Spoony Experiment reviews of the ultima series...

Skutarth (not logged in) · Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:20 pm

TDI: Underworld's voice acting certainly is at the level of mediocrity when compared to its contemporaries. That's the problem, though: all the voice acting was @!#$ back then. You might as well not have it if it's going to be terrible. His complaints for that are still valid.

TDI · Post by **TDI** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:57 pm

I disagree. He might as well have complained about the pixelated graphics and billboard 2D characters, but if we didn't have shitty 3D then, we wouldn't have incredible 3D graphics today. If we didn't have shitty plots then, we wouldn't have Dragon Ages and Mass Effects today. If we didn't have shitty voice acting then... you get the idea. Whatever you start with will usually be low quality, but you've got to start somewhere.

Skutarth (not logged in) · Thu Mar 31, 2011 8:46 pm

TDI: While CGI may not have advanced as fast as it did without video games, it definitely would have continually improved over time. The reason 3D sucked early on was because it was used for the most part as a gimmick; Everybody was doing it, and thus started the 3D craze. People naturally got better at it.

Voice acting and plots would have evolved either way just due to the fact that game development budgets have increased exponentially. While the "pixelated graphics and billboard 2D characters" were mostly products of technological limitation, both voice acting and plots could have been much better sans budget limitations.

There really haven't been any actual innovations for either. Movies like The Godfather did perfectly fine for both quality of acting (including voices) and plot, and that movie came out 20 years beforehand! The quality of the acting itself is what sucks -- not the quality of the PCM used to reproduce it.

The reason the voice acting sucks is because they didn't have any money to hire real voice acting talent. In fact, I bet most of the voice acting for the cutscenes is done by the programming team and Richard Garriott. Not exactly cream of the crop, is it? It might actually have been less painful to read text instead of hearing it reduced to complete garbage by its final voice-acted presentation.

Scythifuge · Post by **Scythifuge** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:40 pm

Baron Almric from UUWI is voiced by Richard Garriott.

Post by **Dominus** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:27 am

Good discussion on this at aiera http://www.ultimaaiera.com/blog/spoony- ... ian-abyss/

TDI · Post by **TDI** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 2:45 pm

I really should make the leap to Aiera for my Ultima-Fix one of these days...

@Skutarth, I know what you mean, but games had a development process, just as movies had. Just because we had Godfather movies before Ultima doesn't mean that games could have been able to mirror that kind of plot and voice acting quality at the time. The budget as you say is a very good reason for this. It took time for games to become big business as movies and until then you had to work with what you had.

Post by **Dominus** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 8:24 pm

yes, you really should take the leap to Aiera. Plenty of news all the time and mostly good and interesting discussions on stuff. The kind I wouldn't allow here but participate over there

El Guesto · Post by **El Guesto** » Fri May 27, 2011 6:47 pm

Serpent Isle review is out

El Guesto · Post by **El Guesto** » Sat May 28, 2011 5:00 am

I have to say I agree about the combat, which of course goes for U7 as well. It's just random and meaningless, I wish U7 had better combat

Funster · Post by **Funster** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:55 pm

I've been following Spoony's reviews for a long time. I've never been interested in Ultima since the only one I really knew was U6 on the SNES which was a hassle to play. After the BG and SI reviews, I had to pick em up. For the first time in my life I am finally playing these bad boys.

andar_b · Post by **andar_b** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:07 am

Good luck with them! They're good fun, even after all these years. I loved the Spoony review of Mazes and Monsters, it was hilarious.

Guesto · Post by **Guesto** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 2:34 pm

I find SI easier to get into. The plot is more linear and "in your face" so it feels more engaging in that sense. At least for me who never played them when they came out

monotremata · Post by **monotremata** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 7:05 pm

Man I have to go find this review of Mazes and Monsters now hehe.

I just barely got around to watching the U7 review just now..

At the beginning when hes talking about having to upgrade his computer just to play the new Origin games.. Is it just me or does the guy on the Crusader box look JUST LIKE one of the Clone Troopers that would show up yeeears later in Attack Of The Clones???

Guesto · Post by **Guesto** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 2:20 pm

Did he die or something?

