Day 96

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I’ve spent a good couple of hours on Privateer tonight but this will be a short post as I was pretty much just grinding away earning money. It took next to no time to get my ship up to a decent level where it was a definite improvement on before. I spent a bit longer just repeating similar missions in the Troy system then decided to try out a tip I saw on the web. 

The tip was that if you base yourself at the Padre base you can take bounty hunting missions which pay well and only have to traverse 6 nav points in the 2 systems to beat these missions due to the isolation and small size of the padre system and its neighbour. I fly off and sure enough the merchants guild has one of these missions paying a whopping 22000+.

I literally just have to take off, shoot down one ship and land to collect the money. I repeat this a bit and while I tend not to get quite so much cash each other time and have to fly through the nav points its still easy money.

Some of the ships in this system also drop cargo which never happened to me earlier. This tends not to be worth much but its easy enough to tractor in. I’ve got my ship nearly fully equipped now. I’m about 50000 short of a level 5 shield generator and that will pretty much finish this ship. I may upgrade the guns I’m using which are the 3rd most expensive also depending upon how much power I’m left with when I get the shield generator. Its so easy making money in this system I’ll probably stick around until I’ve got a fully equipped Centurion and then pick up the plot again.

Day 95 – Wing Commander: Privateer

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Before I get onto Privateer, a random bit of news. I picked up a Metro newspaper on the train into work this morning and was more than a bit surprised to see a picture of Richard Garriot on the front page. It had passed me by completely but he is one of the first lot of space tourists and just blasted off the other day. As a token Brit (he was born over here in England) he’s taken a copy of the Metro making it the first newspaper in space. He will be carrying out a few simple experiments that school children designed as part of a competition in the paper. There isn’t much scientific basis for these but there will no doubt be videos of him attempting to skip in space and the like on the Metro website in the next few days. 

Back to Privateer. This is a game, I’ve played through just the one time years back and I hacked my save game to give myself enough money to get the best equipment from the start. I wasn’t hugely impressed at the time but the fact was my PC didn’t have enough grunt to run it making it very difficult to play. Despite being based on the Wing Commander engine it required a much more powerful machine and although I met (exactly) the minimum requirements on the box it wasn’t really playable.

This was the last series to be based on the Wing Commander engine before Origin made the transition to full 3D for its flight sims. It came with an optional speech pack and was not a cheap game in the first place as I remember. Its a game I’ve been quite looking forward to playing as I’ve never given it a fair chance before now and have heard a lot of positive things about it.










The introduction shows me being attacked by 3 pirates, fighting them off and accidentally shooting some strange looking spaceship with green glowing bits with a stray missile which powers up after I’ve gone.

Its a great sequence, (apart from the usual level of voice acting) and it sets the scene for the games storyline nicely. The manual gives a bit more background on your character which to be extremely brief tells how you inherit a spaceship, lose your existing career on a merchant vessel when it is damaged beyond repair and get forced into the life of a Privateer. In the best traditions of an Origin RPG you aren’t really given any information on the game and have to figure things out yourself on the way. 

The game starts with my inheritted ship sitting on the spacepad. From here I can explore the space station in Wing Commander style.

There is a bar and a bartender to talk to. I guess the bartenders will give general clues about where to go and what stocks to take where, etc..

This base has a ship dealer and I will be spending a lot of time customising and repairing my ship here. Pretty much everything you can think of is upgradable and there really are a huge number of choices. I will need some money first though.

The mission computer in the hall provides me with a choice of 6 randomly generated missions. These follow the usual formulas. Patrol nav points, defend a station, track down and destroy a certain ship, fly cargo etc.

I pick a mission and take off. The first thing of note is that I can hardly see anything. I’m not sure if this is a performance thing or if it will get better with newer ships. The graphics are quite a bit nicer than Wing Commander though.

Space stations in particular look awesome and the textures are high-res enough that they just keep looking better the closer you get.

Combat is quite tricky. It seems to be much more picky about you getting an exact hit than Wing Commander was and some of these ships are quite thin. It makes missiles a lot more useful.

