Interface

Power to the People

Long-time Ultima fans feared that the 3rd person interface would continue - or worse, expand - the action elements from Ultima VIII. After all, with such illustrious predecessors as Tomb Raider, Heretic II and Drakan, the temptation was certainly there to include more action and appeal to that crowd. Still, Origin resisted quite well and produced more of an RPG-adventure than action-RPG, and we think most people appreciate this effort on their part.

WTH is that?

20 tons of trouble I see...

The controls are very simple and powerful. The player has nearly full control over the camera - having access to both vertical and horizontal planes of movement. Any zooming that needs to be done to keep the camera out of objects is executed by the computer and it's handled very smoothly. Only at the tightest and most cramped areas did we encounter any limitations to the standard view, which could be quickly address by switching to 'free-cursor' mode and manipulating everything manually. It's simple, powerful and easy to appreciate.

You'll be wishing for SCUBA gear soon

Funky ruins

"Kris-Kross Gonna Make Ya…"

Jumping is easy in Ultima 9. Easier than any other game before it. Just aim the cursor where you'd like to be, hit the spacebar and bam, the Avatar makes use of all those years of watching Jordan on TV. As long as the cursor is yellow or green, you can jump there. The Avatar has an insane vertical in addition to his pin-point accuracy (he can jump on top of a bow and retain his balance.) There are areas in the game with plenty of jumping - enough to make any first-person shooter win our microwave award, but fortunately, for 3rd person games this isn't a problem.

What was this place?

You're not going Batman again are ya?

Going Hiking?

The biggest complaint in the two parts of Ultima VII was the Avatar's horrible organizational skills. His pack was always a mess. No amount of player intervention could keep the Avatar from jumbling it all up each time he opened it. Ascension solves this problem by laying an invisible grid array in the pack. Each item fits into one slot. Extra space can be obtained by getting bags which still take up 1 slot, but provide 9 more themselves. In addition to this, the Avatar has a 12-item belt for quick use. The function keys (F1-F12) activate the corresponding item.