When a new expansion pack comes out for a long-lived and well-loved game, there are always going to be dangers. The Ultima Online series is one of the most successful and longest surviving online gaming experiences with a loyal following. So when previous expansion packs have sometimes pleased less of the fans than was anticipated, a brand new expansion pack like Age of Shadows, may receive more scepticism than is its due.
Rather than going for a complete engine or graphics upgrade, this pack aims to add more depth of play and new areas to explore. With a new land mass, the continent of Malas, and, something of a first for Ultima Online expansions, new character classes. Now you can play as a Necromancer with a clutch of spells for summoning the dead, and as a Paladin, a cross between a knight and cleric which owes no small debt to the Knights Templar.
The Necromancer is a an evil character whose ‘Min’ abilities are destructive spells, raising the dead and being able to change form into many hideous beasts. He can call on spells like Corpse Skin to make those he faces more vulnerable to poison or fire. But his greatest abilities lie in bringing back defeated foes as undead creatures to be his army. This clever feat ensures for many exciting possibilities — adventurers could face hordes that contain their defeated adventuring companions controlled by a dark Necromancer.
The Paladin is a foil for the Necromancer. With the healing ability of a cleric, but the fighting arm of a warrior, he can at once cast spells and wield arms in a devastating attack. While his abilities are fairly standard for the class from other games of the genre, such has healing, lifting curses, dispelling the undead, he can also sacrifice his own health, up to killing himself to save the others of his group. Right up to resurrecting the dead, this sacrificial gesture means that the Paladin can reclaim what the Necromancer can take away, a juxtaposition that will allow for many interesting exchanges.
While there are some game tweaks and performance enhancements, most of the new additions are in capabilities for the players and places to exercise them. In the new continent of Malas, there is a new dungeon that is the biggest yet. Within it are various puzzles and traps that can take up to five players to operate. Some of which require specific skills or classes. All of this requires levels of co-operation from players that have not been possible before, but demanded.
Some twenty odd new monsters will also face adventurers to the blighted continent. But one of the more intriguing additions to the game is the ability to take or create objects and endow them with combinations of magical powers. Now this is not some panacea to give you a ‘kill everything now’ teaspoon, rather it allows players to combine spells and objects in new ways to give greater depth and character to their encounters.
An interesting feature too, is the ability to create your own house. As this is a long running game, there are many very powerful, and very rich players out there. So many will have the gold to create a homestead. Now they also have the ability to fully design their own houses, complete with grounds and outhouses. While this may sound like a feature of limited appeal, it gives long time players a sense of making their mark within the game and is something that will likely spawn a mini-culture of its own.
This host of new and improved features begs the question of what does it take to play, and the answer is surprisingly, a lot. While I found this to be fine on a recent machine, a 2Ghz AMD-powered PC with 512Mbyte of DDR RAM and a 64Mbyte Geforce3, on an older machine, it struggled somewhat. On what is still a relatively capable machine, in the 1Ghz range with a last generation 32Mbyte video card, the game really had trouble. With the interface having the capability of multiple windows open simultaneously, window switching and shortcut keys often took more than a little time to fire. Where this could become a problem is in the event of an attack where you have to summon help.
This game should do what arguably, other expansion packs in this series may not, and that is entice back players of long standing with genuine new possibilities. While the old criticisms of the Ultima Online series still remain, a clunky interface and less than stellar graphics, this expansion pack, more than any other, seems to be address what the fans want — the same world but with more possibilities for adventure. Whether this pack will entice new players remains to be seen, but it should see many an old hand dust off their adventuring boots and dive back in.
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