Well, Ultima Forever Certainly Has Managed to Divide Opinions
Eurogamer did not like Ultima Forever. No, they did not like it, not one little bit.
This is a game built for idiots.
And so it goes:
The critic Ian Bogost once mocked up something called Cow Clicker to illustrate the banal absurdity of most freemium mechanics, and Ultima Forever is Cow Clicker with a beard. Everything is straightforward to the point of absurdity. Combat comes down to just tapping on enemies constantly. It really does. There are special moves, and you can move around to score backstabs or avoid attacks, but 99% of the time this is soul-crushing, mechanical drudgery. Go into a dungeon, tap furiously for 10 minutes, leave.
And, in conclusion:
Someone whose opinion I respect told me that this is a game made with love. If love is surface-deep reference, a painted mask to hide behind, then that is true. Ultima’s character has been corrupted and trammelled into a grotesque parody of itself in Ultima Forever. This game is a desecration.
Now, the way in which Eurogamer savages Ultima Forever is, in and of itself, fairly stark and even a tad shocking. Not that there’s anything wrong with the expression of a negative review, or the awarding of a poor score, because…well, there’s nothing wrong with that. To each their own, opinions included. But the tone, the language choice…the knives are out here, the teeth bared. This isn’t merely just a negative review; this is a savaging.
And it almost makes you wonder if the reviewer at Massively was playing the same game.
So if Ultima is such a “serious” IP, then why did I find myself giggling with joy as I played Ultima Forever?
Wait…what?
Gameplay consists mostly of grabbing a quest and running to an area of the world to fight monsters, gather loot and experience, and complete tasks. Players can transport immediately to the areas needed for questing by utilizing a moongate or by paying a few keys (more on keys in a minute) or by running across a world map in real time instead. Ultima Forever is not about realistic travel or immersive horseback touring. No, this is a game for adventure and looting, but it doesn’t feel as rushed as many other games that attempt the same. The combat is pretty simple. You click on the ground to move, click on a target to attack it, and press ability shortcuts to fire off larger attacks. It feels basic but in an old-school arcade way. I’m sure that in later levels the combat becomes more intense, and the combat in a group is a heck of a lot more noisy, but overall it’s kept to the point. I played a massive melee character and he did just that: meleed the crap out of enemies.
And, in conclusion:
Overall, Ultima Forever is a great experience for mobile…The truth is that EA provides hours, hours, and more hours of absolutely free gaming for us to enjoy, and in a casual game like Ultima Forever, we can play smartly for literally nothing. Well, if we play mostly casually, I think… which the game is designed for. We should throw in a few bucks when we are getting so much fun for free.
Granted, Massively does single out the gear repair system in Ultima Forever as being in need of improvement (which recent hotfixes pushed to the game have, in fact, provided). But overall, their review of the game is significantly more positive than Eurogamer’s; one comes away thinking of the game as something playable and even somewhat worthwhile as a continuation of the Ultima mythos, contra Eurogamer’s labeling it a desecration and awarding it a 20% score.
The point being, I suppose, that Ultima Forever has certainly produced some very…divided opinions amongst reviewers and players. Because really, you see the same sort of dichotomy in the game’s official forums. There are those who seem to utterly despise the game, and those who seem to quite like it (while still encouraging improvements here and there, feedback which Mythic has taken — and often acted upon — quite graciously).
It’s a curious phenomenon, but a good sign overall. To crib a metaphor from Revelation, it would seem that everyone is either cold or hot where Ultima Forever is concerned; there seem to be very few who are lukewarm.
I still haven’t played U4E as I don’t own an iOS device capable of running it, but from reading this article, I have to say that I find it hard to care about it. Even the positive review is a turn off to me. It sounds like it’s exactly the type of game I expected it to be, unfortunately. Ultima games should be deep and immersive, not simplistic and casual. Lord knows we already have more than enough casual games. I’m so sick of seeing everything get dumbed down and casualized these days.
Heh…whereas I love the trend. Or at least I welcome it.
Not that I don’t like deep and immersive games; I most certainly do. But I just don’t have the time anymore to really throw myself at games that require the investment of hours at a time, and many dozens (or even hundreds) of hours to complete. Being a gainfully employed husband and father (of three!) consumes a significant amount of time in any given day, as does maintaining this site (a task I typically put off until the evening most days). So I appreciate games that I can drop into for fifteen minutes and then get out of in a heartbeat.
And really, I don’t think that U4E suffers from a lack of immersion simply because it supports a drop-in/drop-out play style. I think its immersive qualities would be greatly aided and enhanced by the addition of manipulable world & scenery objects (a la Ultima 6/7/9), but the fact that it doles out its story in manageably-sized segments doesn’t really hurt it. It’s not like you can’t spend hours in the game…but it’s friendly toward you even if you can’t.
I’ve played quite a number of mobile games, some which have in fact proven to be deeply immersive in spite of their support of a casual play style. U4E is a reasonable example; it tells an engaging story and offers a lushly illustrated world to explore. An even better example is Galaxy on Fire 2, which…hasn’t been uninstalled from my phone for more than about three weeks in the last three years.
