Ultima: Exodus

"Oh..this is why I hate the Ultima series.."

One day I was walking through the mall and I happened upon a bargain bin of video games outside of a toy store. I saw Ultima: Exodus and decided to splurge and spend the five bucks for it. That's when the terror began. OK, maybe it wasn't THAT bad, but it sure wasn't good

Story: 3/10

I don't want to be hard on the story of this game, but I just have to. There was no excuse for developers when they were making the first RPG's. The stories just sucked. You play four legendary heroes commissioned by Lord British to track down an ancient evil and destroy it to bring peace to the land. I can't call it cliche because it was one of the first video games I've ever seen to use this story. In fact, Final Fantasy kind of reminds me of this. Anyway, after your talk with Lord British you head out on your mission. You're given no clues as to your goals and basically you're left to roam, hoping you find the right path. The story is sort of a..well..it doesn't exist

Graphics: 3/10

You could take a box of leggos and build more convincing characters. All graphics in this game were inexcusably ugly and blocky. Towns looked crappy. The world map looked crappy. Battle scenes were awful. Move on..

Gameplay: 5/10

I guess I can give this game some points for effort in this department. Picking your characters from a list of classes and races is a pretty cool feature. The spells and weapons are decently interesting. You could attack anybody! Now that was a cool feature. Didn't like that little girl in your way? Kill her. Of course, after you're done killing her you have to get out of town before hordes of guards come crashing down on your head, but still, whacking a civilian is mighty fun. Battles sucked, though. You are placed on one side of a battlefield. Your enemies are placed on the other. You walk towards each other casting spells, shooting, hacking and slashing until somebody is defeated. It's not that amazing.

Sound/Music: 2/10

This was bad. This game had some of the most annoying music I've ever heard, especially the battle music. It's repetitive and annoying.

Overall: 4/10

Overall, I'm being generous. I didn't like this game at all. It was difficult but in a bad way. It had a vague plot with vague goals. Don't bother buying this unless your a big fan of the Ultima series.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 08/10/00, Updated 08/10/00