Paul Izod at Zero 1 Gaming has continued his retrospective of the Ultima series with a lengthy look at Ultima 2.

Here’s a taste:

While Ultima II has a great many technical and design flaws, it is important to remember the context it was conceived in. The industry as a whole was a very different one to the behemoth it is today. Populated almost entirely by individual or small-group enthusiast developers, it was a fledgling industry and basically every game was breaking new ground in some way or another. Imagine a group of people running a marathon in the dark with just a small flashlight to guide the way and you have a semblance of an appropriate metaphor. People had no guide from which to work, no precedent to set them on the right track and so games like Ultima II were an inevitable consequence. Grand and ambitious, but flawed, not through negligence or incompetence, but down to the fact the person making it was literally making it up as he went along.

Paul Izod does a great job of commenting on the computer gaming industry as a whole during the very early 80s, as well as some of the idiosyncrasies of Ultima II, itself.  Do read the whole thing if you have some time to spare.