(Full disclosure: I do still play the occasional deep, immersive title that demands many hours of my attention. But games of that sort are my “travel” games, the games I play when I’m working away from home and killing time in a hotel room somewhere.)
“Because really, you see the same sort of dichotomy in the game’s official forums.”
Do you? Can you link to some examples?
I was exceedingly disappointed with the game. Gameplay is overtly simplistic and it is pay to win.
I still don’t get the “pay to win” charge. There are several effective strategies for dealing with the repair costs issue, such as farming keys (which helps with the Virtue grind at the same time) or using gear ablatively. And epic gear is manifestly not needed to beat the game!
It isn’t just repair costs. To get the best drops, but need to buy keys.
You need to painfully grind to play the game at a basic level without paying for it, making it decidedly less than fun (especially combined with the simplistic gameplay). But paying to get better gear makes a game pay to win, which is an unforgivable offense.
That would be true if the Rare or Epic gear made the difference between progressing in the game and not progressing. Which I haven’t found to be the case; I can get by quite handily with Uncommon-level gear…which one can readily obtain with silver keys. (Rares also drop when you use silvers, albeit at reduced frequency.)
Not that having Epic gear isn’t nice…but it’s nice in an optional way.
Besides, you can’t really escape the grinding in U4E anyhow, even with better gear. Leveling up in the game just takes time, and there’s no way to shortcut it. Having Epic gear might make it a tad easier to grind dungeons, but in the end a player with Epic kit will still need to grind as much as a player with Uncommon kit.
This argument that games need to be stupefied to make them casual is a canard. They are being stupefied to make them mass market.
Ultima 7 was the ultimate casual gaming experience. Dungeons mostly took 10 to 20 minutes, going from town to town only 5 to 10, and most NPC conversations less than 1 to 2 minutes. There was very little combat, and almost all of it was very fast. Best yet, a moderate play through only took 15-20 hours, and saving was simple and fast. Unfortunately for today’s audience, detail, good writing, and complexity cost money and aren’t recognized by most idiot consumers that just want loot and mana potions.
Design-wise, Ultima 7 is essentially “Elder Scrolls with better writing and a party”. A single player Ultima sequel could have existed if EA had ever decided they needed an open world RPG in their portfolio. But for some reason, they didn’t, and nowadays they’re more likely to make an open world Dragon Age.
Funny, that.
I know what you’re trying to say here, but this sentence (it’s one I’ve seen a lot) just always seems, to me, to have an air of “damn kids, off my lawn!” to it.
I don’t necessarily like the “lowest common denominator” approach either, but I do like that games are reaching wider and wider audiences.
Good with the bad, I guess…
You are precisely right about Ultima VII, except I would also add that it was possible to add many many more hours of gameplay to a playthrough by doing optional quests or exploration. Dungeon Shame is a rather intricate and challenging dungeon that is completely optional in Ultima VII – one of the things I’ve always loved about it.
I wish to high heaven that Lord British could buy back the rights to Ultima. EA has proven time and again that they are some of the worst possible caretakers that this property could have possibly been entrusted to.
I’d just gotten a mini and played a few hours into the game. I’ve uninstalled it. Some thoughts:
– The existence and due respect given to the virtues is good. I haven’t gotten far enough to see how managing your ethical progress continues. The experience felt mixed so far.
– The art style and visual aesthetic was something outside my Ultima sensibilities, but I could accept it.
– The writing was hit and miss. Some turns of phrase sounded promising, but the perfunctory tone of the gypsy-as-saleswoman kept cutting in.
– F2P is ethically handled (you can realistically continue playing without cash payment) but is ham-handed and fundamentally incompatible with the UIV aesthetic. It looks and feels as bolted-on as Metro does on Windows 8. It just doesn’t fit and I found the social media hooks highly grating.
– The multiplayer element reduces my significance in the world of Britannia. I’m not on the Avatar’s quest, really, because thousands of others are doing the exact same thing.
– Story seems to be either reduced or greatly interrupted by the F2P functionality.
– The keys mechanic as a representation of the economic balance of the game is utterly botched. I want my Ultima experience to be one of a roleplaying game, not a 15 minute phone fix. Why no equipment from the chests? Why can’t I sell my equipment? Why the hell does everything have to be reduced to bleeping keys?? I thought unified ammo in Deus Ex 2 was bad. This? This balancing mechanism was one big series of mistakes. It turns a potentially real roleplaying experience into a Facebook game and, to me, no better than Lords of Ultima even if I give the monetization scheme a pass as “not unethical”.
– That said, I acknowledge the intentions of Barnett and the team as fans. There’s enough elements and cues that tell me they really are. But I sense that their collective experience as developers is squarely on the lightweight, F2P side and surely must have gotten in the way of getting this one right.
For a more well written, deeper, more significant experience, I need to go back to Lazarus and Archon.
I should clarify in response to WTF above. I consider my 15 minute fix plenty well handled by Plants vs Zombies, Temple Run, and Carcassone. With the series’ pedigree, this one should’ve gone deep.