Hawkwind the Seer

[Andrew A. Apold]

>"Andrew A. Apold" wrote:
>
>> most off/topic
>> Has been a recurring character in the Ultima Series of computer games.
>> No idea if he is tied in any way to Hawkwind, I have seen nothing in
>> the character or the games otherwise to indicate thus.
>
>Perhaps Richard Garriott (aka Lord British) is an HW-fan?  At
>least he must have heard something about the band. I think it's very
>unprobable that he chose that name just by coincidence.

To my knowledge, the only popular musical reference in the series was
the Hotel Clerk in New San Antonio in Ultima II humming "Hotel California".

Most of it is traditional, its most memorable tune is "Stones", written by
Iolo (a real person, BTW).

>> Anyway,  he (first appeared in Ultima IV to my knowledge) is back in
>> Ultima IX: Ascension.  This game was extremely unplayable when I first
>> got it, in D3D (have Viper 770 TNT2 Ultra, ought to be able to handle
>> just about anything), with a recent patch I was able to start playing,
>> very involving, mesmerizing.  Hawkwind's voice summons you at the
>> start of the game, but he has not physically been present yet.
>
>Is it available at last? Or do you play some demo or beta version?

Yes.

As with many of them, the payoff is tremendous if you have been with
the series for awhile.  Especially the last two (VII and VIII), but
even more for IV - VI....

This thing is extremely deep, rich plot, feels like a world, many subtle
touches.

However, the game was optimized for glide (the bastards).  As released,
it was unplayable w/ D3D (no opengl).  I had a card that was top of
the line until geoforce came out, and it was too choppy to live with.

However, a recent patch, combined with tweaking suggestions, produced
a playable game.  And then the depth of detail, story, character, and
so forth started to become apparent.  I have barely scratched the surface
of this world, and I am completely drawn in.  Though the perspective
resembles tomb rader, this is not an action game.  The interface does a
very good job of making sure of that.

If you've ever played and enjoyed an ultima, or like RPGs in general,
I have to say get it if your system can handle it.  Recommend latest
generation 3d-card, 400mhz or higher, 128 meg memory, and about a
1 gigabyte of space on a hard drive.

There is a demo, at http://www.ultima9.com, you can see if this will
help you see what you feel (though you don't get into the plot at
all in this demo, all you do is suit up and learn the interface
around your house on earth, then complete one dungeon)...  I don't know
if they patched the demo, if they didn't it will run lousy on non-glide
3d cards.



"I was corrupt before I had power!" - Random
===============
Andrew Apold