Electronic Arts Games (Yes, Origin's Games Too!) Come To GOG.Com
You’ve all been waiting anxiously to know what the countdown to the “biggest announcement ever” at Good Old Games (GOG) is, and now it can be told: the Origin Systems catalogue of games (among many other Electronic Arts titles) are coming to GOG, beginning with Ultima Underworld and Ultima Underworld 2, Dungeon Keeper, and Wing Commander: Privateer!
Yeah, really.
You can get the games at these links: Ultima Underworld 1 & 2, Wing Commander: Privateer, and Dungeon Keeper.
And as the summer progresses, Good Old Games will release still more classic Origin titles, including the rest of the Ultima series, the Wing Commander series, and even the Crusader games. Even if you own the games, I’d recommend taking a look at what the plucky Polish retailers have on offer as the weeks roll on by; they have worked hard to make sure the games play nice with Windows, after all, eliminating the need (hopefully) for jumping through all kinds of configuration hoops.
One thing: I would assume that the various patches and enhancements available here on Aiera for various titles in the Ultima series will work with GOG’s versions of the games, but I don’t know that for certain. I’ll be picking the games up over the course of the next few weeks/months, and as I have time I’ll test the various patches and updates against them.
But if any of you want to have a stab at doing that before I get around to it…please do, and report back!
Update: The Wing Commander CIC is carrying the news and offers a few other bonus posts as well, including: the introdiction of the Trilkhai in Ultima Underworld 2, a look at the Ultima Underworld/Wing Commander 2 retail box set, and a retrospective of GameTap’s abortive attempt to do in 2006 what GOG has just done.
Revenge of the Update: And the next titles coming up after these? Crusader: No Remorse, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri and Magic Carpet!
I can hardly believe it. Electronic Arts is making these classics commercially available again. I think hell froze over.
This is an excellent turn of events!
These three, plus the three that will be released in a few weeks, are amazing.
GOG.com keeps going from strength to strength, and I imagine it’s only a matter of time before Lucasarts and others join.
This actually kind of makes sense now. EA probably wasn’t interested in bringing these games up to snuff themselves and, unlike other DD services, GOG isn’t much of a direct competitor with EA’s digital store for sales of contemporary games.
The Wing Commander news is a bit more exciting for me since I already own all the Ultima games. And the prices are actually pretty decent — I was expecting them to start at $10.
Well, anyone that hasn’t played Privateer before, grab it. It was an awesome game.
Hmm… Dungeon Keeper… I remember seeing trailers for that back in the day on some of my games’ CDs. Never actually played it though…
Someone made the first level of the Abyss in Dungeon Keeper: http://www.ultimaaiera.com/underworld/uw1/ultima-underworld-for-dungeon-keeper/
Just sayin’.
$6.99? For about the price of a Subway sandwich I can download two of the coolest RPGs of all time. This is fantastic news! Way to go EA!
Whoops! $5.99. Even better! 😛
I’m curious to know if the games were fixed to maintain aspect ratio, or if they will stretch on wide screens…
i hope gog will put on autoduel too! i really miss that game
So that everyone knows, both Dungeon Keeper and Wing Commander: Privateer are vanilla versions and do not include their add-ons (Deeper Dungeons and Righteous Fire). It’s due to licensing reason according to GOG staff (well that’s the usual answer GOG gives in these kind of situations and rarely elaborate). Hopefully Alpha Centauri will include Alien Crossfire when released or at least I will wait till it does.
ooohhh, take a look at what comes with it… http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/ultima_underworld_1_2#s_1 the cluebook as well 🙂
I already have all the cluebooks in print but nice nethertheless. If I didn’t own the two games in three incarnations… 🙂
I’m excited about this, pointing all the people to gog for U7 will be great for Exult 🙂
hmm, lack of install.exe for UW http://www.gog.com/en/forum/ultima_underworld/change_music_playing_device_in_uu1
Yeah, those Origin cluebooks were super cool. Cool that they’re including all of them. This is like the first thing that EA has done with Ultima for ages that is making almost everyone happy. 😛
Losing interest now that it appears they’ll be releasing the vanilla versions of these games, sans expansions and (presumably) CD extras. Figures.
