Category Archives: Origin Related

Ultima Online 2 – Action Figures

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So much for the quick start on Noctropolis. Between various Christmas-time distractions, office parties, flu and the various other projects I’m involved in, I haven’t got around to doing any more than playing the first ten minutes to get a feel for it. I can’t see me starting it properly for a little while now so by way of filler, here is a short piece on some more Origin memorabilia. Apologies in advance for the quality of the photos. I had a choice between my webcam or my phone neither of which is ideal for this.

These series of 6 action figures were planned to be brought out to tie in with Ultima Online 2 back in 2002 and were manufactured by McFarlane Toys who I gather make plenty of other similar figures. I understand that a contract of some description was agreed between them and Origin whereby the figures had to be manufactured and sold but this ran into a major hitch when Ultima Online 2 was cancelled by EA, rendering the figures obsolete. Not to be put off, they were rebranded as Ultima Online (minus the 2) figures and sold anyway. At least they tried to sell them. Sealed copies can be picked up for next to nothing which suggests that plenty were left over afterwards. In fact, if you go on Ebay you will be hard pushed to find any that aren’t sealed.
Ultima Online 2 was planned to be a major departure in the series and to introduce technology to the world of Ultima. This went as far as cybernetic’s leading to the likes of Robo-Blackthorn below:

How this could ever be marketed as an Ultima Online figure is beyond me, but it certainly stands as a curiosity. I vaguely remember a similar screenshot being released back when UO2 was being developed to vast outcry from UO2 fans. Since I had little interest in UO in the first place, I didn’t pay this controversy much attention, although I would probably side with the people who hated it. Looking at this guy I can’t help but feel he belongs more in a He-man cartoon than an Ultima. UO2 wasnt all cyborgs though and the other 3 figures of this size were along more traditional lines:-



The final two figures are larger than the other four and slightly more expensive. First off, it’s back to the technology/fantasy mix with Juggernaut. Part troll, part steam engine, part shopping trolley.

The final figure was the most expensive to get hold of costing me about the same as all the others put together (still not that much). It’s the largest and most traditional, being a fairly standard dragon although it does have transparent panels on the wings and a base to stand on all of which you won’t see in the picture here.

I’ve not actually taken any of these out of their packaging, so I can’t go into much detail about the figures themselves. They look well made, but nowhere near as detailed as on the box art which is one of the reasons why they are remaining sealed. They is still a reasonable amount of detail, especially the dragon, but I’m less than impressed with Captain Dasha who is looking very strangely proportioned and rather like she has been stuck together with body parts that don’t quite match up with each other.
It’s curious how little there is about the actual character on the box as you barely get more than the name. For instance Blackthorns description is power hungry tyranical lord, possibly accurate but I can’t help but feel that some of the subtleties from the Ultima 5 character have been lost somewhere along the way. Maybe they will all be characters in the 3 Ultima novels when I get around to reading them.

I’m not someone who holds much interest in action figures, these are purely part of the collection due to the Origin link. They have found a place on top of all my bookcases but aren’t especially decorative if I’m honest. I may well relent and take them out of the packaging at some point so that they are at least undecorative in less space, but for now I’ll leave them as they are. Picking these up got me wondering if there were any more Origin figures and I came across these two horrors on Ebay:-

Even the obsessive collector in me, can’t bring me to part with money and actually bid on these things. I’d like to hear if there were any other toys related to Origin games though. I’m not especially anxious to add any more to the collection in general, but there would be a definite appeal to a Crusader figure……

Terra Nova – Day 4

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My last day playing Terra Nova starts out with a cutscene where Maggie finds out that Walker knows where her family are thanks to a deal her clan did with the Pirates for food. Maggie doesn’t take the news well.

The mission is going to be to rescue Maggie’s family who are being held on a farm. It’s basically a protection mission as we have to stop the farm from being destroyed once we attempt a rescue. I take a few attempts at this one and win in the end by surrounding the farm in a ring of autoturrets and being overly aggressive in taking out the incoming forces.

I get another medal for my troubles.

