Master Ultima: Mystery, Magic and Strategy - author Ralph Roberts

A few issues ago, I reviewed Shay Addams' Official Book of Ultima.
It's inevitable that such a popular series would have more than
one guide written to it and here is another one, again a US
import and published by SAMS (ISBN 0-672-22828-9).

Whereas the Official book used over half its pages giving the
background to the Ultima series, their development and insights
into the mind of their creator, Richard Garriott aka Lord British,
Master Ultima takes only 40-odd pages to cover the same ground,
obviously not in any detail at all. The remainder of the 367 pages
cover strategies to be used in the games themselves and, like the
Official book, covers Ultimas I-VI. This means you get over 300
pages devoted to story solutions and walkthroughs in Master Ultima
compared to approximately 100 in the Official book.

So, it all depends what sort of book you want - do you want more
detail about the creation of the games and a limited amount of
information to help you solve them, or do you want a little bit of
background to the games and LOADS of help? I must say I found the
history of the series as given in the Official book absolutely
fascinating but, in terms of help with the games, think Master
Ultima would be the better choice. Sounds like you need both, eh?

Master Ultima is a wide format A5 book and well illustrated with
screenshots from the games. After notes by the author (or "scribe"
as he prefers to style himself), acknowledgements, list of
trademarks mentioned in the book (32 of 'em! which seemed a bit
OTT to me), we're into the introduction.  This is the
aforementioned history of Ultima and the birth of Origin, the
history of Britannia and brief background to each of the games. A
question-and-answer session covering some of the more frequently
asked questions about Lord British taken from on-line conferences
is next and then a few general hints about the games in general -
save early, save often - death and resurrection - food - weapons
and armour - magic and so forth.

The individual games are then covered in considerable detail, about
50 pages on each. The layout is standard in each case though as

each game is more complicated and has more new features than the
preceding one, not all sub-topics are available in every case.
First there's the background to the adventure, details of
available characters (race, sex, profession), the lay of the land,
resources (castles, villages, weapons, magic etc), major
challenges and suggested strategies. Then there follows a short
story solution as a character plays the game - and wins! So Rolf
the Warrior tells his tale from Ultima I, Nimsman, Master of the
White Magic recounts his exploits in Ultima II and so forth.

I mentioned the illustrations earlier. These monochrome
screenshots are numerous and in the Ultima I section include the
character creation screen, the interior of a castle, buying
provisions, a view of a dungeon with an advancing skeleton and the
final message ... which seemed a bit dumb to me, I know you win
but I'd rather see the ending for myself, ta very much. Still, the
screenshots help to break up the text nicely and generally add
atmosphere to the book.

As with all solutions and hint books, it's important to remember
that, used sensibly, they will be a boon but used indiscriminately
they can ruin your enjoyment of the game. RPGS are notoriously
long to play as you have to build your character up to greater
levels so that he (or she!) is capable of dealing with whatever
the programmer throws at him. Having a solution can be a mixed
blessing as it means you can solve the puzzles quicker than you
would without help and so your character won't have taken so long
to get to the end game as he would have without the benefit of
hints. Therefore he won't have won so many fights and be at a high
enough level as you'll find you need to succeed in the final
confrontation with whoever or whatever the main baddie is.

If you want something to dip into when the going gets tough,
you'll find Master Ultima useful. It sells for $16.95 in the
States so expect to pay about œ15.00 in the UK. Strategic Plus
Software would be a good place to try if you're interested in
getting it, or check out your nearest Virgin Games Centre which
may stock it.
                                                  Sue