Elwro
Arcane
Tags: Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
<p>That's right, now even you can check yourself how <a href="http://rpgcodex.net/index.php#6995">unplayable</a> Ultima IV is with the <a href="http://www.phipsisoftware.com/ultima4.html">fancy Flash version</a>, without fiddling with DosBox or setting up the Sega Master System emulator. It's free, allows you to save your progress (although I don't know yet how to transfer save files between different systems) and contains many improvements (the following is a selection):</p>
<ul>
<li>Dropped chests have four different levels according to monster difficulty. Thus there's more incentive to take down Gazers or Balrons versus Giant Rats.</li>
<li>Random world monsters are specified by region, so you are more likely to encounter undead in the Fens of the Dead, or Pirates in the vicinity of Buccaneer's Den.</li>
<li>Ultima V style reagent mixing. Specify how many cures you want to make, enter the reagents, and then be told if you were successful or not. </li>
<li>Ultima V style camping. Specify how may hours you want to sleep and who would like to stand guard. </li>
<li>See monsters, chests, and transports on view spells or peer gems. </li>
<li>Resize the browser window to play in full-screen mode. </li>
<li>Removed sleep exploit to remove poison.</li>
<li>To be able to search for objects, players need to talk to people first. You can't just wander into Lord British's castle and search in the treasure room.</li>
<li>Multiple keywords can be used to trigger conversation topics: e.g. you can ask about black or stone at the Britain pub. </li>
<li>Different cursors let players know when there is more pages of text to be read in a conversation response.</li>
<li>Game contains online links to the complete PDF versions of the Ultima IV manuals and documentation, beautifully scanned from the original game. </li>
<li>Game has different combat animations to differentiate between attacks of poison, sleep, electricity, and flame.</li>
<li>The original game data has been completely transferred into XML making the game almost completely data driven. </li>
</ul>
<p>Looks very well done to me. Go <a href="http://www.phipsisoftware.com/ultima4.html">here</a>, lose yourself in the world of Britannia, and be sure to contrast your experience with that of <a href="http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2010/09/unplayable.html">these fine gentlemen</a> in the comments.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The new version is courtesy of <a href="http://www.phipsisoftware.com/"> ΦΨ software</a>. I hope we hear more from them soon!</p>
<p>That's right, now even you can check yourself how <a href="http://rpgcodex.net/index.php#6995">unplayable</a> Ultima IV is with the <a href="http://www.phipsisoftware.com/ultima4.html">fancy Flash version</a>, without fiddling with DosBox or setting up the Sega Master System emulator. It's free, allows you to save your progress (although I don't know yet how to transfer save files between different systems) and contains many improvements (the following is a selection):</p>
<ul>
<li>Dropped chests have four different levels according to monster difficulty. Thus there's more incentive to take down Gazers or Balrons versus Giant Rats.</li>
<li>Random world monsters are specified by region, so you are more likely to encounter undead in the Fens of the Dead, or Pirates in the vicinity of Buccaneer's Den.</li>
<li>Ultima V style reagent mixing. Specify how many cures you want to make, enter the reagents, and then be told if you were successful or not. </li>
<li>Ultima V style camping. Specify how may hours you want to sleep and who would like to stand guard. </li>
<li>See monsters, chests, and transports on view spells or peer gems. </li>
<li>Resize the browser window to play in full-screen mode. </li>
<li>Removed sleep exploit to remove poison.</li>
<li>To be able to search for objects, players need to talk to people first. You can't just wander into Lord British's castle and search in the treasure room.</li>
<li>Multiple keywords can be used to trigger conversation topics: e.g. you can ask about black or stone at the Britain pub. </li>
<li>Different cursors let players know when there is more pages of text to be read in a conversation response.</li>
<li>Game contains online links to the complete PDF versions of the Ultima IV manuals and documentation, beautifully scanned from the original game. </li>
<li>Game has different combat animations to differentiate between attacks of poison, sleep, electricity, and flame.</li>
<li>The original game data has been completely transferred into XML making the game almost completely data driven. </li>
</ul>
<p>Looks very well done to me. Go <a href="http://www.phipsisoftware.com/ultima4.html">here</a>, lose yourself in the world of Britannia, and be sure to contrast your experience with that of <a href="http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2010/09/unplayable.html">these fine gentlemen</a> in the comments.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The new version is courtesy of <a href="http://www.phipsisoftware.com/"> ΦΨ software</a>. I hope we hear more from them soon!</p>
