ED. - For such a hit as Underworld II, we expected more than one review
for this game, and we weren't disappointed. We're pleased to be present
three reviews for our Game Bytes readers.

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ULTIMA UNDERWORLD II: LABYRINTH OF WORLDS by ORIGIN
Reviewed by Sam Bauer

Requirements:
    - 386SX, 386, 486 PC or 100% compatible PC
    - 2 Megs RAM
    - 14 megs hard drive
    - DOS Version 3.3 or higher
    - Expanded memory manager
    - 256 color VGA graphics
Recommended:
    - Microsoft (R) 100% compatible mouse
    - 386/20Mhz or better processor
    - Sound board
Music Support:
    - Ad Lib (R), Sound Blaster (R), Roland (R) MT-32/LAPC-1 or
      100% compatible sound board
Digitized Speech Support:
    - Sound Blaster (R) or 100% compatible sound board
Media in Package Reviewed:
    - Four 3.5" 1.44M & one 3.5" 720K diskettes

System Configuration I Used:
      486/33 Gateway 2000, ATI Ultra S-VGA, Pro Audio Spectrum 16

Almost a year ago, I had just finished playing EYE OF THE BEHOLDER II
and picked up the February issue of Computer Game Review. Inside I found
a review of ULTIMA UNDERWORLD: THE STYGIAN ABYSS - a first person dungeon
exploration real-time hack and slash computer role playing game (CRPG).
Most notable, of course, was the fact that movement was smooth and could
be made in any angle through the varying sized and shaped rooms, halls,
and caverns, while other games of this genre (like EYE OF THE BEHOLDER I
& II and the WIZARDRY series) used ninety degree angles and steps of
movement that jump the player five feet or so at each key press. Two of
the reviewers were quite excited about UNDERWORLD I while one claimed
that the interface was just too difficult to use. Of course the game
went on to be one of the most acclaimed first person dungeon CRPG to
date. Players loved the ability to swim, fly, run and jump, as well as
its depth of characters, story, puzzles, magic and combat. I personally
dubbed it the best game I had ever played. Since then I went back and
played ULTIMA I through VII as well as several other CRPGs, but nothing
has quite measured up to my experience with UNDERWORLD... Until now.

The story of UNDERWORLD II, LABYRINTH OF WORLDS (UW2), picks up after
ULTIMA VII, which followed UNDERWORLD I. In ULTIMA VII, the Avatar was
summoned back to Britannia to help fight the Guardian, who is an
extremely bad dude, bent on creating havoc in Britannia. In the end, the
Avatar prevails of course, but only in foiling the Guardian's plan. UW2
opens with a celebration in Lord British's castle with many faces
familiar to the Avatar including his friends Iolo, Geoffrey, Dupre and
Julia, as well the likes of Mayor Patterson and Ferdiwyn. During this
celebration, the guardian strikes again and encases the castle inside a
giant black rock gem, sealing all exits. As the Avatar, you must save
Britannia. Isn't it always the case? You must explore the levels
beneath the castle as well as eight new worlds - assuming you can find
the entrance to them.

INSTALLATION

The installation went without a hitch. It required 14 megabytes of disk
space. I had to run an included utility to get the game configured for
my Sound Blaster IRQ - just like in UW1.

USER INTERFACE

Firing up UW2 finds the interface almost wholly unchanged from UW1.
Grabbing the mouse and starting to steer myself through the rooms of the
castle, I found myself running into walls and oversteering turns for a
while, but I was quickly re-acclimated and soon felt as though I had
found that pair of long-lost most-comfortable slippers. The UI is
entirely mouse driven. Holding down on the right mouse button while
moving the cursor allows you to move freely through rooms and corridors
at any angle. Moving the mouse gradually higher in this manner increases
walking speed until you are running. Pressing the left mouse button
causes you to jump, unless you have your weapon drawn, in which case the
left mouse button controls your weapon swing. Every thing is organized
well and is easy to use.

It is amazing the amount of control you have over your weapon and body
movement during battle - and its a good thing since your enemies rarely
stand still. Be prepared to chase them down for the final kill since
many monsters will run when hurt badly. You'll also have to look up and
sometimes even jump to hit those flying creatures while other times it is
necessary to look down to slash those creatures at shoe level. More acid
slugs...Yuk!

This UI really adds tremendously to the realism. I only have a few
minor gripes here. I would like to see the number of save file positions
expanded beyond four. Perhaps they kept it limited since the save space
required grew to about 500K per save in UW2. Also, looking into your
rune bag or checking your character's stats always makes you wait though
a minor bit of animation. It's cute, but you soon get to where you are
hitting keys in hopes of cutting the 3 second sequence short. Lastly,
the only thing really keeping this UI from being perfect is the lack of a
note taking feature. Now that I am freed from the drudgery of map-making,
I am so close to being able to play without my pencil and note pad that I
can almost taste it. I get so tired of writing down all of the
conversation. Games like THE LOST FILES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES and CLOUDS OF
XEEN have taken this step and so should others.