The whole system of the game is open to me from the start (at least once I buy a jump drive) with loads of bases and planets to explore. Jump points here are big blue clouds which you have to be inside to jump to the appropriate system.

Once I’ve done a few missions I look into joining the mercenaries guild.

After a brief chat, I pay my 5000 credits to join up. This gives me harder higher paying missions to take on.


I don’t attempt to jump out to another system for quite a while but stick with the troy system I start in. It has 2 mining stations + an agricultural planet. The graphics and sound are all completely different when landing on a planet which is a nice touch.

After about 20-30 missions, I have a look at buying a better ship. I can afford it but don’t have enough left to kit it out with any decent equipment so I load up a save game and stick with what I’ve got. I decide to try to pick up the games plot instead which I gather starts in the New Detroit system.

This means jumping out of system for the first time.

I stop off at a pleasure planet along the way. Once again its a completely new set of graphics and sound.

I make it to New Detroit, which on landing has a sort of Blade Runner feel to it

In the bar is a man called Sandoval who gives me my first plot mission.


Its a simple cargo delivery mission. As collateral he gives me some sort of alien artifact which is blatantly a hot item he doesn’t want to keep hold of.

The mission is nice and simple. I fly to Newcastle, land and come back without incident.

When I get back Sandoval has gone and Tayla is in his place.



I don’t get my payment from Sandoval and I’m stuck with this alien artifact which the police apparently want to get their hands on as well. Tayla claims to have more info but wants me to fly 4 missions before she will tell me. The first of these is to take some plastics to a pirate base.

On the way out I run into my first Confed ships. There is no way I’m in a position to take on a Broadsword so I don’t want to make these guys angry.



I get to the base and get the next job of drug smuggling to Hector. I attempt this mission but my ship just isn’t up to it by a long way. I gather I can come back and retry the mission later so I fly off to upgrade my ship at this point.

My new ship has a slightly better view (still small), is a bit quicker and better armoured but I can only carry one missle rack as far as I know. I can certainly only afford one. My favorite strategy so far has been to use heatseekers fired in pairs (not possible in earlier Wing Commanders) to strike the same point in an enemy simultaneously and destroy it in one go. This has been working well but I’m now back to using lasers most of the time.

I’ve not really got very far yet but have spent some considerable time on this game already. My initial impressions were very positive, the presentation of the game all round is just awesome. This is another game that uses general midi instead of MT-32 – I didn’t think much of the music on an AWE32 originally but here on a real sound canvas it is just superb and possibly the best score of any Origin game to date. Its not music you would sit down and listen to but is ambient and just fits with the environments perfectly. The graphics are equally impressive and the varied environments give some real incentive to just explore the sector. The Wing Commander engine has been enhanced almost beyond recognition here. The higher resolution ships look great, especially the bases but beyond that everything moves much more smoothly. In Wing Commander the game tended to run faster and faster with a quicker PC, this just runs smoother. With the large number of angles for each ship the game looks good enough that you really don’t miss 3D graphics at all.

The options for upgrading my ship are extremely complex and I will need to amass a lot of money to get the best ship. I was hoping to follow along the plot missions making money along the way but this seems to be a non starter. I’ll confess to losing a bit of interest around the time I upgraded to the 2nd ship. I was expecting an improvement but the fact is I was better off in my old ship. This is despite having around 130000 credits saved over and above the well equipped ship I already had to fit it with some nice stuff. It will no doubt be better than my first ship when I’ve upgraded it more still but in the meanwhile I’m limited to flying essentially the same missions over and over again to get the money for new parts. If I try to take on anything else I usually run into trouble. I would estimate I’m about 500,000 – 700,000 credits away from fully fitting out the ship I’m in although I’m sure I’ll be able to try some different missions and/or pick up the plot again long before that point. Despite my minor complaints, I’m completely hooked on this game and if I didn’t have to work I would probably have spent all of today on it.

Day 94

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I found a stone sword for the statue elsewhere in the bone section. I bring it back, use it on the statue and a doorway opens.