Yeah, a large part of what I’m excited about is getting my (digital) hands on all the cool extras which I always missed out on.
In answer to Scythifuge, a lot of GOG releases I’ve played in the past have been fixed to play nice with widescreens without stretching, however a couple I’ve played have stretched horribly. However they should work with all the various patches/enhancements available here, I’ve never encountered a GOG game that didn’t work with all the various mods and stuff designed for the original.
Also, regarding Dungeon Keeper.. I’ve never played the original but I had many many hours of fun in the sandbox mode of Dungeon Keeper 2. I should note though that this was when I was about 12 or 13 years old and to be honest I can’t see myself having that much of a good time with it today.
Thanks Duke! After reading a bit more, it looks like they might be using DosBox, which can be set to maintain aspect ration. I do this with many Origin games while using DosBox.
Meh, I already have almost all of these games and can run them just fine with Dosbox…
Maybe it will raise some interest in the old Ultima Classics although I think the old graphics and interfaces from the Ultima’s will have a hard time reaching newer younger audiences..
It somewhat surprises me that EA would release these classic games. These games will only serve to demonstrate the stark contrast between these amazing creative works of yesterday with the vapid shovelware that EA currently peddles.
Shovelware like Battlefield 3 and the Mass Effect series?
I’ll be strongly considering picking up Crusader: No Remorse. I lost my copy ages ago. I wonder how that game holds up? I remember thinking the controls were really wacky even back then.
I’m also down for Dungeon Keeper 2 and Syndicate Wars, when they get around to it.
And for anybody considering Dungeon Keeper: Do it. It is an absolutely brilliant game. It is deep, quite difficult in the later levels, and the charming graphics and interface completely stand the test of time.
I’m wondering if this deal will really include all the Ultima and Wing Commander titles. Six of the 25 games have been announced without a proper entry from either series — that leaves 19 to go, and some of those will be non-Origin games. But I guess they could release Ultima as a collection, and bundle the first two Wing Commanders.
It’ll also be interesting to see if the Ultima and Wing Commander expansions are included, since they’re missing from Privateer and Dungeon Keeper. The CD versions may still end up being the better alternative.
I am sure, if successful, there will be more than 25 titles in the future.
I think they would bundle the Ultima games like this:
Bundle #1 – Ultima I – III
Bundle #2 – Ultima IV – VI, even though IV is out and free
Bundle #3 – Ultima VII and addons
Bundle #4 – Ultima Worlds
Solo – Ultima VIII
Solo – Ultima IX
I would hardly call Mass Effect shovelware. They are some of the best games I have ever seen.
I already have pretty much all the Origin games… I am considering get the Underworld games (again) though, just for the hintbook (which is kinda weird)
I’m pretty confident that the other Ultima and Wing Commander will show up. The fact that EA is simultaneously releasing games on GOG and launching their own distribution service gives me the impression that they don’t plan to start distributing all the old games themselves any time in the near future, so we’ll probably see them on GOG.
Also, they’ve said that after the first 6 titles, they’re going to take a break from the ‘concentrated awesomeness’ (their words) until later in the Sunmmer, which means they’re obviously going to save up the really big titles until then – GOG does love to get people hyped up.
They have said too that it will end up being more than 25 titles in the first batch alone, which I take to mean that there will be another batch released later as well.
Oh, and just after writing this, I noticed these tweets by Paul Barnett:
“Looking at getting retro ultima t shirts made, in honour of the ultima gog downloads. Hopefully we can also get the cloth maps remade!”
And then:
“Currently wondering if a one off complete set of cloth maps for all ultimas is the way to go, or just certain ultimas, any views welcomed!
4 Jun »”
Duke: Paul certainly has some interesting ideas in mind, that much is for sure. Of course, that much becomes obvious mere seconds after meeting him; he is a man with no deficit of passion for anything he’s chasing after, Ultima included.
Thepal: My point exactly. 😉