1001games Part 3: 1981

The original Ultima is very difficult to play today. It doesn't hold up well at all, with the dated interface (hope you've memorized which keyboard key does what action), lack of direction, and difficulty. A successful play revolves around time spent entering a dungeon, fighting one or two enemies near the entrance, exiting and repeating. As dull as this is, if you try to bite off any more than that you'll die for sure. Speaking of biting, you also have to periodically buy food just to move around on the overworld. Doesn't that sound fun?

However, it's easy nonetheless to see why this game is on the list. The graphics, though primitive, allow for the creation of a huge world with a top-down, tiled overworld and first-person dungeons. Even while cursing the game's clunkiness, there's an amazing feeling as you realize that it all started here - this is the game that launched the RPG genre. Again, we see that this book places a lot of value on historical importance, and I can't say I blame them in this case. Even though actually playing the game is a chore, its impact is impossibly far-reaching.

Although I didn't get far in this game, I hear it gets kind of nuts. It starts out with a typical medieval setting, but by the end you'll be using a spaceship, blaster guns and a time machine to go after the final boss. Is that bizarre or what?

That's it for 1981, a banner year for arcades to be certain. Next time, 1982's releases include Dig Dug, Miner 2049er and Q*Bert.

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