Behind the doorway is a bone crystal. The map starts to make a bit more sense at this point. Its divided into bone, blood and flesh sections. I have to find a crystal in each and use it on its matching pillar in the middle of the level. Once I do this a teleport appears.

In the original version I would go straight to the end level here but on the CD version I have 2 more levels to complete. These levels are intermixed with underwater bits so I have to swap between them constantly in frogman form.

There is also a little section which I can only walk through as a caun since the roof is so low. I even have to fight a few spiders in here which take a while to punch to death but I heal faster than they hurt me.

There are a few new monsters to be found. These warthog like creatures are pretty tough by any standards.

The hardest section by far involves an electrified floor which I have to navigate as a dragon. The flying skulls in particular near enough wipe out my health every time unless I’m lucky enough to be able to attack around a corner. I end up taking them out one at a time and retreating to heal which is dull but ultimately effective.

After a lot of messing around I finally teleport out to an eyeball walled section which fills in the gaps on the underwater level. This is fairly nasty and full of traps such as the floor turning to acid in this section so I have to quickly change shape.

To finish off the new levels there is an attack by about 8 warthogs simultaneously. I kill off the ones in the way and run for the exit rather than hanging around.

This brings me to the final battle with Veste. At first he appears as a cleric but then changes form and attacks.

Every time I kill him he morphs into another of the games monsters.

At last I get to his final form. This battle is less than tactical. I’ve run away to heal once, swapping to caun, casting heal, then coming straight back. Otherwise I’ve just spiked him with the trident as quick as I can. It proves effective in the end and I get the end cutscene.










Veste warns me not to trust the gods and the end also suggests that my grandfather isn’t to be trusted possibly hinting at a sequel which was never all that likely to happen. Its not the most satisfying of endings and I don’t remember it being quite like this in the original version of the game but it was a long time back and I can’t say I recall anything much about it.

I’ve not changed my opinion of this game on the way through. It’s looks fairly nice for 1993 but doesn’t have a lot else going for it. The shape changing idea was a good one though – it wasn’t entirely wasted but more could have been made of it.

The 2 extra levels were new to me this time around at least. I’ve heard them described as the best levels in the game a few times but there isn’t anything too original. They did require me to use several of the shapes to get through but there is absolutely no way it is worth buying & playing the game again just to get to them.

I’m disappointed with the CD version in general, I would expect the original cutscenes to be improved on but these are worse than the floppy version. The scenes to introduce each new world are a good idea but not well implemented. The game still feels like each world was developed in isolation and thrown together at the end. The fact that the new cutscenes try to put this together into a story just highlight this. Strangely, the cluebook actually has masses of backstory for each level. They should have tried to work some of this into the game through characters to talk to or readable books.

According to the Raven games website they were not that happy with the final game either. Looking at the development history, the premise of the game changed about 4 times along the way before the project landed at Origin which would explain the result. I also gather that improving the Wolfenstein engine was so much work it would have been easier to just develop their own. It is still as far as I know the first 2.5D game which came out on PC and something of an achievement in that sense. Origin had put out 2 far more complex and fully 3D Ultima games by now and this game just serves to highlight how much ahead of the game the Underworlds were.

One of the things that always drew me to Origin as a company in the 90’s was the way they were never happy by just stretching the technology and always took things a bit further. A game like Wing Commander would have sold well if it had just had the missions – the additional cutscenes and character interaction were not strictly neccessary but ultimately helped to make the series a classic. Origin also concentrated on the underlying gameplay. Underworld and Ultima 7 both had state of the art game engines, very different in their own ways but these engines are in no way the main reason to play either game. Because of the extra effort involved both are still utterly playable 15 years later. Crucially for me Origin games also usually had a story and told it well which is what ultimately drives me through a game.

Shadowcaster nearly fails on all the above counts. It’s saving grace is that 3D games were still in their infancy and its world was more interactive than games like Doom (which was still to come out) but I’d much prefer to have seen another game using the Underworld engine instead of this.

