Ultima 3

This morning I did some wandering on the internet. I’ve been thinking I need to get Ultima 3 behind me, which would involve turning on the big cow that is the Windows computer. It then occurred to me that there was an alternative. A while back, someone ported Ultima 3 to the Mac. They did it without any of the original code, (not a real port) so there is some doubt as to whether it is an accurate version.
So I did a search, found it, downloaded and tried it out. Very nice. Good graphics, but still maintaining most of the clunky interface from a two decade old game. No drag and drop here. You have to type the proper key codes to do most anything. That said, it has a number of nice features that make using it soooo much easier.
The biggest is that by default, the computer will handle all the battles for you. Sweet! Once a battle starts, you just sit back and watch your finely honed team of adventurers slaughter the orcs. Heck, I’ve seen some battles go so fast that the battle screen has gone away and I’ve already looted the treasure before the opening whine has finished.
Now I come to the dilemma. It is shareware, so I should spend $15US to support it. In fact you can’t win the game without supporting it. Ambrosia is off limits until you do. Or I could turn on the big cow and play the original Ultima 3. Which would be guaranteed to act correctly. But then all the progress I’ve done already would be lost. And I really hate to micro-manage the battles.
While I was contemplating my options (In my heart I know what I will do, I just have to get my brain to figure it out) I decided to drag out the old clue book I got when Ultima 3 was the latest incarnation. It was a small orange book, and I could not find it. That was irony. I save this book for two decades, and when I finally do need it, it’s missing. I eventually found it (In my Ultima trilogy box, not my Ultima collection box). But it is a bit of a disappointment. The maps in it are all done in ASCII art, so it is near impossible to tell where anything is. It doesn’t help that it is insanely easy to find full color helpful maps on the internet.