Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2 - Martian Dreams

The Good
This game, puts you - the Avatar, and your friends in Mars, Ultima style! . You get to meet many people who made history and the game gives you the ability to engage in meaningful and informative conversations with them. Each character comes alive in Martian Dreams and your involvement in the game is profound. The innovations in technology, and the ability to use various tools and machines in the game world is tremendous.

The graphics are cool, reflecting the craters and imaginary plants and canals, ridges and cliffs, which all look convincingly original. You get to experience what Percival Lowell's idea of how the "martian canals" all look like. And when you get to melt the polar caps (using a lens from a tower) and direct the water into the canals, it's an absolute beauty to watch the water filled canals. The whole Mars comes alive!

The music is fitting for the given atmosphere, and the mood changes according to the situation. The music right from the Intro and Character generation is absolutely brilliant, though at certain places, things could have been better.

The game uses the Ultima VI engine, with slightly modified graphics engine to suit the new Mars world, and as in the Ultima of Britannia, you get to use any (or almost any) little item that you see! The extensive level of game-world-item manipulation is right there!

I and my best friend played this game those days and completed this game, using nothing but the manual and the provided map. No walkthrough whatsoever! (Those days, internet was in it's infancy and walkthrough are difficult to come across.) And the whole adventure was such an epic that we celebrated the ending of the game cheerfully with a sense of great accomplishment!

The Bad
The RPG elements could have been better utilized. (But this game is more about adventuring anyway). The dream world while using the "Dream Machine" could get a bit annoying or confusing at times.

The Bottom Line
Guys, this is Quality Adventuring! The whole game just shouts quality all the way from the intro till the very end. Follow the pace of the game and live the experience to it's fullest!