Mission 32 has us trying to take out a hog communications tower. First we need to get an electronics expert to fiddle with the control station to the South and blind all the hog sensors. We then run North and take out the tower before returning to blow up the control station. It’s an easy enough mission and just takes the one attempt.

We return to see Walker’s Mum in trouble. Carpaccio station has been captured and she wants help. She even says she was wrong to deal with the pirates. Instead of immediately helping her out our mission is going to be to recapture McDonald station.


This mission comes with a very nice new weapon. This is in effect, an improved rocket launcher and deals out massive damage at huge distances. It only has 5 shots though so it’s best saved for heavy targets.

The mission involves taking out the weapon towers at each corner of the base with demo experts. I take one side of the base at a time, sending in each of my demo men to a different corner while the 2 of us remaining take on the guards. There is a lot of resistance for the first two towers but after that the mission is very easy with just a few mechs around the perimeters of the station.

Mission 34 comes with yet more new technology. I’ve largely ignored the drones in this game and they don’t appear to be massively useful in all honesty so I never actually use this one.

The mission is to take out the clone manufacturing facilities. I get a choice of two ways to do this. One is to take out the 3 domes where the clones are made with demo men. The other is to set up a feedback loop at the control station with an electronics expert. I go for the later since it only requires 1 task rather than 3. The domes are constantly turning out enemies in the meanwhile which makes things tricky and I make something of a mess of the mission with half my squad getting taken out. I do enough to win the mission on the first try though.

We have the hogs on the run and they are pulling out back to Thatcher. Mission 35 has us intercepting their convoy of supplies which is on route to their ships. This is another easy one and I complete it first time.

After a few easy missions, Mission 36 turns out to be a bit more tricky. We have a plan to get to Carpaccio station but we need Sonny’s old ship which he has hidden somewhere in the search area on my map here. This search area is huge and it takes several minutes just to walk to it. The maps in this game are actually fairly huge although I only ever have to play the game in a small part of them as a rule.

Just getting to the search area proves to be tough with a lot of troops in the way. The real problem is that I need to keep my squad alive. My brother is the only one who can fly the ship out and I need the electronics guy to repair it first.

The search area is not exactly flat and full of ravines for me to wander around. I do this for some time without finding the ship.

I look seemingly everywhere, then I get a bright idea to tell my electronics man to go and repair the ship. This actually works then all I have to do is follow him to find out where it is. My brother flies it off and it’s mission complete.

We get back to a rousing speech from our new commander before the briefing itself.

The hogs are using Carpaccio to outfit all their transport ships as war ships which they will then use to bombard us from space. We need to go in and plant a new super powerful explosive on the fuel centre and blow the place up.

The final mission comes with one final weapon. It’s another super powerful rocket launcher that takes out anything in a large area in one hit.

The base is fairly large and extremely well guarded. A slow and steady approach pays off here, using the new MB cannon to take out the heavy turrets from a distance.

By the time we get to the fuel dome, nothing is left alive. We demo the dome then trek back to the pickup point.






As we fly off the dome blows up winning us the war. I never did get a final showdown with the Earth Ambasador which is a surprise. It’s still been a decent last mission although not as tough as the one before it.

For the final cutscene, the squad is in the bar and the news comes on with Earth claiming that the Ambassador was a rogue agent acting on his own which is all a bit dubious but we still won so ultimately it doesn’t matter.

I get to see my final stats for the game. I can’t help but notice that despite the 37 missions the total mission time was under 3 hours. It’s not a huge game although there are harder difficulty levels if I wanted them. This has been an enjoyable enough diversion but I do feel that more could have been done with it. It’s positively begging for a mission pack which upped the difficulty and complexity of the missions.  There is a random scenario generator which I haven’t tried out which would possibly add a bit more longevity but without the overall story (lightweight as it was) I don’t think it would be something that would hold my attention for long. For it’s age, I’ve been quite impressed with this game and if you want to try out a slightly tactical FPS, it’s still well worth a go. Just don’t expect another System Shock.

Assuming I can get the disks to work (which means digging out my old PC that actually has  a disk drive), I’ll take a quick look at the Origin FX Screen Saver next.