Here’s another vintage Origin game review from the October 1994 issue of PC Zone. Wing Commander Armada gets a lot of pages here for what was considered a filler game while we all waited for Wing Commander 3. 
I wanted a nice, short magazine to scan so this week’s PC Zone is Issue 30 from September 1995. The highlight for me is the preview of The Darkening but I’ve no doubt already posted that on here. You also get reviews of Simon The Sorcerer 2, Space Quest 6, Dungeon Master 2 and Terminal Velocity. I’ll resume the normal order next week when hopefully I should have a bit more time. The PDF is in with all the other scans so far at https://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/PCZone
It’s now 10 years since I started this blog and also by coincidence (for the most part) this is the 1000th post. To mark the occasion, I thought I’d finally share the last big piece of Origin history I’m still holding onto.
Some years back, I posted a story document for the proposed Ultima Underworld 3. Since then I’ve managed to get hold of a later design document which has been greatly expanded to include backstory, gameplay and design details. I’m reasonably sure this matches up with the one in the Richard Garriott archives at the University of Texas but without a side by side comparison I’ll never know.
I’ll let people read it for themselves but to summarise Underworld 3 was going to be built in the Wing Commander Prophecy engine, include multi-player, have a George Oldziey soundtrack (using modified themes composed for the already cancelled Silverheart) and would be set on a whole different world to Britannia.
The first story document bore little mention of Ultima but this has you crossing swords with an imprisoned Shadowlord who was banished to the world of Jaal in Ultima 5 when the Avatar destroyed his shard. The 3 Shadowlords apparently need to reunite to form into the Guardian which seems to imply this game would have been set some time between Ultima 5 and 7. I much prefer this idea to the Guardian being the Avatar’s dark half but I’m still not entirely convinced.
There’s some basic details on gameplay including some NPC and monster details (trouser snake?). It’s a glimpse into the game that might have been and is now available to download here.
I’m going back (or technically forward) to fill in a gap with the PC Zone scans this week. This issue includes far more previews than actual reviews with Curse Of Monkey Island, Blood, Pandemonium, Little Big Adventure 2, etc.. There are some notable reviews as well with Outlaws and Interstate 76.
The updates for the Ultima Patcher are coming thick and fast this year. This latest one adds some tweaks from Natreg Dragon to Ultima 4, 7 & Serpent Isle. The most major of these is an EGA downgrade patch for the VGA upgrade. While this might initially sound counterproductive, it can be used to play the game with the original graphics but with the added enhancements the VGA patch offers such as music. The previous music only patch had major issues with low CPU cycles in DOSBox and I’ve dropped this from the patcher.
The tweaks to Ultima 7 and Serpent Isle are more minor and are detailed at https://www.facebook.com/groups/UltimaDragons/permalink/10156908034553797/. This patch will fix the ability to fish in both games and the Eiko/Amanda/Iskander is also fixed in Ultima 7. I’ve also added the earthquake fix to Serpent Isle.
The latest version can be downloaded here. Beyond checking that the patches apply, I’ve not done any testing of these so please let me know if I’ve missed anything.