Haha ! I think me liking Ultima 9 might just be a step to far , I'll get "+1Tin Helmet of Down repping resistance " out right away :p

In my opinion playing early Ultima games (pre-U7) is like translating ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. You don't do it for fun, but in order to learn more about the history of gaming.

Hence, I pass. I did a bit similar thing with early Final Fantasy games before, but I think they are much more playable than the early Ultima games (no surprise, they are newer games too).

I even beat them as a kid. :D

And for me, they are the worst games ever created :P

Let's say Ultima 1-3 are garbage now. But when they were released, they were awesome. Duke Nukem 1 and 2 on the other hand, were shitbad even when released. 5 years older Castlevania on NES was ten times better than this shit.
Not to mention Contra, for example.

I don't know how anybody sane could play the turd called Duke Nukum... In 1990 there already was Super Nintendo, and Duke Nukem game is a freaking disgrace to gaming...

But ok, overall you can say that nintendo games were far superior than most DOS games of the same era.

Even ghost and goblins NES is better than Duke Nukem?

Ghosts and goblins is an amazing game and only pussies who can't beat it say it's bad :P

Snap. These struggles make it seem like the time I finally get to Ultima will be brutal.

It was, but Ghouls 'n' Ghosts was better.

That reminds me - I might fire up Capcom Classics Collection on my PSP again.

I hate you :-(

If you own a copy of Dungeon Siege 1, I really would advise you to get the Ultima V Lazarus total conversion. It is a faithful Ultima 5 remake with more modern graphics and controls. You don't lose anything story-wise. Everything that was in Ultima 5 is implemented in Lazarus. It's just easier on the eyes and easier to play.

http://www.u5lazarus.com/Downloads.php

Looks like you've been uprepped back into equilibrium and the world is right again.

Ultima 4 is remarkable because it was groundbreaking and completely changed how RPGs were made. But just because it brought a new element into the genre doesn't mean it perfected that element. Making the game about a character's internal development was profound, but unfortunately that's almost all that the game was about, and that left it feeling somewhat mechanical. Ultima 5 is a big improvement because, aside from all the refinements to the game itself, the external world actually has things happening in it, making everything you do so much more meaningful than grinding virtue ratings.

U5 is still playable IMO, but for U6 I had to wait for the Ultima 6 Project, also using Dungeon Siege.
The main disadvantage of DS is the third person view, which means too much time spent on fighting the camera.

Exactly, it only focus on that one element of being a good guy, imo Ultima 4 should have been a spin-off if it only focused on being that, trying to become the Avatar.
Don't have Dungeon Siege, but I heard there is a mod for Neverwinter Nights thats remakes Ultima 4, so I would try that out.

I tend to agree. I wasn't that impressed by 2D Duke Nukem games even back then, but then you have to remember that they were shareware games (I think), ie. "indie games" by another name (the term "indie game" just wasn't yet coined back then). So it is a bit same as taking some generic PC indie game now, and proclaiming PC games suck compared to console games.

Depends what era you are talking about. Wing Commander 1-2 PC, Red Baron or Ultima Underworld 1-2 were IMHO better than anything SNES could offer, and by the time Doom appeared on PC, I recall some console (SNES) gaming magazine writing an article: "PC: The ultimate gaming machine?". The whole article oozed of some kind of envy how the laughable PC was suddenly getting games that felt like true virtual reality, making all "old games" seem laughable, on all other systems.

Yeah, there was some kind of breakdown, when DOS games on PC started to look and be far superior than console games, that's very true.