Ultima VII: The Black Gate



Ultima VII: The Black Gate is the first part of the seventh installment of the main series and was the tenth Ultima game to be released, including side games. It was released and published by Origin in 1992. A port for SNES followed in 1994. U7 is the first story in the Age of Armageddon, and along with Serpent Isle, is generally considered to be the best of the entire series.

Ultima VII continued where Ultima VI left off in technical development. Refining all the virtues of its predecessor, it utilized the whole power of a 16-bit PC. The graphics used the whole spectrum of the 256-color VGA graphic cards, the music was excellent and digital sound was used for the first time for the booming voice of the Guardian.

The huge, seamless world with its overflow of details and very good design simply appeared real. The controls were more refined, and everything could be done with the mouse. The inventory and battle system were improved, talking was not longer done by typing the keywords, but by selecting them in a list.

The world and story itself had also become quite mature -- The player is confronted with problems like drug-use, racism and political corruption. The Guardian uses a clever plot to take over the land, and doesn't act in the slightest like a clichéd villain, making him really dangerous.

Ultima VII was a hit in 1992, but its sales weren't enough to prevent the takeover by Electronic Arts later in the year (just after Underworld II was released).

Included with the game
The release of Ultima VII included these things with the game:
 * The Book "The Book of Fellowship".
 * A cloth map of Britannia.
 * A Fellowship Medallion (same as in the game).

Differences between the ports
Only two official ports of the game exist. The original PC-port, and the port for the SNES console. The SNES-port is quite a story in itself.

The SNES-port is clearly inferior to the original game. Not only was the story horribly shortened, streamlined and censored (murders become kidnappings), but the whole game itself was changed into something totally different and much worse. The interactivity is near zero, the world map smaller and more primitive, and the quest is much too simple. There is no party, the Avatar is alone, and the game has become a Zelda-like action game with little resemblance to the original. To add insult to injury, the music and graphics are also inferior. The SNES port is therefore a good example how a good game can be miserably ported.

The Story
A long time of peace has gone by in Britannia, with no great threats disturbing the lives of the people. And yet, something is amiss in the land. Magic seems to die, with mages becoming mad. The people are unhappy and feel spiritually empty and betrayed in life. And a new sect called "The Fellowship" gains more and more members in the lower classes and gain power through their prominent members, who ascend to leading positions.

The Player again is the Avatar. One evening, a demonic red face appears on the computer screen and declares to be soon ruler of Britannia. Alarmed, the Avatar goes to the circle of stones and a moongate is already there, sending him/her to Trinsic. A horrible murder has taken place. Starting research, the Avatar discovers murders in the past similar to this one and more of them happen on the way. The Fellowship becomes a suspect, especially their leader, Batlin. And a mysterious voice from time to time seems to give the Avatar some very poor advice. Finally, after many perils, the Avatar meets the Time Lord and everything becomes clear. The Fellowship is the puppet of the red-faced being, who is called the Guardian. The Guardian wants to enter Britannia through a Black Moongate and uses three Generators to spread his influence. The Avatar destroys the Generators, then proceeds to destroy the Black Gate. In a brutal battle, the murderers are brought to justice, while Batlin escapes. Just before the Guardian can come through, the Avatar destroys the Gate.

Britannia is safe for now, but the Avatar stranded in Britannia and the Guardian still at large. Thus this is the beginning of the Age of Armageddon...

Trivia

 * The first Ultima exclusively produced for the PC. (The SNES port can only be seen as a totally different game, when looking at all the differences between it and the original.)
 * Ultima VII is the last Ultima produced by Origin before the takeover by Electronic Arts.
 * First time digital sound is used in the series. In this case, to create the booming voice of the Guardian.
 * Richard Garriott based the idea for the Fellowship on the Church of Scientology. The whole structure of the Fellowship, their mannerisms, language and secrecy, are a parody.
 * The EA takeover is also referenced several times in the game. The Generators form the old cube-sphere-pyramid logo, and Elizabeth and Abraham stand for EA (short for Electronic Arts). The Guardian is called the Destroyer of Worlds, while Origin's motto was: "We create Worlds".

Forge of Virtue
The Forge of Virtue was an add-on disk, published by Origin in 1992. With it installed, a totally new quest becomes available, which can be played at any time in the game. Today, it is included in the CD-ROM edition of Ultima VII, and one with the main program.

The Isle of Fire rises out of the sea during the game, and Lord British fears the worst, the return of Exodus the Destroyer, sending the Avatar to determine the dangers. The Avatar has to master the test of the three Principles, gaining possession of the Black Sword. In the end, a plan of the mage Erethian has to be stopped and the Dark Core sent into the Void to prevent Exodus' return. With this done, Lord British declares the Avatar to be a real hero, and all stats are maximized.

Included with it is the "Guide the Isle of Fire" pamphlet.

Upgrades
While the game is good enough for most people as it is, the game is usually almost impossible to run on modern computers and operating systems. The game used Voodoo Memory Manager which was barely compatible with DOS systems of its age, and arrival of Windows 95 and 32-bit OSes meant things got a lot worse.

Exult
Exult is an open-source project that makes Ultima VII playable under Windows (and other operating systems) without problems, and with many improvements.

It is currently one of the best ways to run the game, if one doesn't mind slight deviation from the original gameplay; most of the improvements are quite benign, however, and whatever deficiencies are left are usually very minor. Exult is also a breeding ground for most of the modern fan-made Ultima VII mods, and the in-development versions of Exult make use of mods even easier.

See The Exult Project for more details.

Ultima 7 in Windows
Ron Windeyer (aka Gaseous Dragon) has developed a utility to run the original Ultima VII natively under Windows 95/98/ME/2000/NT/XP. See his website for more information.

DOSBox
DOSbox is possibly the best way to run the game in its original form on modern computers. It is a virtual machine that can be used to run MS-DOS software in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X (even on PowerPC). DOSBox is fully compatible with Ultima VII, without need for many changes.