Unboxing Serpent Isle
Old Games Italia has launched what I guess is a new feature for them: Retrounboxing in White Gloves. And appropriately, they’ve chosen the European edition of Serpent Isle as the debut box to open. Because really…if you’re going to unbox a game and record the process, you should unbox a game that has stuff in the box worth pulling out and looking at.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beyWcu_J_mw&w=480&h=360]
Old timey!
They snark on the European edition a bit, criticizing its cheap-feeling manual and paper (rather than cloth) map. It’s a cheeky, humourous look at the materials that shipped with the game, and a nice bit of nostalgia; I’m hoping that they’ll give other Ultima titles the same treatment in the future.
I’m really not that fond of these generic European sleeved EA boxes. Especially these first generation ones which were very fragile : the upper part of th box tended to easil crushed upon itself. My UW2 box is in poornstare because of it.
Later they used proper “lift off” box but still all black with a sleeve. At least it was solid though UVIII is the only Ultima that had it. UIX’s box is prett bad too though in a different way 😛
Bottom like the pre EA boxes were better in Europe. The US ones are neat though.
Meh. Whenever I see boxes compared all I can think about is my Australian U9 Dragon Edition. I had to wait an extra around three months, and when my parents finally brought it home I opened it… and was heartbroken. A cardboard map. A steel ankh. I guess Australian dragons didn’t matter enough to give us a proper Dragon edition.
Well… to be fair Australia was the only country outside the US who *had* a Dragon Edition. I’ve only seen a pic of it but I actually feel the Australian Ankh looks better than the US one (which was really not that good to begin with)
That being said… the lack of a cloth map was indeed a slap in the face, especially since the regular editions across Europe all had a cloth map. I’m actually surprised Europe and Australia didn’t had the same edition as they often had.
I know the feeling though, Europe often got the shaft with Ultima – my U6 came with a crappy carboard map, Serpent Isle had but a crappy paper map and I’ve recently found out U7 and U8 had cheaper crappiers version of the cloth maps. Feh.
That’s the worst part. The normal edition here *did* have a cloth map. Plus it was out on time. I had to wait longer (while seeing it in stores) to get mine, and it came without a cloth map. If it wasn’t for the other extra stuff in the box (which wasn’t that amazing anyway) I would have returned the Dragon Edition and just gotten a normal one.
But yeah… I know what you mean. The only cloth map I ever got was the Ultima 8 one, and I hope it was a cheaper version (since otherwise cloth maps are really badly made).
As for the Australian Ankh, mine started rusting a few years ago (it has never left the house… usually hasn’t left the box).
I assume that’s because they imported the original US version : from what they say at Ultima Collectors the regular AU version was even worst: no cloth map, no virtue cards and no actual Journal/Spellbook. Ugh.
http://www.ultimacollectors.info/u9_aus_1.htm
Regarding the U8 cloth map, the US one really looks a lot better, I was actually baffled
http://t.co/rN4r7i8T
Not all Ultima cloth maps were of the same quality (the SI one feels really poor for instance) but they’re always nice to have to… I’m only missing the Ultima II one at that point.
Regarding the Ankh if it rusted for no reason then yeah, it was a poor one I guess… the US wasn’t that good, but it still in good state. Oh well…
Still I miss the times when we HAD such editions for games
There are still some collectors editions out there, but they tend to include something ridiculous that makes it priced way too much. I’d like a Skyrim collectors edition, but they made it cost $200. So I’m sticking with a normal copy that I’ve preordered for $43 (with a cloth map still, which is awesome)