Scans

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Something I’ve been wanting to do as I’m reading my way through Origin’s books is to make them available online for anyone who wants them as either scans or ebooks. I’ve benefited enough from other people’s scans so it’s good to contribute something back in return. I also much prefer ebooks to the real thing these days so I’d be doing myself a favour in the process. The major problem with this is that my scanner is, not to put too fine a point on it, crap. Unless I’m prepared to ruin the original book, I end up with anything within an inch of the spine of the book blacked out or completely out of focus.

So, I’ve bought myself a book scanner. At the money I’ve paid, it still won’t be brilliant but it is designed to scan right to the edge meaning that I can scan a book quickly and without ruining it. At least that’s the theory as I’m still waiting for it to be delivered. I’ll see how it works out but the plan is to scan each book as I get to it. I’ll post anything that I think they will accept to replacementdocs, but host it here as well until it’s approved.

In the meanwhile, I’ve got a few ebooks and scans from various sources, most of which are available elsewhere but I’ll host them as well for the sake of convenience. I’ve created a downloads page to link all this stuff from which you should find at the top of the ever-growing menu on the right. For now, there are a load of Wing Commander ebooks, better scans of the U7 and SI cluebooks than those I put up a week or two back, the Official Book of Ultima and the System Shock cluebook.

Ultima Completion Certificates

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These are an interesting bit of history going right back to the early days of Origin. From the release of Ultima 3, Origin started sending out personalised certificates when you completed an Ultima game. All you had to do was ring or write to them after you finished the game and they would mail it to you. Being in the UK, I never actually tried this out for myself. The games end screen would usually say to write to Lord British which was a problem when he was on the other side of the world. Mindscape were distributing Origin games in England at the time I finished my first Ultima (Underworld), I’ve no idea whether I could have written to them instead but I never tried it.

None of these certificates are mine, or even in my possession unfortunately. The scans have been provided by Natreg who in turn got them off the internet at some point. I remember seeing them myself years back but I can’t remember what the site was and if it’s still there I can’t find it. I’ve also included a scan of the Ultima Trilogy certificate which I’ve pinched off a wcnews.com article about some acquisitions of Joe Garrity at the Origin Musuem. There are several missing off the list here, so if anyone has them or knows where they are available I’d love to see them.


Ultima 3


Ultima Trilogy


Ultima 5


Ultima 6


Ultima Underworld


Ultima 7


Serpent Isle


Serpent Isle(Alternative)


Ultima 8

Ultima 8 – The Ultimate Strategy Guide

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This is my other Ultima 8 cluebook and this was published by Prima in 1994. I didn’t think too much of Origin’s attempt at a cluebook but am glad to say this was a lot more fun. Before I get onto the book itself, I have to say that I’m not so sure about that cover. Is it just me or does it look more than a little piratey? Other than the title of the game, nothing on there says Ultima 8 to me.

The title of the book is a little misleading also. The book does contain a standard full walkthrough (as an appendix) and a short section at the start of the book to give general tips on how to play the game but the vast majority is a novelised telling of the game, relating the story of the unlikely named Stencil as he journeys through Pagan. This section of the book does add in extra detail that would help you out playing the game so it is serving as a long-winded walkthrough as well as a mini-novel. This is far more entertaining than I might have expected, although I did skim over some parts which were giving routes through mazes and the like.

There are two appendices. The first is the brief walkthrough I mentioned before. The second is a complete transcript of every book in the game which is a nice feature. For something claiming to be the ultimate strategy guide, there is a lot missing though. There is no list of spells, no bestiary, no maps of the levels, etc.. You could get some information from the book transcripts but it seems to me that you would need to add both the two cluebooks together to give the full product.

This not being an Origin product is fairly apparent at times. Some of the tips given are close to exploits such as knapsacks within knapsacks and stacking items, which is useful advice but not something I’d expect to see in an Origin cluebook. The start and end of the story also give away the authors unfamiliarity with the series. The Avatar is supposedly snatched up by the guardian while sleeping at the start of the game, and at the end returns to the land of his birth. Inbetween this though, the dialog and plot are all from the game so it doesn’t cause any problems.

In short, this book isn’t the ultimate strategy guide it claims to be and is basically Avatar Adventures for Ultima 8. I quite like the Avatar Adventures books so this was right up my street. It’s been a while since I played Ultima 8 and reading through this brought it back to me without having to play the whole thing again.

Ultima 8 Cluebook

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I’ve actually got two different U8 cluebooks for some reason, one official and one not. I may as well look at both but I’ll start out with the official one which was published in 1994 by Origin. This is the last Ultima cluebook I scanned in for replacementdocs.com.

I can’t say that I liked Ultima 8 much and it is quite definitely my least favourite out of the entire series. There were a lot of good aspects to it though so it’s not going to put me off the cluebook.

There isn’t much in the way of narrative throughout Pentology but what there is, is written as though by Remvatos aka The Observer, son of Apathas who has been summoned for the purpose. For the most part, this takes the form of a page of introduction by Remvatos at the beginning of each section before it ploughs into fairly raw data. There also isn’t a lot of artwork in here and instead it uses graphics straight from the game. The maps are presented using the same isometric view straight from the game and the bestiary similarly uses the games graphics to show each creature.

The sort of hints that went along with the maps are now condensed into a brief 5 page set of prophecies which read a little like horrorscopes. These are reasonably well done if you don’t want to be told what to do which is just as well as the walkthrough is literally a bullet-point list of how to beat the game. Given how brief the hints were, I expect this is what you would end up using if you are stuck.

I’m not impressed at all by Pentology. My least favourite game in the series has turned out to have my least favourite cluebook as well. The little bits of narrative are quite well written but very brief and there is hardly anything in here adding value. The best section of the book was the bestiary which did at least say a bit about the creatures in the game. I gather that the game was pressed into release too early and this cluebook gives the same impression of being rushed.