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An incredible game! (even with all the bugs)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: September 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Being a fan of the Ultima series, (especially the Ultima Underworld games) I had to buy Ultima IX. I was a little disappointed when I received an "illegal operation" error during the installation program, but after installing the most recent patch, I was able to set up my video card and begin playing.

I was satisfied with the performance on my computer (Pentium III 500Mhz, 192MB RAM, Diamond Stealth III S540 AGP.) Running at 800x600x32 with the game's MIP mapping option set to high, the frame rate was fairly smooth, slowing only occurred in complex areas such as cities.

I was simply amazed at the quality of the game world. Days and nights pass gradually with colorful sunsets and sunrises. The weather varies from sunny to cloudy to rainy. There are mountains, swamps, beaches, hidden caves and shipwrecks to explore. The non-linear gameplay gives you full freedom to explore wherever you want, while at the same time providing a solid plot. Even if you lose your way, you will still enjoy finding secrets and exploring the world.

A few tips for anyone who buys Ultima IX:

1. Install the most recent patch before you even start playing! This fixes most of the quest-stopping bugs. (I learned the hard way)

2. Save your game frequently! I have had problems with the game suddenly (and without warning) dumping me back to the windows desktop. This can be very frustrating if you haven't saved for an hour or two. (I also learned this one the hard way)

3. Keep multiple save files. I would suggest creating a new save file each time you complete a quest before moving on to the next one. There are a couple of bugs that might force you to restart the game from the beginning. I think the patch fixes these, but keeping multiple save files is always a good idea in complex games like Ultima IX.

4. If you only have 64MB of RAM, upgrade to at least 128MB. It will improve the performance significantly.

In summary, I would recommend Ultima IX - Ascension to any fan of the the Ultima series or anyone who enjoys RPG/Adventure games. Ultima IX contains some references to the previous Ultima games, but nothing that will stop you from enjoying the game if you haven't played them. Without all the bugs, Ultima IX would deserve a solid 5 stars, but even with them, it is a brilliantly designed game and an excellent ending to the Ultima series.

Great game? Bad game?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: March 28, 2000
Author: Amazon User

OK!This game has outdone what anyone could even imagine!Well...litterally it did, but you better have one of those "10 years away" computers to run this at a FAIR framerate. If your computer can actually handle this game and play it like it is supposed to be played, then no porblem, buy it! For those people who can play it, heres your review. Graphic wise Ultima 9 is the granddaddy of all graphics (for a while, but wait 'till Team Fortress 2 and HALO come out). Every town and city are magnificentley detailed. This game makes you "dwarfed" to objects like I've never seen before. Enemies look odd, but if your a familiar person to Ultima then you'll have no problem acually understanding them. In every town you go into you get to interact with hundreds of people. You can have conversations and everything.

Bottom line is that if your computer can handle this game, then buy it as fast as you can. If your computer can't handle it then just sit back and dream of the day that you get that brand new, 800mhz, 300 mbs ram, Voodoo5 3000 APG, Sounblaster live! 5 piece speaker system computer. =)

Incredible graphics, lots of potential, too many bugs.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: April 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Okay, there are lots of discussions about the graphics of this game and whether or not they're too much for the average system. I don't know -- I'm playing at 1GHZ/512MB/GeForce2Pro so the game has never been slow for me, and the graphics are LIGHT YEARS AHEAD of any other 3D-accelerated game on the market, anywhere. Nothing competes with the scale of the Ultima IX world and the detail you'll find in it and I don't see anything scheduled for release over the next year that looks like it will compete, with the possible exception of Myst III:Exile.

However, it's probably true that slower systems will experience major graphics slowdows... Some would say that this is an unfair marketing strategy that cuts out people with low-end computers, but what about me? I bought a high-end monster system because I wanted immersive gameplay, and it's nice to have a game [for a change] that will really let me see what it can do.

The gameplay is great fun... Everything you could possibly want in a mix between questing and combat -- neither overwhelms the other. Ultima IX makes games like King's Quest: Mask of Eternity or Omikron: The Nomad Soul just look silly and underdeveloped. (Yes, I'm a fan of the much-hated action/adventure genre.)

And the game's 3D engine makes it more immersrive than anything I've played. You're not limited to certain "paths" in the environment -- you can climb onto the rooves, jump off of the bridges, swim in all of the water, cut across vast meadows instead of staying on the path, wander through the forests and get lost... For a change, the map is actually a MAP that you can fully explore, rather than scenery surrounding a few pre-defined paths that you can't deviate from.

So why not five stars?

Because there are serious gameplay bugs. For example, if you don't finish a quest in exactly the way the game expects you to, the game doesn't realize you've finished the quest. At one point in the game, Lord British told me to go to the town of Yew through a tunnel under a mountain. However, I thought I'd already seen a better way to get there, so I climbed up a mountain (yes, in this game such things can be done) and wandered around until I found a place where I could slide down the other side into Yew. It was only later that I realized that when the game had told me to go through the tunnel, it MEANT that I needed to do so. I had played for many hours when I realized that the game hadn't registered my trip to Yew properly; I had to restore from a much earlier save and fight my way through the tunnel instead of traveling over the mountain before the game would recognize my journey. These sorts of gameplay problems proliferate in Ultima IX and make it much more linear and less immersive than it otherwise would have been.

