The Ultima series of computer games hold a special place in my heart – my love of computer games is strongly tied to the evolution of the series, from the precursor (Akalabeth, which I played obsessively on my friend Terry’s Apple II in Junior High), to Ultima III which I played all through high school, to Ultima IV which I played for several years on my commodore 64, these games along with the Wizardry series played a huge role in my development as a games player.

I mention all of this because over the past week or so I’ve stumbled on not one but three distinct approaches to playing an Ultima game on modern computers. One, Lazarus, uses the Dungeon Siege engine and is a re-envisioning of Ultima V with somewhat modern graphics and a radically different combat engine. Another, Nazghul, endeavors to become a toolkit that will allow anyone to develop their own ‘Ultima 5-like’ games, and features graphics and gameplay systems that are very true to the original Ultima 5. The third, Ultima 6 online, turns the gameplay of Ultima 6 into an online mmorpg.

Lazarus is the most approachable for folks looking for a quality modern RPG. It requires a copy of the original Dungeon Siege game, which you can find for under $10 these days. Even if you’ve never played an Ultima before it’s a pretty fun game with decent graphics, and it works with both Macs and PCs. If you’re looking to play online than Ultima 6 online is obviously the way to go. It’s pc only, and the server has a tendency to come and go, but really it’s a pretty amazing accomplishment, this came out of nowhere for me. Nazghul is the most interesting though, in that it’s really a toolkit (though it comes with a developed adventure to demo the system) that will hopefully gain some interest and lead to some fun modules shipping. It’s open source and cross platform and a tiny download. It’s also developed in Scheme, which is something of a novelty, at least to me.

All are worth checking out if you’re a fan of the old Ultima series of games, and Lazarus is worth checking out even if you weren’t.

I’ve mentioned OpenTTD, the excellent free update to the seminal transport strategy game Transport Tycoon Deluxe before, but I’ve continually forgotten to mention the alternative, Simutrans. Whereas OpenTTD is firmly based on the original Transport Tycoon Deluxe, and requires the original TTD game files to play, Simutrans endeavors to be its own game. It’s based on the same set of gameplay elements but doesn’t require anything from the original TTD and uses a higher resolution graphics file format. In theory this should mean it looks better…in practice maybe not so much, at this point I’d say they’re equal. At any rate Simutrans is well worth a look if you enjoy the genre. As with OpenTTD Simutrans is cross platform and free.

If you’ve got a pc and are playing World of Warcraft, check out the WoWmodelview and WoWmapview, which let you fly through the World of Warcraft world and examine the 3d models in the game. This is kind of spoilerish in that you can take away some of the fun to be had exploring the world and discovering new monsters, but it can also be helpful if you’re struggling to work your way through one of the game’s instance dungeons and want to explore it offline without the penalty of dying repeatedly. Both are free, open source and relatively small downloads.

I love tactical rpgs. They’re one of my favorite gaming genres, and I buy and play almost every one that’s released, often even the stinkers. One of the kings of the genre is Square’s Final Fantasy Tactics, a game I’ve spent more time playing than perhaps anything aside from the Civilization series of games. I was psyched to discover that there’s now an open source project to develop a cross-platform tactical rpg engine inspired by classics like FFT. It’s called Galaxy Mage, and while it’s in very early alpha it’s already in a state where you can play it – there are a couple of maps, a couple of unit types, a rudimentary AI, and a working 3d graphics engine. If the genre interests you this is one to watch, here’s hoping it becomes as succesful as projects like Battle for Wesnoth.

A bonus friday fun link for everyone – check out warrock, a free battlefield 2 clone from South Korea. It’s a free download and well worth checking out if you like team and class-based first person shooters with vehicles. The graphics aren’t up to the level of Battlefield 2, but it’s an otherwise competent riff on the same theme and runs on lower end hardware. You can’t beat the price either. Mind, if you’re going to check it out make sure to use Internet Explorer, their website is awful and firefox has some difficulty with it. Also note that you’ll have to register to play, and as you might expect this is Windows only.

