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Console Manual Scans

Feb 05
Posted by Pix in Ultima 3, Ultima 4, Ultima 6, Ultima 7, Wing Commander, Wing Commander - Secret Missions 1

I’ve added a batch of new scans to the downloads for the console versions of various Origin games, some of which were available elsewhere already but they are on here now as well. The new pdfs are manuals for Ultima 3 (NES & Famicom), Ultima 4 (NES & Famicom), Ultima 6 (NES & Super Famicom), Ultima 7 (Super Famicom), Wing Commander (Mega CD & Sega CD) & Wing Commander Secret Missions (SNES).

In addition to all of those, I’ve been kindly sent a scan of the Lands Of Lore clue book by Matt Larson. This isn’t anything to do with Origin but I love the game so I’ve added that also.

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Ultima 6 Review – PC Plus

Oct 12
Posted by Pix in Magazine Scans, Ultima 6

This is another review of Ultima 6, this time from the July 1990 PC Plus. I actually remember reading this at the time and wanting to buy the game. Unfortunately, I only had an 8088 PC with CGA which ruled it out and I didn’t play my first Ultima until Underworld came out 2 years later.

Ultima6ReviewPCPlus

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Ultima 6 Review – PC Leisure

Oct 05
Posted by Pix in Magazine Scans, Ultima 6

This is a review of Ultima 6 from PC Leisure, issue 2 (Summer 1990). The review is about as positive as it gets but extremely short. There is a longer section on the history of Ultima most of which is achingly familiar but there were a couple of things in here I didn’t know.

Ultima6ReviewPCL1 Ultima6ReviewPCL2

I didn’t realise that Origin had bid for the D&D license only for their offer to be turned down before it ended up with SSI. I expect I should know this however and may have read it before at some time. SSI did some good games with the license but I can’t help but feel that Origin could have done more. Having said that, we probably wouldn’t have got all the fantastic Ultima spin-offs so it was possibly for the best.

I’d definitely never heard that Tom Clancy was a massive Ultima fan and included the game in one of his books. If he was ever included as a character in an Ultima, I can’t recall it. Does anyone know what book he mentions Ultima in?

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Ultima Patcher – Fixes

Sep 10
Posted by Pix in Ultima 5, Ultima 6, Ultima Patcher

I’ve had chance to test the patcher more thoroughly and sorted out a few issues:-

  • There were problems with Ultima 4 and both Underworlds when the games weren’t installed in the usual directories. It would ask you to choose the directory but then not open the form for that game. This is now fixed.
  • I’ve tidied up the player transfer substantially for Ultima 5. It would previously never find the correct Ultima 4 directory automatically unless you happened to have the same username as me. To make this simpler, you now just need to specify where you installed Ultima 4 and it does the searching in virtualstore automatically if required. It probably isn’t needed but I’ve made the same changes for Ultima 6 also.
  • I’ve added links to the websites of the various patches, where I could find them.
  • It shouldn’t crash any more if expected files are missing.
  • I’ve added an about page + a version number. I’ve nominally called this version 1.0.

To the best of my knowledge it’s working correctly now. It’s still ugly but I’ll leave it as is unless anyone runs into problems with it, or has good ideas for things I should change. If GOG releases any more Ultima’s, I’ll add them in as well. I think there is just the one more release due in this batch from EA. We’ve had far more Ultima games than I expected already but I’ve still got some hope we might see the Worlds Of Ultima games next week.

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Ultima Patcher Update

Sep 08
Posted by Pix in Ultima 4, Ultima 5, Ultima 6, Ultima Patcher, Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld 2

I’ve acquired a copy of UW 1 + 2 from GOG, thanks to the generosity of Loaf, and have added both games onto the patcher. Apart from the various patches, I added in a toggle for sound devices. I’ve also included a couple more Ultima 4 patches. The U4 form is looking a little crowded so hopefully that’s all of them.

I’d just about got that ready when GOG surprised me with more Ultima games in the form of the second trilogy. This time I’ve bought them myself and although there aren’t as many patches available for these, what there is I’ve added into the patcher. GOG aren’t supporting character transfer at the moment which isn’t any fun, so I’ve included an option to mount your savegame directory for the previous game to allow the in-game character transfer to work correctly.

There are a few things to note:-

  • The Spanish translation patch for Underworld included a replacement .exe. This has been altered to give loads of experience so you are level 8 by the time you walk down the first corridor. As far as I can tell, the .exe isn’t needed for the translation and only affects the messages during start-up so I’ve not included it.
  • The Ultima 4 Music Patch has some serious slowdown in-game, so I tell Dosbox to run with maximum cycles to improve it. This isn’t exactly ideal and even then it slows down when playing PC speaker sound. I don’t know if there is a later version available which would improve this, or possibly some alternative DOSBox settings. The VGA version certainly doesn’t have this problem. As it stands, I’m tempted to remove this patch.
  • For character transfers in Ultima 5, the PARTY.SAV in the game’s directory is not the one that is used when you save your game. It will no doubt be different on XP but on Windows 7 it uses the directory “C:UsersRichardAppDataLocalVirtualStoreProgram Files (x86)GOG.comUltima 4″ or a close equivalent depending on where the game is installed. When asked to choose your save game directory, you need to make sure you get the right one although the patcher will probably select it for you if it’s in the default location. If you have the free Utlima 4 and the one in the trilogy, then you have two lots of savegames. These are never deleted when uninstalling, no matter what you select when asked.
  • Finally, these latest additions are a rush job to get it done before I head out to watch the rugby tonight, so there may be problems. If it all works then I just need to plug the holes and possibly improve the interface next. Please let me know if something doesn’t work, or you have any suggestions.
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