But even so, if I look past my criticisms for a moment, I am forced to admit that none of the other 3D-enhanced games I own come close to Ultima IX in entertainment value [and yes, I do own Q3A, UT, SOF and I've just ordered Tribes 2, so I do know about the FPS genre].

Buy Ultima IX if you have a nice system and ENJOY IT, but remember -- if lord British sends you on a quest a specific way, you'd better do it the way he says, or you'll be restoring from old saves later on...

Too much work for too little reward

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 18, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I have never played Ultima before, so this was my first impression of the series. The installation went fine. Having to re-install the game after EA sent me an updated, non-crashing version of the game was a bother. The graphics were choppy, but I could deal with that since they looked so beautiful. What really ticked me off was that I would be playing the game for a while and getting through some pretty rough sections of it and all of the sudden, my "avatar" would fall through the floor or the game would just freeze, causing me to have to restart my game and sometimes the computer and continue the game from the last point at which I saved. This is a very long, not addictive and really, not fun game that I would not reccomend to anyone unless you are interested in looking at pretty 3D graphics and paying this much and going through this much trouble to see them.

astonding graphics, now they need to design the game.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: February 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Since I have a fairly new 733 pentium III, I had no problems getting a good frame speed. Even playing at full speed the graphics are wonderfull. The landscapes in this game reminded me of the German alps. No game I have ever seen comes even close to matching the visual quality of this game. Unfortunatly, this is the game's only real strong point. The quests are often long and tedious. Places are hard to find, with too much travel time. The fighting in the game is boring at best, and the puzzles are second rate. Spending the time to beat this game is simply not worth it. There are too many other RPG's out there for anyone to buy this game. Unless you are the type of person who likes playing games where you run around for 30 minutes to complete one fairly simple task, all the while fighing simple creatures by clicking the left mouse button as fast as you can, this game is simply not for you.

Look people....

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: February 27, 2000
Author: Amazon User

of course U9 doesnt work on your computers, it doesnt matter what kind of cpu you have if you dont have a 3dfx card it will run like crap...guaranteed. but the latest patch which most of you probably didnt think or know how to do download, fixes most of the problems. so calm down, u9 is a great game...awesome graphics, huge world, and great story, although dialogue is cheesy and the voices suck. not as great as many of the other ultimas, but then nothing is. it is still in my opinion the best rpg since baldur's gate.

An amazing game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: September 01, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have been a fan of the Ultima series since the first one came out, and I was thrilled to get my hands on this finally installment when it was released. This game is simply beautiful; the breath and depth of the world is simply amazing. The voices are very well done, and the characters are interesting and compelling. Very few games have a story that is as rich and rewarding as the one found in this game. I could go on and on about how great this game is, but let me just say this one thing: "Ultima 9" is probably one of the best RPGs released for a computer in recent years. I have noticed the complaints people have made about the game being buggy, but I have never had a single problem from the initial installation to the end of the game. If you are a fan of the Ultima series, this game is a must have for you.

The Good and Bad

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 17, 2000
Author: Amazon User

First off installation of the game was easy enough for me. The game however, will be prone to crashes if you don't have enough virtual memory which is about 580 megs. The graphics are stunning to watch and the world of Britannia looks fantastic. I've been running this game on minimum requirements and it runs pretty good. The only time it will slow done however is when it tries to hide the fact that it is loading the terrain. I think it would be wise to run this game under Voodoo3. So all in all after the patch, I think that the game is fun to play and will keep you occupied for many hours.

A worthy attempt.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 25, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I'm withholding the other three stars until the game is fixed. This game is a very worthy attempt at reinventing the RPG genre. Too much so... and due to a rushed release date the game is a woefull disappointment to Ultima fans. The game falls far short in many areas compared to the classic Ultimas of the past. The plot is very linear, not nearly as open as is traditional in Ultima games. The graphics are outstanding but the game suffers from horrible framerates (I get about 10FPS on a PIII 600 with a TNT2Ultra and 128MB). The game is also full of bugs, everything from NPC's getting stuck in ceilings and walls to the player falling through the map, crashes, corrupted save games, memory leaks and install problems. Worst of all, there are several plot stopping bugs that bring the game to a quick and complete halt with no solution except to use cheat codes. Patches have been released to address these problems but have added almost as many as they have fixed. D3D is horrible (though better in patch 1.07). The game simply isn't finished, stay away from it for now. Visit Origin's Ultima IX forum for a good idea of the general feelings about this game.

This game had good potential to be awesome...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I was looking forward to U9 for quite some time and when i finally got my hands on it i uninstalled it the same night i installed it. For one this game is the biggest resource hog i have ever seen, its about 700MB for minimum install and about 1.2GB maximum. Another thing is i have a AMD K6 2 400MHz w/ a TNT card and this game looked like a friggin slide show, the frame rates were terrible even when i turned down detail and sight distance. The bugs.. ahh the dreaded bugs! I'm not even going to get into that subject, theres too many! This game had some awesome potential to be the Game of the Year but OSI just had to rush it out for the holiday shopping spree insted of keeping it in development for another month or so. If they gave this game another month or so it would have been awesome, i would have rather waited longer than play this buggy piece of junk.

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