Ultima 8 - Pagan

Pagan is a game long regarded by hardcore RPG fans (yes, the ones with the selloteped plastic glasses and the anoraks) as the inferior sibling of the Ultima series. If you will, the member of the royal line that ended up with porphyria and 14 toes. Do I really want to put myself through the experience of playing it again? Does anyone?

In a word, yes. When I first played Pagan, in early ‘94, I had a 486 DX33. We are talking jerkovision city. It took the Avatar about 15 minutes to make one of those excruciating jumps from platform to platform. But now, four years later, I have a P200, with more RAM than a welsh sheep farmer could get through in a week.

Ultima has always scored well in terms of having goodies in the box. Pagan is no exception, coming with a rather cute aluminum pentacle. However, the cloth map put me in mind of cheap t-shirt prints, and the book with the storyline bits in it is rather glossy for my taste. But enough of the in-box bribes, and on to the game itself.

When I first played it, I had several serious niggles. The one that I first whined about was the lack of a female Avatar. Excuse me for wanting to empathise with my character just a touch, but the tin can Avatar didn’t really do it for me. I wouldn’t want to shag him, let alone BE him. But this I could forgive for nice fluid gameplay.

Much to my surprise, upon replaying the thing, I found the fluid gameplay that had eluded me first time around. The Avatar could run, jump, and even leap from platform to platform. I found myself enjoying the game I had given up as unplayable. Okay, it was no Ultima VII, but it was good.

The much plugged graphics no longer seem like something to go into orgasms over, and it’s still got too many platforms and action oriented puzzles (especially considering the limitations of the interface), and I still have to put up with playing the Tin Man, but it’s actually quite fun. The plots are quite well written, if unlikely, regarding the Avatar’s prior record. The NPCs are fleshed out, if disconcertingly faceless (literally) and slighly lacking in personallity. The magic system isn’t half bad either.

It’s still never going to be a real Ultima in my eyes, but it’s a good game. There, I said it.

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