Next: Wing Commander – Privateer

Day 93 – Shadowcaster

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I’m back from holiday and ready to start another game. This time its a Raven Software game that was published by Origin with some involvement from Origin employees. Raven went on to produce add-ons and sequels for games using existing game engines which isn’t so far off what they did here. This is a first person action RPG based on the Wolfenstein engine.

Its the first game I’ve played so far thats been on CD. It initially came out in on 5 3.5 floppy disks but like so many other games an enhanced version was released a year or two down the line when CD drives were taking off. I played the floppy version through at least a couple of times back in the day but I’ve never seen the CD version before now.

The first obvious difference is that the intro cutscene is completely different. This has full speech and is all done with some ropey 3D animation.

In all honesty I’m not sure the original intro wasn’t better. 2D graphics stand the test of time just fine but this early 3D stuff looks worse than what you would expect inside the game these days. The voice acting isn’t too great either.

In the intro your grandfather is explaining how you are not actually human but are the last in the line of a race of shapeshifters. Your race was wiped out by Veste and you must go and defeat him.

All of this time the stone statue behind is coming to life. I’m magiced away before it attacks.

I’m dumped straight into a fight with a bouncing thing but it dies pretty fast. The engine for this game is certainly smooth anyway. Everything is at right angles unlike Underworld and there is absolutely nothing in real 3D. Its very similar to the Doom engine really even though this game came out first. It looks identical to the disk version as I remember it – it appears the game is exactly the same except with a little added speech, some cutscenes and at some point a couple of extra levels. After touching an obelisk just around the corner from here, I’m granted my first shape to shift into, a giant 6 legged cat who will be my fighting shape for about half the game.



I get a brief cutscene to introduce the next world and my new shape. The text at the bottom of the cutscenes doesn’t match up with the audio which is pretty distracting to say the least, if you are expected to listen to one while reading the other. I’m in the ruined city of my people now ruined by Zardaz. There is one of these scenes to introduce each new section from here on out and these were not present at all in the original version. Its good to get an intro and they also give me some idea of what I’m supposed to do.

The main enemies here are plants that look straight out of Little Shop Of Horrors. There isn’t anything much to the combat – just walk up and click. Its possible with most enemies to hide just around a corner and their A.I. isn’t up to walking around so you can hack them to death with impunity.

Theres also an upgraded version of the bouncing monster from earlier which fires bolts at me.

After a bit of exploring I find a teleport to another level – this has a nice mist effect which we are all used to these days in 3D games but was new at the time. I can’t seem to kill this skeleton so I run back to the first level to finish exploring that first.

I find some quicksand. When I kill one of the plants on it, it drops a seed which grows into a safe path – all the plants have been dropping these seeds so I use them to make a path for myself.

At the other side is a suspicious looking area that launches a dozen fireballs if I walk into it and kills me off.

Using the “seeing” power of the Maorin I can see the route through.

This leads me to another section with some flames and a little rune hovering above each one. I destroy all the runes with a wand I’ve found.

This leads me to find a stone head which I take.

Just outside I find a shruiken lying on the ground which I missed the first time. This is like the boomerang in Ultima 6 and flies back after each use.

There was a floating chest in the middle of the map. I kill it off with the shruiken and use the triangle it drops on the nearby pedastel. This slides a big statue of Zardoz away to reveal another teleport.

This takes me to a flooded building with some bat things scurrying around on the roof. They are pretty tough so I avoid them as much as possible.

In the corner of one corridor is a chain which when I pull drains the level of water.

I find a skull which I use on this skeleton – it comes alive and I have to kill it but a new section opens up as well.

There is some nice armor in here which I give to my Maorin.

I head back for the misty city and am much better equipped to cope with it this time. I walk into a trap at one point where when I pick up a broken key spikes come out of the ground and I’m surrounded by little one eyed things.

At the end of the level is a use for all the stone heads I’ve been finding. I place four of them into the gaps.

This raises the middle and a stairway appears.

This gets me into yet another new terrain. The textures for the game are certainly varied if nothing else.

There is another destroy the rune type puzzle only this one moves.

