I found the magical wheel of the HMS Cape that I had learned about from a sailor in the Serpent’s Hold. Despite this strength, it was tough to use the cannons without getting obliterated so I simply boarded all the ships and killed the crew.

[That's the end of that... or is it?]

I also took the time to collect the three items required to enter the Abyss that were hinted at in each of the castles dedicated to Love, Courage, and Truth. The book of truth was easily found in the library at the Lycaeum. I found the Bell of Courage accidentally by sailing around and finding a strange formation in the water where the Bell is located. The Candle of Love was the most difficult part. I was informed it was hidden in a town off Lock Lake that is inaccessible by boat. I searched the whole coast finding no entrance and resorted to blink spells to teleport to visible areas otherwise inaccessible. I ended up blinking next to the town of Cove where I found the Candle in a hidden passage in the Shrine of Love. Although difficult, I felt pretty good about finding the hidden town. With these three items, I can enter the Abyss when it is time for the final decent to the Codex.


Spelunking with Buddies

Since dungeons are end game territory, I decided to pick up a few companions as a Mage will most likely experience trouble on his lonesome. The player is required to have eight companions to enter the final room with the Codex along with mastering the eight virtues and the eight virtue stones. Unfortunately, half of these companions are garbage. There is one in each town, aside from the one the player begins in, giving the party one character from each class. Companions that are shepherds and tinkers are notoriously weak and will be left until the final dungeon dive. I used my Ultima 6 knowledge to pick up some canon characters (Iolo, the bard from Britain and Dupre, the paladin from Trinsic). I also got the fighter Geoffry from Jhelom for extra help. This combat heavy group is made up of the few characters carried into future games as companions and gives me much needed firepower at the front in terms of fighting skills since a mage is limited to certain weapons. Speaking of equipment, let’s see what we can do about that. (And yes, I know I missed Shamino in Skara Brae, the third canon character. So sue me!)

Spoiler territory here, I know about mystic weapons. I did not hear anything about it in conversation, but mystic armor and weapons will appear in Empath Abbey and the Serpent’s Hold respectively after ascending all eight virtues. Aside from being the best armor and melee weapons in the game, the swords can also be found and sold repeatedly for infinite cash. I used this trick to purchase a magic wand for Hal (the most powerful mage weapon) and kit out Iolo with a magic bow while giving Dupre and Geoffry magic swords. Even though these guys have the most powerful weapons and armor, they begin at level three and there is no motivation to build that up. It is especially annoying because more characters means more turns in combat increasing the time required for each battle. It should also be noted that the character landing the killing blow gets the experience, so any grinding will be weakening each enemy then allowing the companion needing experience to plink away at it until it dies. I’m afraid they’ll have to languish at level three forever.

I used the rest of the money to whip up useful spells for dungeon diving. The most useful ones for navigation are Y (Moves the party up one dungeon level), Z (moves the party down one dungeon level), Light for the darkness, and more X-its for quick escapes. Tons of Cures, Heal, and Resurrection are also in the cards in case emergencies occur. Even though the party can hole up and camp in the hallways, some of the battles can get a little hairy and require some magical intervention. This is especially true when fighting Reavers, one of the most annoying enemies in the game. They are unable to move, but constantly cast global sleep spells that can put your party to slumber while they pound them with electricity or fire. Awaken can help, but usually ends up with being wasted when they fall asleep the next turn. If there are eight Reavers, they can cast sleep eight times in one turn. Terrible.

When beginning writing, I had only gone into one dungeon, Shame, to retrieve the purple stone of Honor. At the time of this re-read, I have retrieved seven out of eight stones and am almost ready to complete the game! I was worried about needing to use maps for the dungeons, but that turns out to be unnecessary. Gems bought from the adventuring guild not only display the layout of the level, but also the location of traps, rooms, and the location of the stones themselves.  Each dungeon also contains orbs allowing any character who touches them to increase certain stats in trade for extensive damage. This can be exploited by constantly healing/resting/drinking from healing fountains and touching them over and over, but I will not be doing this. I like to min-max as much as the next guy, but with combat being as easy as it is I simply do not see the need to waste the time.

[The dungeon view. A ladder is going up in this square.]

After finding the purple stone, I continued down to the bottom floor which opens into alter rooms where the stones can be combined to produce the three keys to the final room in the game. Unfortunately, I only had three of the eight stones and could not perform this action yet. What IS convenient about this is that these three altar rooms connect ALL eight dungeons in the game making travel between them much more convenient than sailing around the world. This passage is easily utilized to visit each one and move up while searching instead of the other way around. I only need to retrieve one more stone, the yellow stone of Compassion, and I will be ready to get the keys and move into the Abyss.

Despite this, the change from the 2D land exploration and dungeon crawling strikes me as strange. 3D dungeons were included in the previous Ultimas, but are quite different in Ultima 4 since the dungeons feature rooms that are represented as 2D battlefields. Ultima 1-3 simply had creatures in the 3D hallways that were attacked. This change is jarring when trying to figure out the next direction you want to head. For example, entering a room where you know you want to go north involves actually entering, switching to a 2D layout, fighting any monsters there, and then exiting the top of the battlefield. This kicks you back out to the simulated 3D hallway. It is not necessarily bad, but interrupts the flow of game play that the previous format had set up nicely. It is a little like hopping out of a Jacuzzi and doing a cannonball into a swimming pool. It takes some readjustment and ends up comfortable, but is fundamentally different.


I can see myself completing the game in the next one or two serious play sessions. All that remains is collecting the last stone, using them on the alters to get the keys, collecting the rest of my companions, and diving down to the Codex. I hope that my next update will include the word “Won” in the title.



Flashbacks

While playing the game, I have had some really weird feelings. I encounter similar situations that bring back uncomfortable feelings I experienced the first time around. Near the beginning of the game, while trying to parse all the required tasks, I felt familiar frustration about things seeming to spin out of my control. The great part about this is I can take a break, assess the feelings, think about the goal I want to complete, and ignore things that don't matter. I am in control of my thoughts. I associate hyper-sensitivity and hyper-awareness about everything occurring with my depressed times. An inability to gate and sort information leading to much of the frustration I encountered in the game. That is no good.

I feel successful almost completing the game. Not only because it is an undisputed classic I have wanted to finish it for several years, but also because I can face a tangible piece of my past and conquer it. One of my biggest fears is that I have left scars, shadows, or the image of a monster in the past that can never be defeated. I know this case is true in some uncontrollable aspects, but being able to take down something I associate so heavily with the past is a true victory. I can put it behind me and honestly say to myself "Buddy, you've changed, made progress, and moved on."

It is important to revisit items and media to see how we have changed. Books, movies, games, and other things are permanent and do not change; only how we feel about them does. Revisiting them can unlock new meanings that were previously unseen, bring new feelings about that we didn't know about, and help us see how we have changed as a person. Ultima 4 has certainly helped me do that and, even though I feel kind of silly saying it, has served as an important measuring stick for my personal evolution. Progress in this game has actually given me more confidence in myself. I think Lord British would appreciate that sentiment.



Next time...

Next time I fully expect a winning post. I'm enjoying the game and having a lot of fun. No responses on my question so I'll give a hint. Hal is the main character of one of the most notorious "big ol' books" that hipsters love to talk about... mostly about addiction, entertainment, and tennis. If you have a guess, leave a comment with the book title and you win a free game of your choice under $10 from Good Old Games courtesy of me. See you next time!


--Backlog Killer