Post by **Dominus** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 3:03 pm

Look at his site, the last thing he did was on the 24th, he just takes some time with the Ultimas

Exolon2 · Post by **Exolon2** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 11:45 pm

Yeah, the Final Fantasy reviews took a long time too. It does take a long time just to play the games, let alone write a lengthy and (purposely) OTT critique. Looking forward to the SI one now!

I'd probably have to agree with the combat feeling a bit meaningless. Although it might feel like that in RL anyway. Recently tried the highest combat difficulty with Exult and it was waaaay tougher, so that's interesting - armour and careful training (and sneaky tactics like moving out of range and placing caltrops in front of NPCs, or even cheaper - putting them to sleep) become more important.

On that note, some of the U7 pages on the web suggest that armour merely reduces the probability of being hit, rather than reducing the damage taken directly. In Exult (actors.cc@2745) it does seem to reduce the damage, which seems more intuitive; I'm assuming those webpages are wrong (or I'm wrong and didn't understand the code, equally likely).

Kensu · Post by **Kensu** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:29 pm

I'm curious about how the U8 review is going to be. The trouble is that, unlike U9, Pagan COULD have been a great game if it was finished. What's there is pretty damn good, it's too bad that there isn't more of it. (I mean, seriously, compare the NPCs and their conversation branches to the ones in SI. For christ's sake, you can get Marsten to tell you every last detail of his life when you first meet him in the catacombs before he even bothers to ask who you are.)

And because it's driving me mad: what IS that purple Planescape box behind Noah? The others look like they're just the regular campaign setting box, but I've never seen a purple one before, and I didn't think any of the other Planescape material was boxed...

Paulon · Post by **Paulon** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 1:00 am

Re Planescape: I think it's Planes of Conflict, the third large boxed set in the Planescape line after the original set.

Post by **Dominus** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:50 am

The U8 review is up. Follow the link in the 1st post. Haven't watched it yet - but on Aiera WTFs verdict is that it's again pretty unfair

Kensu · Post by **Kensu** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 3:01 am

I'd say it's pretty fair. He doesn't mention how revolutionary it was for the time, and how nothing like it had been seen before at that point. He also doesn't mention that the conversation system is better, and what NPCs there are are much deeper than the ones that Ultima 7.
However, he does take a lot of effort to get the point across that Pagan WAS UNFINISHED, so I'll forgive his rancor (especially because it made the review pretty funny. The 1812 Overture part was hilarious!)

I do wonder something though... In all those years when they were "working on Ultima 9" (which invovled through away complete engines and changing team members, to the point where at the end the only person still on the team from the old days was RG himself), why the hell didn't it ever occur to them to first go back and FINISH ULTIMA 8 instead?

Post by **Dominus** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 5:30 am

Never go back and U8 was officially done and sold. No one would have given any budget to finish u8. And it wouldn't have sold...

Scythifuge · Post by **Scythifuge** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 6:50 am

According to an Origin associate that I spoke to on the phone back in the day, the plan was to create a CD-Rom Special Edition that would have added world interactivity, SVGA graphics, new quests, etc.

The backlash prevented this from happening, along with "The Lost Vale."

TDI · Post by **TDI** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 8:01 pm

I'm inclined to agree with a lot of the review; the god damn jumping, the exploding chests and books, the insta drowning death... what he didn't mention is how back in the day the frustration of these deaths was amplified by the insanely long loading times.

Some of the things he mentioned didn't disturb me at all that mutch, like the predominance of grey architecture and grey dungeons filled with skeletons and zombies. Pagan is just a relatively small island, so how much variety can there be? I took them for a feature of the generally morbid setting.
I didn't have a grudge with the combat. It's not great and it feels as clumsy as the entire movement system does, but it did have it's exciting moments.

I don't agree about the complaints regarding the magic system and the plot. The magic system and plot are some of the best things about U8. Refreshingly unique and interesting, if not very well executed.

And I'm a little put off that he didn't mention the best thing in U8. The music and "the moods" it sometimes conveys at various moments in the plot are great. For such a mediocre, frustrating game experience, I have a lot of memorable moments playing U8.