Behind here is the guardian I’ve been looking to destroy. I do the usual hiding round the corner trick and finish him off.


Cue another cutscene. Our people are being changed into werewolves and I have to go and kill the werewolf lord.

I also get a new form. This little guy is useful primarily for healing up. He only has 20 hit points and has a heal power. I’m dropped into Veste’s dark temple from here which is a hub for most of the rest of the game and I will keep coming back after completing each world. I teleport from here to the werewolf world.

When I enter the tower I’m immediately attacked by a werewolf. They aren’t tougher than anything else so far.

I pull a chain to release a cleric locked in the prisons – he asks me to kill the werewolf lord also but doesn’t have any useful information.

There is a new type of floating enemy on this level. These are a bit tougher but I have my caun to change back into when I need to heal so its not a big problem.

The caun has a few other powers, including telekinesis which I use to fetch this armour from the middle of the quicksand.

There is a fairly lethal library area here full of these red robed mages. After running away to heal a few times I clear it out. I don’t learn much new but there is one book that tells me about power pools which will restore my power (the blue bar). This is used to change shape, use powers etc. so this is worth knowing about.

So far I’ve mainly just waited around to recharge in human form. This is something you simply have to do in this game a bit. I always end up leaving it running on my pc when I have finished for a bit – its a bit dull but does encourage you to have breaks I suppose.

The werewolf lord is at the end of the level. He fires magic at me but doesn’t take much finishing off.


I get another cutscene to introduce the next world. The caun are enslaved in the gems mines of their world and I have to kill the slave drivers and restore their tree of life. Since I didn’t get this cutscene on the disk version I think I just went round slaughtering everything including the caun….

I’ve got another form – a gazer like floating eyeball. This is useless in combat but does have a few magic powers.

I have to use one of these straight away back in the temple to freeze the fire burning here.

The central hub room now has one complete obelisk – when I complete the lot I get to go to the final world.

The mines have a whole new set of textures and monsters as ever. The slave drivers are pretty easy to hack to death.

The slave lord is a lot tougher and I have to retreat to heal once before I can finish him off.

These mushroom things are also pretty nasty but there are only a few in the corner of the map.

I find a lever to restore the tree of life which drops some power/health restoring fruit.

The next level is full of spiders. We get little ones that crawl on the ceiling and floor. These look innocuous but really hurt and I can only hit them with the shruiken.

There are giant ones as well which hurt more but I can attack them in Maorin shape with a sword.

There are a couple of acid areas which I use my Opsis form to float over. I seem to remember that this is pretty much the only use for this shape. I get to another obelisk at the end of this.

In the next world I have to kill the sea king and use his tablet to restore the polluted waters.

My new shape is conveniently suited to this being a frog-man. Each world is basically set up for me to use my new shape at some point.

The watery area is locked up so I have to search around a bit first for a key. I also find equipment to arm my Kahpa with.

I dive beneath the water and am immediately set upon by a load of floating mines. This doesn’t go well so I try diving at a different point of the map. This time I’m able to clear out the level a bit at a time. This is fairly hard going and I keep having to retreat back to land to heal up.

I get to the sea lord in the end and blast him with the water cannon I found earlier. Unfortunately I manage to teleport out of here and save the game without picking up his tablet so I don’t get to see the cutscene…

I still get my new form and get to go to the next world at least. My new form is a dragon of sorts. He becomes my new fighter class and can also float over stuff so this form pretty much replaces two of my earlier ones.

The next world is pretty hostile with lava everywhere and some huge monsters around.

There is a very dungeon master like puzzle where I have to place a couple of boulders onto pressure plates.

At this point the ceiling slides up to release a chain which opens up a teleport to the next level.

The next level has a giant frog mouth on the wall. I have to send some flies at it, either through the caun spell or using the horn I found earlier. This puzzle stumped me for a bit first time around as I recall.

There is a tipless obelisk in the level but it keeps moving around. I have to use an hourglass in the wall to stop it. When I use the obelisk I get my new form.


