Finally Ultima goes 3D, good thing or bad thing? Opinions are much divided, there's probably more arguments about this game than any previous Ultima.

    One thing is certain Ultima IX is a stunningly beautifull game. Just take a moment to watch the sun slowly set over the hills, see the twin moons, and stars appear, and you'll see what I mean. Even the raindrops bounce off the ground realistically.

    Add to that complete freedom to go where ever you will in this wondrous landscape. You can climb mountains, swim in rivers and lakes, even explore underwater. Does it begin to sound like a gaming dream come true? Well, I hate to burst your bubble but, there's good and bad about Ultima IX.

    Ultima IX has an auto journel, that takes all your notes for you, no more bits of paper to loose, no more mad scribbling.

    The cut scenes are incredibly well done, excellent graphics and voices, one of the best bits of the game. The in game music is brilliant too, very atmospheric.

    Now for the bad, in my opinion: Firstly the combat system is vastly different to the great Ultimas. It's really nothing more than hack and slash, or cast spells and slash. Great if thats what you like, but it's not my thing.

    Training has been rendered largely irrelevent, also stats have been considerably reduced. You still have your basic stats of strength, dexterity, intelligence, and mana. In most previous Ultimas it was always important to improve your expeirience by fighting, having adventures, completeing quests etc. When your expeirience improved enough you were ready to go up a level, and got rewarded with improved stats. In Ultima IX your stats other than mana only increase when you cleanse a shrine, so the whole thing of trying to gain more expeirience has been removed. A big mistake in my view. The whole RPG thing of developing and training your character, and going up in levels just isn't at all well done in Ultima IX.

    Sadly,once again there's no companions, though they do make occasional appearances.

    The story though quite exciting is rather linear. For much of the game you feel pushed down one path and restricted in where you can go. Though it is possible to explore if you wish.

    There is an extremely excellent dialogue patch available from Fans For Ultima, this really changes the game from a rather uninvolving expeirince to one that makes you feel far more emotinally involved. There are also lots of references to Britannias past, and explanations of things that without the patch just seem either very shallow or just don't make sense. The dialogue patch brings Ultima IX close to being the kind of game it should have been.

    For anyone who's ever played Ultima VII, and expeirienced the depth and richness of such an interactive world, Ultima IX may seem sadly lacking. As apart from one or two things the world is just not interactive, theres no more painting pictures or playig with everything in sight to see how it works, because most of the time it doesn't.

    Then theres the citizens of Britania, basically they all seem to suffer from glued to one spot syndrome, or floating in mid air disease. No longer are they living breathing people who go to work, go down the pub, go home. Now they just spend all game where ever they started the game, doing the same thing night and day.

    Ultima IX also has a nasty tendancy to run slowly, even on machines that exceed the so called minimum specs required, by quite alot.

    Ultima IX is beautifull, and fun, but as the last single player Ultima it's a big disappointment. If you want a gorgeous looking adventure come RPG with strong hack and slash elements then buy it. If you want a traditional RPG or Ultima you may be disappointed.

    If you do buy it make sure you get the patched version, 1.18f. There's also some unofficial patches, including the dialogue patch mentioned earlier, a monsters patch which makes monsters harder to kill, an economy patch that improves buying and selling of items, and an unofficial patch that fixes a couple of potential bugs and can speed the game up on some pcs. All these patchs are available from Fans For Ultima, who are listed in my Fan Projects Section.

    To use the cheat commands you need to edit the default.kmp file in the Ultima IX directory. It's a good idea to back up this file first.

    To edit the file just double click on it, and it should open. Scroll down to the heading Cheat Commands and type in these commands:

    alt+shift+a = toggle_avatar_invunerable

    alt+shift+b = pass_one_hour

    alt+shift+c = unpass_one_hour

    alt+shift+d = sunrise_sunset

    alt+shift+e = pass_one_minute

    alt+shift+f = unpass_one_minute

    alt+shift+h = toggle_wind

    alt+shift+i = toggle_storms

    alt+shift+j = toggle_avatar_fast

    alt+shift+k = toggle_avatar_fly

     Note, using these commands can make it impossible to finish the game, use them with caution. If you fly or walk fast everywhere you will probably get problems, but if you just use them to reach inaccesible areas or to go across areas already explored you ought to be okay. Type in the commands exactly as they appear here and they should work. Then just press the correct keys to make the cheat work in the game, to turn a cheat off, press the same keys again.

    You can combine different cheat commands, so you can use fly and then fast if you want a supersonic avatar:) You can use this to get places very quickly. Note if you are swimming under water, and decide to fly out of the water, you may find that the game still behaves as though you're under water. In other words your oxygen meter will continue to go down and you will drown on dry land or, in mid air. Thus proving that the old saying, cheaters never prosper is sometimes correct.;)