Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash is a real rarity: It was created by a friend of Richard Garriot around 1983 and without further ado Sierra labeled it as Ultima, although it ultimately had nothing in common with this role playing series, with the exception of some names and said friendship. Produced in very small numbers for the VIC-20, a system which on top of that was declining in popularity, a retailer is said to have thrown almost all copies off a cliff somewhere (E.T. anyone?), which is why the game was thought to be lost for a long time. Finally, some copies appeared on well known auction sites, where they reached prices as high as $3000 (in words: three thousand US Dollar). And actually that's the end of that. I have nothing more to say…
The Body Blows competition goes into its final round. Released about six months after Galactic, the best way to describe it is probably "that CD version of Body Blows". Which has all the fighters of the two previous games. Which, if we're honest, should have been the case in the second one already, because, you know, Street Fighter II did it that way.
So you've played for days and weeks and finally, you get to what seems to be the ending. You can (virtually) already see the 'you have won' sign on the horizon. All you have to do is go east... but what's that? A hole, a frog and a small duck are blocking your way. This can't be what it was intended like? Turning back reveals the problem: bad sectors on the game disk. Argh!
Driving a car at a stormy night can be quite dangerous: Accompanied by your little brother, you're on a quiet and lonely road through the open country when suddenly an unrecognisable figure appears before you. Trying to avoid hitting it, you pull the wheel aside and crash into a tree. Everything goes black.
As so often, bribing / threatening (or whatever they did) magazines into giving the disastrous Curse of Enchantia good reviews worked. Sales were apparantely good enough to warrant a sequel. And so, Universe was made. Another monster let loose on humanity or did they get it right this time?
Sporting the tagline "Alter your reality... forever", Unreal promises an experience to remember. It doesn't disappoint either, with excellent engine technology, art direction and music.
The alien invasion of Earth is afoot, and there's just no way to stop the attacking forces by conventional means. Even if the puny earthling forces manage to destroy one wave, countless more are just waiting to take its place. So the humans recognize their only chance is to go to the source and cut off the invaders' supplies.
When Uridium first came out, it was breathtaking: great looking, lovingly animated and incredibly fast at the same time. As the years went by, such qualities gradually lost some of their effect, of course. Still good, still (relatively) impressive, but not a sensation anymore.
Uridium Plus, released the same year as the Uridium. Not much time to change anything, but also not much need to, since the original version was very successful - never change a winning horse. So the basics remain the same: The player flies the Manta ship's assault on the aliens' huge Dreadnoughts, first taking out the numerous waves of defenders, then landing and activating the self-destruct mechanism - all that to stop the invaders' supply of raw materials.
While I watch my character walking slowly towards the sunrise at the end of Valiant Hearts: The Great War, I take a look back at the road that has brought me here. Considering that for the most part it lead through the battlefields of World War I, the journey was surprisingly rich in variety, and it entailed even some nice memories besides all the horror. Yet it has been exactly those contrasts, these emotional ups and downs, which make these sensations so intense. Its beginning seems almost a bit unreal now, but soon the story will come to an end, and I cannot remember when I had such a feeling of accomplishment at the end of a computer game.
