Ultima Online

"Probably the most addictive game of all time."

This game was the first online game I ever got into. You can play for years and years and never get board. Ultima Online (Or UO) is made up of 32 shards, hundreds of thousands of players, and over 40,000 player-run organizations called guilds. It is a highly interactive
Pay-per-month game. There are many things you can do ranging from fighting tough NPC's, to roleplaying in a medieval backdrop, to just chatting with a friend online.

Gameplay - This game is fantastic. It can take months upon months to make the perfect character to either make game money by making items, the perfect character for player for player vs. player combat, or the perfect character for hunting monsters. Basically you start out on one of the shards in this game. On each shard, you can have up to five characters. Also, in this game you gain skill points in any given skill till you get 100/100, which means that you have reached “Grandmaster in that skill”. Reaching “Grandmaster” means that you can perform that skill with optimum success and skill. Also, if it is a crafting skill, when you reach “”Grandmaster”, you can put your character name on that item. Some people enjoy cheap bugs to make money in this game, and to gain skill points for their characters, but I personally think it ruins the game. In this game, there are hundreds of unique monsters, and new ones are occasionally added to keep people on their toes.

Story - The official story of this game is that some guy from our world in England is able to access the world of Sosaria. The reason their are different shards is because in the original Ultima series, the Avatar fought an evil wizard, shattered the Gem of Immortality, which caused the world to split. The English guy (Lord British) is able to access all the shards, and names himself king of the universe. The story is also ever-developing because the makers of this game always are making new missions, new worlds (Trammel and Felucca), new areas (Lost Lands and the dungeon Kaldun), and crazy storylines like monsters capturing cities and kings leading raids against evil. And if you don’t wanna follow this, you don’t have to. You can develop your own story, or just hang out.

Audio/Video - This game has some old school 2D graphics, and medieval sound. The music usually works very well, especially the music in towns, but the battle music in this game is fast a little scary, and whenever I heard it when I started this game, I thought my character was going to be killed and become a ghost (By the way, when you become a ghost, you can be revived an infinite number of times). Personally, I preferred the graphics in this game before the 3D option. The pixel characters looked really good, and the landscapes looked lush and full. I always played without the 3D option because it took up too much space on my computer, and the characters looked ugly in my opinion.

Replayability - This game doesn’t have an ending, it is just you in an online world. This game isn’t for everyone, but if it is, it WILL take up most of your life. You might become a total shut-in after a while because you will just want to play this game, and you will start thinking “I will stop after I get to GM (Grandmaster) in Swordsmanship” but it won’t. You will just keep playing and playing. Fortunately after a few months of trying, I am no longer addicted, and I rarely get on anymore, but I still LOVE this game.

Overall, I give this game a 9/10 because I simply fell in love with this game. As a matter of fact, it can at times be too much fun, and can take away lots of your life, and that is why I took off a point. I also have a problem with the 3D “Upgrade” for this game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/18/01, Updated 11/18/01