This is a giant stone golem who will now become my main fighting form. I’m sorry to say at this point that the game crashed. When I tried to reload it – the savegame was corrupt and I never seem to learn to keep more than one savegame so this meant restarting from the very beginning..

90 mins later I’m back up to the sea king level only this time I can actually do it right and purify the water.




This gives me the cutscene that I’d previously missed.

A little later still and I’ve caught up to where I was. The new shape can bash through some walls. Behind one I find a book of credits with all the game designers names in.

After some more wall bashing I’m back in the central temple. All the obelisks are complete and I have a new teleport to Veste’s realm.

This is a strange place with living walls. They all use animated textures which is a first for Origin.

I can dive beneath into the blood and there are some sort of antibody creatures down here.

This gets me to an inaccessible area with a barely noticeable heart on the ceiling which I have to destroy and take the crystal that drops off. I definitely needed a walkthrough to figure this out first time round.

In another section the walls are lined with screaming faces. I find a stone statue but can’t do anything with him for now.

Thats as far as I got – without the restart I would have finished this I expect but I can’t be that far away. I’ve not seen any sign of the two new levels yet so they must be right at the end and still to come.

I’m not hugely impressed by this game really. The best thing about it in 1993 was the graphics which are extremely smooth and colourful. The game itself isn’t a patch on either Underworld though. Its a pretty dumb hack and slash on the whole with a few obscure puzzles thrown in. The storyline is really poorly presented also – the cutscenes help a bit but if you want to know the background for each world the only way to get it is to buy and read the clue book.

The music uses general midi as opposed to MT-32 for the first time in an Origin game and while its ok doesn’t really do anything for me. I’ve heard the battle winning music far too many times for my liking. Like most people,  I didn’t own an MT-32 back in the early 90’s but had an AWE32, this game did at least sound like it was supposed to on affordable hardware.

Its not a bad game, its just that if the main selling point is its cutting edge technology then its going to date pretty badly and there isn’t that much reason for playing it these days. I’m looking forward to seeing the 2 new levels however.

Day 92

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I’m off on holiday this Sunday for just under a week so I made a concerted effort to finish this game last night in one of the longest gaming sessions I’ve had at any point in this blog. I made my way back up to the academy and through the vault. There is a chest at the end containing some rune stones + a few other bits and pieces.

Just behind here through another illusionary wall is another vault with the goodies under a hidden floor panel in the middle. I remember the axe here from playing the game before – it lauches a load of fireballs when you swing it as I remember but tends to do as much damage to me as anyone else. If I cast flameproof before combat every time this thing would presmably be lethal. All my stats are in sword use though so I leave it behind.

After cutting the power line I make my way to the next world – the tomb of Praceor Loth. There are four levels of this world – the first is an 8 spoke hub with a map scrap at each end (apart from one). You copy these to your main map and get a load of notes for one of the later levels to help you through.

The first scrap is guarded by a fire elemental.

The next spoke has been destroyed. This is the place to cut the power line. The blackrock gem is here as well. I find out later that I also need the bones from here. Technically thats everything I need for now from this level but I know I’ll also want Praceor Loths horn + I’m looking for the standard for Ogri in Killorn Keep.

Another piece is guarded by 3 golems. The magic sword I picked up from another spoke comes in useful here as it turns golems to stone for a while so I can hack away at them with impunity.

After getting the 7 map scraps available I make my way to Level 2. There are plenty of ghosts and skeletons around. One ghost, Trystero gives me some of the back story for this world. Praceor Loth was a king who was defeated by the guardian and sealed in this tomb. He still lives as a ghost protected by his 3 warriors (now liches). Trystero also ask for his bones which I run back to fetch.

Theres no reward as such for fetching the bones – I guess its just a way to make sure you get the gem.

