Sorry guys! School's
back so that means that 1k1VGYMPBYD will be fewer and further
between. But that's okay, because this is 1001 games to play before
you DIE, not by the end of the year, so I think I'm doing pretty good
as far as bucket lists go.
So today was really
interesting, I played Ultima: The First Age of Darkness. Developed in
1981 by Richard Garriott, the man responsible for the Ultima Series
even to this day. In fact, this is the first RPG on the list to
evolve into an entire franchise. It's also the first RPG to use a
“tile base” graphical system for the overworld. The First RPG to
have an overworld, or NPCs that you can talk to. And just by
looking at it, you can see how this game can be seen as a major
turning point for RPGs everywhere. Heck, this is the first RPG on the
list to have actual graphics, how's that for a concept?
In Ultima: The First
Age of Darkness, the story revolves around an evil wizard named
Mondain, and his rule over the kingdom of Sosaria. According to the
backstory, Mondain created an evil gem over 1000 years ago that
grants him immortality. Since then, Mondain has released hideous
monsters and ferocious beast upon the land because... He's just a
dick like that I guess? I think he's just doing it for the lulz, just
a troll looking for attention.
Anywho, in an effort
to stop Mondain's domination, Lord British (yeah that's his real
name) searched someone stupid enough, and a drifter lonely enough
that not only would this person be stupid enough to try and fight a
thousand year old invincible wizard.
Alone. But nobody will miss him when he dies. Obviously the quest
falls on you, the player.
The player is
informed that the only way to kill Mondain is to travel back in time
and kill him before the gem of immortality is created. The majority
of the game is spent searching for a time machine (I still have no
idea where it is) and a way to activate it. Four of the lords in the
game, one for each realm, hold a gem that will allow the time machine
to work once all four gems have been found. In exchange for the gem,
the lord will ask the player to complete a quest that involves
traveling to a dungeon and killing a specific creature. Once you kill
this creature, the lord will hand over his gem.
Once you somehow
obtain a time machine, you travel back in time and face Mondain
before he completed the gem of immortality. Destroying the gem is a
requirement for beating the game as well as killing the wizard
himself. Once Mondain is dead, the player creates a temporal paradox
by killing Mondain 1000 years in the past, thus preventing the events
which cause the player to be called to the world in the first place.
Time and space become unstable and soon the very fabric of reality is
split horribly in two and the wold as we know it is completely
destroyed, but at least there's no more ferocious beasts. Nah, I'm
just kidding, you're transported back to your current time and
rewarded by Lord British, I think at least, admittedly I never got
even close to beating this game.
The game's mechanics
differ drastically from that of every other RPG I've watched my wife
play. But at least it starts out very similar. You're given a number
of points to distribute between various stats. Then, you're given the
choice of four races, Human, Elf, Dwarf and Bobbit (tf is that?) Then
asked to choose a one of four classes, fighter, cleric, wizard and
thief, then finally you choose your gender. I chose to be a Human
thief, which I later realized was a bad idea since the game is
ridiculously unbalanced in the beginning, and I kept dying over and
over again. So yeah, at least that much is like RPGs, but after that,
things get weird. For example, leveling up does not raise your base
stats, in fact, leveling up doesn't do much of anything. You NEED to
level up, don't get me wrong, unless you're level eight (that's
pretty high), you can't obtain a crucial item to beat the game. So if
you don't raise your stats by leveling up, how do you raise your
stats? By talking to sign posts. No joke, there are a few sign posts
scattered around Sosaria that when you interact with them, raise one
set stat except for HP, your HP increases when you emerge from a
dungeon and has no upper cap, meaning that you can essentially go
into a dungeon, kill one monster, come back out and get more HP,
rinse and repeat until you're invincible. I spent nearly three hours
doing just this, and it nearly drove me insane. So yeah, stats are
weird, but since you can also buy/steal weapons that raise your stats
too, then it's okay. Also, Magic comes in the form of a scroll that's
consumed when you use it. Meaning that even a dwarf fighter can use
magic, you just have to pay more for it.
Normally right here
I'd describe the settings, and how each of the setting pieces work,
as well as the characters, but as I was typing these explanations of
what the dungeons do, how the towns are different, and the contents
of the world map, it was starting to get like two pages long and I
wasn't even half way done. All you need to know is that the world map
contains, castles, towns, dungeons, mountains, forests and other
little places of interest, most of which don't behave like they would
in a normal RPG. There, I saved you two more pages of boring
specifics.
Overall, this game
rocks! It's dated, VERY dated even compared games such as the
original Dragon Quest. But I'm not going to lie, after you get used
to the mechanics, and you get through the beginning, which to me is
the hardest part, the game is pretty fun. I had a lot of fun just
running through the first person view dungeons killing things that
kind of look like monsters if you squint your eyes enough. The
difficulty curb is so high that when you finally get to a point where
you don't have to worry about dying so much, it's actually a pretty
neat sense of accomplishment. Not only that, but this is the game
that finally brought all the separate components of the RPGs and text
adventures I've played on the list and finally combined them into one
game. This has the story and adventure of Zork, the RPG mechanics of
Eamon, the random dungeon design of Rogue. Overall, this game is a
huge step for the entire RPG genre, and if you're a fan of western
RPGs such as Dragon Age, or Skyrim. I suggest giving this game a
shot, you might be surprised with how much fun you can have with such
a primitive game.
And that! My
friends, marks the end of 1981! Lots of great games this year, as
well as Gorf. So! As per tradition, here's my 1981 Game of the Year!
First up, the games:
Galaga
Donkey Kong
Qix
Scramble
Stargate
Venture
Ms. Pac-Man
Frogger
Gorf
Ultima I
That's two down from
last year,
40% are shoot 'em
ups, down from last year, thank goodness, and surprisingly, none were
made by Atari, seems like this just wasn't their year huh? Also, 90%
of these games were arcade, so not a great year for PCs either. And
the award for game of the year 1981 goes toooooo:
Donkey Kong!
Yeah, you all knew
it was coming. I couldn't help it, as much as I'm trying to get away
from my fanboyism, there's just no denying how amazing this game is.
It literally did everything the Video Game industry wasn't doing at
the time. Where most were space invader clones, (or straight ripoffs,
looking at you Gorf!), this game was a Platformer, indeed the first
platformer, it invented a new genre. Where most companies had maybe
two sprites to represent movement, Donkey Kong was fully animated.
Where most companies had little to no music, doneky Kong had original
background music. It was a hit that put the little Nintendo on the
map, proved Shigeru Mmiyamoto as one of the greatest game designers,
and saved the little company when it faced apocalypse in 1983. I
cannot express just how Amazing this game was. It was inspiring,
beyond it's time and my pick for game of the year 1981.
Next up: Gravitar
Also, like I said
earlier, school just started this year so priorities must be shifted
a bit, here's a rundown of how low 1K1VGYMPBYD must be on my
priorities for now:
My wife and all
her needs.
My job.
School
My Big surprise
project for my wife.
This list
So yeah, reviews
won't be as frequent, but don't dispair, I'm not giving up on it. How
could I? I'm just starting to have fun!
