An editorial by a geek who tirelessly played through every exausting element of Origin's Ultima IX: Ascension.

The Classic

Classic

a: Belonging to the highest rank or class;
b: Serving as the established model or standard;
c: Having lasting significance or worth.

A classic game that sits at the top of the list of games of it's kind, is regarded as such because of it's timly introduction as being the first of its kind. Games like Ultima 4 and Might & Magic, act as a reference to the type of role-playing games that have come out years later. These old games predate the existance of some of our younger hardcore gamers. The technology, since those earlier classics were released, has evolved: Ten-fold. The echoing complaints coming from the old-timers from the eighties, do not hold as much weight as each year advances and the technology evolves.

Ultima Ascension's highly anticipated release, and media hype has a lot to do with the quality and success of its predacessors. Considering the fan base of Origin's Ultima games, span at least two generations. There are a lot of people the developers have to satisfy. Including me!

The contoversal days following Ascension's release over it's playability, spread on the Internet like a virus. For a number of people, the game was plagued with random lockups, crashes, and in some cases, the game wouldn't start at all. The complaints grew even bigger once enough time had passed for many people to discover plot-stopping bugs: where the game logic refused to trigger certain events in the game: not allowing the player to continue on with his quest. Major gaming news sites began to post articles and reviews of the game, citing; Ultima Ascension was rushed to market for the Christmas holidays. Or, quality assurance was deeply lacking. The complaints got even more deafening when some people could play the game only for brief periods of time before there was a critical problem in the save-game files, and the game would cease to load at all. Their excitement generated from what little play they had had grown so much, their complaints were overwhelmed with anger. After all that anticipation and hype, they were being teased when it would crash 15 minutes after starting it up.

Ascension truly has a lot of momentum built up for its release. Its storyline is most certainly the highlite of the game. Like classic literature, and the timeless epics of films like Starwars and Indiana Jones: I couldn't help being reminded that I was part of a historic fantasy: where the characters have a meaningful relationship with one another.

The sentimental vibe that was projected throughout the game: all the way to its dramatic conclusion: left me with a tearful feeling of sadness and remorse as I got closer and closer to the game's final sequences.