The wife of Praceor Loths ghost wants me to seek him out – the three are keeping the truth hidden from him and he still believes he is alive. This will mean defeating 3 liches of course…

I head for Level 3 and talk to another ghost. He warns me to get the map scraps which I already have before proceeding. This level is just a long series of traps with plenty of monsters, fireballs bouncing around, etc… The map scraps help a bit but it still takes some navigating. I do make it to level 4 in the end – just at the end of level 3 is the long elusive runestone I needed to cast open. This gives me the complete set – my magical abilities are coming on pretty well by this point. You seem to collect a lot of experience points later in this game and the skill points for training come thick and fast.

The first liche was a thief in life using a poison blade. He is easier than expected to kill.

The second was a mage and is also guarded by two golems. He floats around and casts fireballs if he gets too far away. As long as I keep him at close range he isn’t much danger though.

At the end of his realm is outer space!

Exploring a bit more I find a platform + fireball area. Picking the right route over the platforms I get to a magic circle at the other end. Removing a candle from this breaks the spell and outer space turns into a normal corridor.

The final liche is a fighter and the toughest of the lot – to win this fight I end up retreating back into the previous area and jump up onto the ledges. I then use a flame wind wand to take her down with impunity.

She drops what for me as a sword user is AFAIK the best weapon of the game (the black sword). This will make life a lot easier from here on out. What ever happened to my demon sword from U7 anyway – I sure could have used it up to this point.

I find Praecor Loth and he sure enough believes he is alive and well in his palace. I talk him round and he gives me his horn and releases all the ghosts still haunting this place in the process. Just behind is a small storage area with the long elusive standard.

I take this back to Ogri and he tells me about the secret rooms in the basement and barracks, which I figured out days ago.

Next its time to sort out some unfinished business before I tackle the last world. First turning myself into a djinn bottle. I got some basilisk oil from the vault in the academy. I head for the SE of the ice world level – the fact that I know to go here is only briefly mentioned in a scroll from much earlier in the game but I remember it from playing the game before.

I throw in my basilisk oil and jump in the mud which then coats my skin.

Next I need to bake myself on some lava. I head for the pits and on the way give a spare Flam stone from the vault to Zogith (an aspiring mage). In return he tells me the valor spell.

The arena of fire has plenty of lava to bake myself on so I jump in.

I then use a potion of iron flesh (which I just fetched from behind the dire reaper on level 3) and the mud turns into a clear glaze. This completes my transformation in djinn bottle but I still need the djinn.

Its onto the last world, the ethereal void. This place is seriously bizarre and consists mainly of a load of floating coloured walkways and moongates. Most of the monsters tend to fly around shooting at me so I cast fly myself and clear most of them.

I run into Mokpo from the ice caves but hes a bit of a different figure here and calls himself Mokpo the Mighty. He gives me a little information about the layout of the void.

I also run into Iolo who tells me he comes here every night in his sleep. He wakes up almost as soon as I start talking to him and vanishes.

I gather from the two of them that there are 4 coloured zones I have to complete to get to a fifth. I start off by heading into the blue zone. This place dosn’t get any less odd – I meet a mute who wants me to collect eyeballs for him and get a sort of wavy sine bridge to cross.

Aside from a load more monsters there are few wisps floating around at the end of the bridge. In exchange for some information on Bishop one of them tells me about the history of the Trilkhai.

I have to run onto a bouncy pad which throws me onto the top of a pillar into a moongate (if I get it right). This drops me onto a giant pyramid like structure. UW1 had a tribute to Pacman – this is clearly a tribute to Q-Bert. I have to jump on each block changing the colour to that of the zone I just completed.

A few characters have been giving me hints about eating the plants that grow on the graves in tombs before sleeping. Theres nothing too specific but I remember this from playing the game before. If I try a few times I will wake up in the prison the timelord was trapped inside in Ultima 7. The blackrock gem is inside a stone box in the middle. As I recall I can’t take this back with me so I throw it to the ledge outside and fly up to get it when I go back to the void.

In the meanwhile I go back to give the news to Beauty. This doesn’t seem to give me any useful info at all -she just tells me that Lord Thibris is planning some sort of invastion but when I talk to him I don’t get any new conversation options.

So its back to the void and the red zone next. This is described my Mokpo as hell which is a pretty accurate description. A flameproof spell is a must here but its still fairly lethal.

