How UW Changed the World - Elenkis - 10:44:18 AM EST

Computer and Video Games have started a great new feature on Games That Have Changed the World. Their first subject just so happens to be our beloved Ultima Underworld. The article is about three pages in length and takes a good in depth look at the game while discussing the creation with Doug Church, Paul Neurath and Warren Spector. Here's a tasty snip:

This made a massive difference at the time, as Paul Neurath remembers: "I brought an early Underworld demo to the West Coast to show some folks, including developer friends. I can remember their jaws dropping as they watched the demo. You could see in their eyes that the gaming world had shifted." Up until that point gamers had grown accustomed to classic 'tile-based' RPGs such as Dungeon Master, which did not allow complete freedom of movement. "It was kinda slow, too," admits Doug, "though our quarter-screen view sort of made up for it." Admittedly the game was slow, even on a top-of-the-range-at-the-time 486DX, though that did little to dampen the enthusiasm of anyone who played it. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss shipped in March 1992 - two whole months before John 'Quake' Carmack and Apogee released Wolfenstein 3D - something worth remembering if you assumed that Wolfenstein 'started' the whole 3D revolution.

An interesting read!

Wednesday, April 10, 2002

Bugs Fixed & Improvements List - Dan - 6:51:07 PM EST

Arkane as published a list of bug fixes and game improvements made to Arx since the release of the demo. It's a very promising collection! Here are some hilights:

Crashes to desktop: the game is very stable now, the game no longer crashes like it did in the demo.

We've changed the default interface, it is way easier now and doesn't require all the mouse toggles anymore

We've added many controls customisation, a lot!!!

We've added tons of hotkeys and movement functionalities

Game is not as dark as it use to be on some screens

Fog distance can be increased more than before

Higher Resolutions are now supported, not limited to 1024 x 768 anymore.

Fighting animations are straight forward now, it is easier to aim at monsters

You can cast magic in all directions now (looking up and down)

A quick save / quick load function has been implemented

The Save menu is called Save/load now :)

Can't go through the roof anymore

The leaning option is more efficient now

Added a 'pick up all' button for inventories as well as a 'close' button.

Fixed a lot of oddities in the interface like disappearing cursors, etc...

See the full list, as well as some great new screenshots, atRPGDot!