So, I got a Windows computer by scavenging parts from my dying workplace. Old as the hills, so I know it won’t get uppity. Sound is practically non-existent. I’m not even going to trust the network card in my LAN.
At 8:30 this evening I took a pill for my headache and decided that I wouldn’t go out tonight. (Come to think of it, I haven’t been out all day. I think I’m lazy.) Instead I turned on the “new” (HA!) computer and started playing Ultima 1 for the first time in fifteen to twenty years. For the past week I’ve only been testing it out, but now I sat down and started playing it.
Apparently they have updated the game slightly. Now you can actually see your enemies coming at you, instead of them just appearing on the map. No longer can I just hold down the “[A]ttack” key and have things come up to me and die. Now I have to hunt them down and aim. And the towns and castles have some variation to their layout. With the variation though, you can’t buy everything at every town. I remember fifteen years ago that I set up shop around the town of Linda. For no good reason. It wasn’t centrally located and had nothing nearby except for one dungeon. As a more sophisticated gamer I can see it for the backwater slum that it is. Back then, I purchased one of every transport while I was there and used the surroundings as my garage.
Now I can’t even buy a decent horse there, much less a working space shuttle.
Anyway I started playing at 8:30. I just finished fifteen minutes ago at 2:30 in the morning. Mondain is dead. I have his gem. The people love me. And I’m up way to late.
This has been a nice catharsis for me. I have a much better feeling about this than I ever did for “Splinter Cell”. After all this time, I have finally beaten the game. Back then I was too young to focus on the goals, and just enjoyed wandering around killing things. This time, I knew what to do, and I went out and did it.
Strangely I kept the mapping to a minimum. Previously I spent an entire summer vacation mapping Ultima 4. This time, I just mapped one dungeon. It’s the only one I went in the entire game. I read somewhere that the maps are generated fresh for every game, so the map is effectively useless now.
Now I suppose I should try Ultima 2.
Uh oh. I think I can see where this is heading…

My randomly selected music seems oddly appropriate. Because, technically it is.