The sceptre than Zoranthus wants is lying here but is fairly well guarded. All the potions and scrolls I’ve been collecting throughout the game come in handy here.

There is still another fiery stage and then a final zone when everything wants to poison me. I gain 2000+ experience just from the swamp bit alone. This drops me back onto the pyramid which I turn red this time.

I head back up to the castle to spend some of the skill points I’m rapidly collecting in the void. Nystul notices the fact that I’m now a djinn bottle.

He also tells me we can use Praecor Loths horn to shatter the gem if we can find a way to blow it – that will be where binding the air daemon into my body comes in.I take the scepter to Zoranthus at this point to pick up the bottle containing the djinn from him in exchange.

Next, its the yellow zone which is a 3D maze full of brain creatures. The easiest way through this would be just to cast fly but I’m out of mana and do it the hard way. When I kill a couple of brain creatures at the end they drop some eyeballs which I grab to give to the guy in the blue zone.

There is a white moongate at the bottom of the pyramid – I use this to go the the sigil of binding.

I drop the djinn bottle into the pentagram, and whack it with my sword. With nowhere to go it is now bound to my body.

I give Prinx the eyeballs and he offers me a scroll in exchange. I have no idea what this scroll does however.

Its the purple zone next. This is full of slippery ground and bouncing pads but isn’t too complicated. One sliding pad slides me straight into the guardian himself who is not a pleasant sight.

I wake up in stick figure land – this is a bit of a tribute to Ultima 1. I seem to remember there being a secret area here but I don’t find it and just head straight through the moongate at the end. I recolour the pyramid, then do so once again (this time in gold).

A gold moongate appears which takes me to the cell. I use the rod here to cut the power. Thats all the gems and all the power lines cut.

When I get back to Britannia there are a load of guards milling about.

They are an advance scouting party from Killorn Keep who have come through the gem! I wipe them out then head back up to Nystul to get the final gem warmed.

When I use this on the gem it starts flashing. I still need to get Nystul some info on the casting of the spell that created the gem. I head for Killorn Keep to see what this invasion is about.

My ally in the keep has gone but she left a note. Mors Gotha is organising the invasion of Britannia and is in the keep with the spellbook I want.

I head for the barracks and hack my way through a locked door into Mors Gothas room. Neither her or the guards take kindly to this. The spellbook I need is on the floor in here though.

When I’ve nearly killed Mors Gotha the guardian summons a moongate and she takes off through it leaving me with a room full of guards to deal with.

I clear out of the keep with the spellbook and take it up to Nystul. He wants to know a few more details about when and where the spell was cast. Nell gave me these a long time ago (throne room at 4 in the morning).

Everything is in place to shatter the gem but before we can give it a go Mors Gotha arrives with an invasion party and I have to kill her once more.

My combat stats were maxed out a long time back and this isn’t a hard fight. This time the guardian doesn’t save her.

I kill off a few remaining guards and head for the throne room.

Everything is ready. I talk to Nystul and the final cutscene begins.














It has to be said that for such an epic game the final cutscene is really quite poor. Its short, less than spectacular, doesn’t have any new music and doesn’t really advance the plot beyond what you would expect. The game itself has been great fun to play again after all these years though. With me trying to get it finished before my holiday this was probably the single longest time I’ve sat down to play any of these games so far but it just flew by.  The last couple of worlds were a lot more interesting than some of the earlier ones, more than anything due to the size and complexity of them. Having said that I’m glad I remembered what I was doing as some of the puzzles at the end would be pretty hard to guess otherwise to say the least.

The game felt more dated to me than Underworld 1 despite being larger and better graphically. Some of these worlds deserved a more advanced game engine but this was as good as it got in its day. If I’ve ever seen a game that deserves a modern remake this is it. Ultima 7 still looked great with its 2D world but this early 3D really doesn’t do the worlds of this game justice.

My shadowcaster CD may or may not have shown up by the time I’m back from holiday but thanks to Natreg I now have a copy I can use in the meanwhile either way.

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