Now that EA opens part of their back catalog to GOG and seeing as there are already a few Origin games avaiulable, some of you might be interested in getting their hands on the official guides. I like these books even if not for the purpose of guiding through a game but as they are often full of interesting stuff.

Origin games are relatively old, and so most if not all of these guides are out of print and hard to find. They are still subject to copyright. So no URL or so from me here. If you are still reading this, you might have already tried to Google/Bing/whatever Origin and Adventures and maybe have found a wordpress blog as the third or fourth entry that might prove bookmark-worthy. Just saying :-).

I would love to have a hintbook for the original (Amiga version) Ultima. I was all over the place, never sure where to go next. I mean, I stole a "Vacuum suit" and a "Laser pistol" from the very first merchant come to, and I remember thinking "The hell? Aren't I in a medieval setting?"

Was it Wizardry and not Ultima you were playing?

Nope, it was Ultima (the first one, maybe the second as well)

Nope, definitely Ultima I. I remember because the character creation screen told me that being a female thief meant I would have a better chance at stealing from male merchants. Which was how I got the space suit and laser pistol. I also understand that it was the first appearance of the Kilrathi.

Go figure... I never played the earlier Ultima games. I suppose that would throw me for a loop as well. :)

Of, course, that was just the first Ultima, before Garriott cemented the characters of The Avatar and Co. Ultima itself was a sequel of sorts to Akalabeth. Ultima I and II are really the only ones that have space travel (the Britannians call it "starwalking") and "modern" and sci-fi land transports, like bi-planes and landspeeder-type air cars. The explanations for these is the massive amount of time-stream twisting caused by both the hero and the big bad. Garriott eventually decided on sticking with a completely medieval/Camelot "sword and sorcery" setting from Ultima III onwards, with the exceptions of Worlds of Ultima.

A Kilrathi encounter (in this case a downed superfighter and pilot on a Britannian farm) was cut from the Serpent Isle expansion for Ultima VII.

I've often thought about playing RPGs from before my time through with a guide. I find it hard to get into them and spend a ton of time on their mechanics and nuances but with a walkthrough it might be easier to play them just to experience what they were like.

Since ultima was brought up, not sure if they give a proper picture but I quite like the Spoony Experiment rundown videos of them. And yes Ultima 1 having bits in space and so on did make me confused until I realised they were completely different games than 5-6-7 which I'd played for a bit.

And for those who haven't run across them and won't bother looking at Google
http://spoonyexperiment.com/category/game-reviews/ultima-retrospective/

There was a downed Kilrathi fighter in a farm just outside Britain in Ultima 7 (part 1). I recall the farmer telling how the creature that came out said "Kill Wrathi" but he wasn't sure who Wrathi was and why he is wanted dead.

Give worlds of Xeen a shot if you haven't played it before. Tons of fun and it has that old school feel.

Wow, I love that people are taking the effort to preserve this kind of stuff.

I just pulled an old box out of the garage, and found the original discs for Ultimas 1-5 and the Trilogy collection book and maps for C-64! I guess having a box of original C64 and Amiga discs will be cool again someday. At least, I hope so. :)

I browsed the catalog on that site I hinted to and did not find a guide for Ultima 1. There are only a few guides for Ultima games up to now. But there is one for the NES version of Ultima 3 that I opened out of interest. Before the actual guide begins there is a short story introducing Lord British and portraying him as some kind of second Jesus. Hilarious, and you definitely won't something like that nowadays (although some desingers might see themselves as godsend *cough*Peter Molyneux*cough*).

lol, yeh, that was the farmer who had his hoe mistakenly enchanted with the wrong enchantment.

he wanted it to be the best gardening hoe, but the enchanter he sent it too was absentminded got his order switched with that of a warrior who wanted a blade that could cut anything. the warrior ended up dead from trying to fight with a sword that was only good for gardening while the farmer ended up slaying the "kill wrathy" with his Hoe of death.

but since the farmer really only wanted a gardening Hoe he ended up locking the Hoe of death in his shed and going back to work with a normal one, if you broke into his shed it actually was in there and kicked mondo ass in combat (provided that you stile it, but hey, you all ready broke in so why not).