Game Moments #9: Ultima Underworld
Ultima Underworld predated Doom as a the first first-person-perspective with a (somewhat) non-orthoganal world. In fact, it came out at the same time as the Wolfenstein 3D, Doom's direct ancestor. The demo of Wolf3D came out a few days before Ultima Underworld hit the store shelves, and stole some of its thunder.

But Ultima Underworld was a roleplaying game (with action elements), and it was far more immersive to me than Wolfenstein 3D. Though Wolf3D had that famous "achtung" moment in the shareware version which was just one of those things that you HAD to experience for the first time in a game. I heard from one guy how his sister literally fell out of her chair on that one. But I digress...

In addition to the (for the time) impressively immersive graphics, Ultima Underworld also included some realistic elements - I hesitate to call it "physics," but it worked. Things felt consistent, and the monsters had to follow the same rules as the player. If you couldn't find the key to a locked door, you could pick the lock. If you couldn't pick the lock, you could break it by beating on it repeatedly (preferably with your bare fist, as it would damage your weapons). You could, if you tried hard enough, knock a monster off a ledge.

On one particular occasion (late at night, of course), I was delving somewhere on the second or third level, completely immersed in this game. I found what I thought was a mistake in the texture mapping on the wall - a little visual bug. Initially I was dissapointed that a bug like that had slipped through QA. Then I began to wonder if it was really a bug. After a bit of experimentation clicking on the wall, I discovered that it was actually a secret door. Impressed with my own cleverness, I opened the door, and walked down the sloping passage on the other side.

The passage ended at a locked door. Apparently I'd made a bit too much noise, because a monster on the other side of the door heard me and began pounding on the door, attempting to get through. There was a sprite "spark" visible where the door was being hit to show it was being hit high on the door. Whatever was behind the door was BIG. And angry. And desperately wanted to get to me, pounding on the door relentlessly to get to me.

There's something about having some unknown creature literally smashing itself against a door trying to get to you that can be really intimidating. Particularly when it's late at night, you are tired, and you are playing with the lights turned out. It freaked me out. Maybe it was because I hadn't saved in a while - yeah, that's the ticket - but I ran. I fled the scene, back up the stairs, and shut the secret door behind me.

Oh, yeah, and I saved the game.

It took a few minutes for me to get the courage to descend back down the sloped corridor. But once I was so emboldened (mainly by my knowledge that the game was now saved), I ventured back into the darkness.

Again, the monster flung itself at the door in an effort to bust it open and get to me. I draw my blade - a really crappy scrounged weapon that had been found amongst the scrap that littered the dungeon - and prepared for the inevitable onslaught. After a few moments, I realized the door was holding (for now), so I opted to accelerate the process. I picked the lock, re-drew my sword, and opened the door.

What emerged was not what I was expecting. It was a little imp-like creature with bat wings - similar to a mongbat. It flew, which was the reason why its impacts against the door were so high. The battle was short, somewhat challenging but nothing compared to what I was anticipating.

But for a few brief minutes, the game scared me. Er, freaked me out. I mean, made me really worried about losing save progress. Ri-i-i-ight. But those few minutes still live on in my memory.

Labels: Game Moments

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:00 PM (Permalink)