Following Ultima through the Years

These days, I am quite fascinated with the idea of studying the development of a genre, game type, or game series over the years. It just hasn’t been done much (seems we have mostly been doing the very big picture or general musings on a single game), and the payoff from studying details is often surprisingly high. (To see the world in a grain of sand.)

Via GameSetWatch, here’s Blogging Ultima, where CageBlogger has been playing his way through the Ultima series since February.

From the introduction:

Welcome to what will presumably be a long-running Ultima blog. The purpose is to blog the experience of playing the now-defunct Ultima series by Origin Systems (plus a few other names here and there) from beginning to end. I will be including all the non-remake spin-offs that I am aware of, under the theory of “If I’m gonna do it, might as well go all the way.” I am not blogging as if I am a character in the game, or giving reviews. I’m going to write about the process of playing, the annoying things, the fun things, and the assorted mental musings that arise from any long-term activity.

Details are good.

3 thoughts on “Following Ultima through the Years”

  1. It seems to be a very good idea: no doubt.
    The fascination (that I feel so) appears to be a little strange for scientific purposes, but videogames are not mere things to study: they are expierences to live.

  2. I mentioned this on my blog too, and saw a link to this post and was interested to see what other bloggers had to say about it.

    I think it’s a really neat idea that I hope other people will take up with other games. There must be heavy gamers out there who are also good writers. If they simply posted their reactions to games as they played through them, well, that’d be some good reading I think.

  3. Good point Jesper; I have an essay appearing in Tanya and Barry’s forthcoming anthology Videogame/Player/Text on the Street Fighter franchise and the beat-’em-up genre generally from 1986 – 1995, which follows your idea. I looked at the role of special moves (and SUPER special moves) as that ‘fine detail’ you are talking about (I conceptualised them as ‘reward-spectacles’: moments of gameplay feedback indexed audiovisually):

    Surman, D. (2007) “Gameplay and the Reward-Spectacle: An Analysis of the Streetfighter Series (1987 ? 2004)” in Krzywinska, T, Atkins, B. (eds). Videogame, Player, Text. London: Wallflower.

    I totally loved Ultima: Pagan, was so atmospheric and involving. Casting spells with reagents and a locus etc, fabulous mechanic!

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