El Guesto · Post by **El Guesto** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 4:49 pm

Wow, that review took a while

Crowley · Post by **Crowley** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 3:33 pm

He mentions romance subplot that was left dangling, apparently with Darion's daughter. I wouldn't call that a romance, since Darion was trying to marry off his daughter and she wasn't interested. And wasn't she seeing the farmer's son before he went to become a theurgist?

What bothers me much more is the potential romance between Devon and Mordea's servant being left dangling. If you speak to her, she is all smitten by Devon. You'd expect something to come from that once Devon is revealed to be the legitimate ruler of Tenebrae, and he moves into the palace so now they see each other every day. But nope, the servant's dialogue doesn't change!

Wxnzxn · Post by **Wxnzxn** » Wed May 30, 2012 11:35 am

Well, here it is, part I of U-IX:

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/05/29/ ... ascension/

Wizardry Dragon · Post by **Wizardry Dragon** » Wed May 30, 2012 8:05 pm

I don't think he was angry enough for this to be a genuine Ultima 9 playthrough.

Cheers,
Peter M Dodge
aka Wizardry Dragon

Kensu · Post by **Kensu** » Thu May 31, 2012 1:21 am

Well, Wizardry Dragon, he hasn't really even gotten started yet.

Looks like this is going to be a good and long one, like the Final Fantasy X one.
(and btw, the disembodied voice at the beginning was actually Hawkwind and not the TimeLord, right?)

Paulon · Post by **Paulon** » Thu May 31, 2012 5:47 am

There's a note in the game saying that Hawkwind is the Time Lord.

Crowley · Post by **Crowley** » Thu May 31, 2012 2:50 pm

Specifically, I think it was the note with the Time Stop spell in the Abyss which was signed "Hawkwind, The Time Lord".

Wizardry Dragon · Post by **Wizardry Dragon** » Thu May 31, 2012 3:23 pm

Hah, Origin/EA laughs at your expectations of continuity!

monotremata · Post by **monotremata** » Thu May 31, 2012 8:56 pm

So LB was a fan of weird 70s psych/prog rock I take it??

Kensu · Post by **Kensu** » Thu May 31, 2012 10:58 pm

Does anyone else remember the name of Lord British's cartographer who drew the Ultima III map, but died before he could fill in the names? Yep, Hawkwind!

VisElEchNon · Post by **VisElEchNon** » Mon Jul 09, 2012 5:45 pm

Heh... heh heh.... lol... And I'll probably do that in 10 minutes when I'm done downloading the thing...

Kensu · Post by **Kensu** » Sat Jul 14, 2012 10:39 pm

He doesn't do the source credits at the end of this one like he usually does. Does anyone know where that clip of the two gods fighting comes from? I'm thinking Xenoblade Chronicles, but I could be wrong...

agentorangeguy · Post by **agentorangeguy** » Fri Jul 27, 2012 11:45 am

On a Spoony related subject, apparently there has been some drama where he left (or was forced out) of Channel Awesome. http://ohinternet.com/The_Spoony_Experiment

See "The Great Meltdown", otherwise known as SpoonyGate!

Aka825 · Post by **Aka825** » Sat Aug 11, 2012 10:01 pm

Spoony's Ultima IX finale is up. Personally, I find his ending to be genius. Pure, beautiful genius. Over the top? Yes, and wonderfully so. I mean, this IS the best ending to a review he's ever done.

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/08/11/ ... ale-uncut/

Paddywhacker · Post by **Paddywhacker** » Sat Aug 11, 2012 11:41 pm

On Youtube, rather than blip.tv

[Mod edit]Removed links to pirated videos.[/Mod edit]

Post by **Malignant Manor** » Sun Aug 12, 2012 12:47 am

Thanks. Hopefully that account will be banned soon.

Paddywhacker · Post by **Paddywhacker** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 9:04 pm

You are Spoony?

That makes sense. I couldn't access the bip site, you would have better been advised to use youtube.

Slobbedybob · Post by **Slobbedybob** » Sat Sep 14, 2013 6:59 pm

What's a paladin?

I think it was an awesome and well done ending and all together retrospective and I agree with him so much

Post by **Dominus** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 7:45 am

What's with all those necroposts. I understand that one maybe wants to take part in these discussions but 13 months later it's not going to work well...