Imagine a juiced up riff on the classic boardgame Risk that adds diplomacy, fortifications, and cultural production but maintains the simplicity of Risk’s basic gameplay. Sound interesting? Check out conquerer, a free, web-based boardgame. Then go ahead and throw down the gauntlet if you dare, as usual I’ll take any challengers.

I blogged about fate, the excellent little $20 diablo clone, several months ago. Seems like I’m not alone in liking it – it’s turned into wild tangent’s best selling game ever and as a reward they’ve offered up a free bonus pack. If you already have fate, the download is a click away. If you haven’t yet tried it and you enjoyed diablo/diablo II, I guarantee you’ll enjoy Fate. Check it out.

Ever wanted to run your own 3d mmorpg? There are a variety of emulators out there for everquest, dark ages of camelot, Ultima Online and so on, but at best they’re quasi-legal and most of them are flat out illegal. There are also projects like Crossfire, which is a fun game but 2d only and with a relatively unsophisticated engine – it plays more like gauntlet than a modern computer rpg. I discovered Minions of Mirth this week and am flat out amazed. It’s best described as an everquest clone – the graphics are slightly better than the original everquest and the play mechanics are somewhat similar – but it’s also much much more. First, in terms of mechanics, it has something unique (to my knowledge) in mmorpg’s – a multiparty system that allows you to adventure with a group of your own characters. It’s a bit clunky in practice but it’s novel and allows you to effectively ‘solo’ your way through the game with your adventuring group.

The game also charges no monthly subscription fees and comes with a server bundled with the product, allowing you to run servers for your friends. Right now that’s for mac and pc only, though a linux server version is promised and they hope to produce a linux client version as well.

What’s most interesting though is how entirely mod-able the game is. Want to add in the smurf village from the original diku muds? You can. Think every 1st level mage should start with tiltowait? Know a little python? Add it in. You can modify the games graphics using free and open source software to build 3d models and texture and animate them, you can add in new landmasses (zones, in mmorpg parlance) again using free open source tools, and you can completely change the underlying game logic and add in new features.

This is the game I wish Neverwinter Nights had been. While I had tons of fun with NWN, and even ran a server for a year or so, I quickly tired of its repetitious tile-based game graphics. With Minions of Mirth they’ve got the fundamentals right – fully 3d, fully modable by anyone who’s figured out how to use the toolsets used to modify first person shooters. I have really high hopes for this game – there are tons of free Ultima Online shards out there and my expectation is that over the next year or two we’ll see an equivalent explosion of Minions of Mirth servers.

The full game is scheduled to release on December 15th, but if you buy it now you can get in on the beta for only $25. You don’t even need a net connection to play – if you jones for that MMORPG experience but don’t have a net connection, you can run your own local server and play on that.

I should note that while I’m really enthusiastic, this is early days for this product – it’s somewhat thin on content and the graphics are a mixed bag even by the standards of the previous generation of graphics engines. Both of these will improve over time as folks add in their own custom content, just as it has with NeverWinter Nights, but if you’re considering a purchase bear this in mind.

As soon as they release the linux server I’ll have this running here on metamusing – I’ll let folks know when it’s up and running.

Gothic 2 is one of the best role playing games ever made. It’s the spiritual successor to games like Ultima Underworld and System Shock. It features a huge 3d world to explore, a compelling plot, tons of spoken dialog, an action oriented (as opposed to turn based) combat system, and 10’s of hours of gameplay. Unfortunately due to it being an import and its unconventional control scheme, neither it nor its prequel (also a superb game) reached the mainstream audience it deserved in the US. This led to the expansion pak for the game, Night of the Raven, never getting a release in the US. Until now that is. Just in time for Christmas, Gothic 2 Gold has come out and includes both the original game and the expansion pak for only $15.00 at Amazon or $20 elsewhere. You can’t get more for your gaming dollar than this – anyone who has a pc and is a fan of rpgs should be all over this deal. I’ve linked to the amazon entry for it, though you can also find it at ebworld and at amazon.ca if you search for it.