GRAPHICS

The graphics are very impressive. Many games easily top UW2 for
beautiful still images, like those found in THE LEGEND OF KYRANDIA (just
to mention one), but not many come close to being as completely
mesmerizing as UW2 is when you are travelling through it. The walls,
floor and ceiling smoothly scroll past you, while a slight bobbing up and
down motion adds to the illusion of rhythmic steps. Swimming and flying
are two of my very favorite modes of travel. I love to cast a walk on
water spell and stroll over to a lurker and fight him on my terms for
once (was that a look of confusion in his eyes?). Running on top of the
water and to jump up a low waterfall is truly a magical experience.

The viewing window is bigger than that of UW1 without any noticeable
slowdown. Monsters and non-player characters are more detailed and have
more frames of animation during combat. The new worlds showcase new
surface textures like ice, snow and strange alien substances. I really
can't find any gripes with the graphics or animation other than to say
that objects are still a little blocky when seen up close, though this is
much improved from UW1 and did not bother me while playing at all.

SOUND AND MUSIC

The sound is improved in many ways over UW1. Many new sound effects
have been added for monsters, combat and movement. Stepping on snow
really makes that snow compressing skrunch sound. Killing some monsters
gets you a creepy screech. And while there is no digitized voice in the
introduction, like there was in UW1, voice is used from time to time when
the Guardian makes a surprise appearance to taunt and laugh at you. The
effect is a little unnerving - a couple of times I almost jumped out of
my chair.

The music soundtrack is pretty well done. It succeeds in adding mood
to the game without becoming annoying. I never felt like turning it off
and I often found myself thinking that it was a little eerie - just as I
was beginning to have second thoughts about what might be around the next
corner.

MANUAL AND DOCUMENTATION

The players guide, containing instructions on how to play the game
seems complete yet brief and well organized. Another larger manual
containing a history of Britannia, while not required reading, is
enjoyable to read and I recommend it. The installation guide also looked
quite complete, though I had no problems and did not make much use of its
trouble-shooting sections. The only shortcoming was perhaps in the area
of character generation. It is not completely clear how your choices
here will help or hinder you through the duration of the game. This may
very well been a purposeful omission, left to the player to discover.

CHARACTER GENERATION

Your character must be generated before game play may begin.
Unfortunately, there is no provision for importing your character from
Underworld I. Character generation is easy with only a few choices to be
made. The documentation does fail to tell you a couple of important
things that could help make wiser choices here. Your character's
strength attribute is important since it determines how much weight you
can bear throughout the game. This strength stat never increases, so it
is important to get one that you can live with throughout the game. Also
it is not clear from the documentation that any profession can practice
any skill during the game (e.g. you need not be a Mage to use magic).

PLOT

UW2 enhances game play with an interesting story. They have taken the
"You must save our world" plot and made it quite interesting through the
addition of the mysterious Guardian who makes several appearances
throughout the game. Also breaking the game world up into eight
different worlds serves to break the story into chapters, each having
subplots to play out inside new, unique, and sometimes alien settings.
Many of these subplots produce quests which you must carry out within a
single world or across several worlds. While some quests are optional
to the game, most are critical. There is also a story playing back at
the castle while you are exploring these worlds, so you must come back
often to exchange information.

The story of the game slowly rolls out through your players interaction
with many, many non-player characters (NPC). These non-player characters
are quite well done, as is the interaction interface. Some of the
characters and their deeds are quite interesting and at times, down right
clever.

MAGIC

Magic is always an important part of a CRPG as it is in UW2. The magic
system is basically unchanged from UW1, except for the addition of new
spells. Rune stones must be found throughout the worlds in order to cast
spells. As your character is awarded skill points for advancing levels,
you must use some of them to train in the magic arts of casting and manna
if you ever hope to cast those higher level spells. You should plan to
use magic as much as possible since it makes winning easier and opens up
one of the more interesting aspects of the game. There are also many
magical potions and scrolls and spells to be found throughout the
labyrinth. The lore skill is also important in identifying many magical
weapons and armor items that you will find.

FIGHTING

Fighting, whether weaponed or magical is real-time and depends greatly
on both your characters skills and your mastery of the UI. The
importance of you skill at wielding the mouse is perhaps the factor that
most involves you in the game. You don't just issue commands to your
character and then watch him/her carry out the orders - you instead slip
into the character like a pair of gloves and guide all actions and
movements through the battle. You may move in close and strike, then run
over to a short platform and jump up for a better vantage, or just stand
toe to toe and hack it out. The beauty here is that you can use your
surroundings as well as your weapons and quite often, many strategies are
available for use against a foe. Just remember that not all creatures
are hostile and some possess very important information - so always try to
talk before you draw blood.

PUZZLES

Like any good CRPG worth its magnetic bits, UW2 has many puzzles to
solve. While none of these puzzles are overly hard, they are all fun and
some are set in surroundings that will visually awe and dazzle you.

GAME DIFFICULTY

This game has two difficulty settings to choose from, STANDARD and
EASY. To the best of my knowledge this selection controls only the
difficulty of battles. The game is just a little larger than UW1, but is
spread out over eight different worlds instead of eight, tightly packed
levels. You should expect from forty to seventy hours of play depending
on how many roses you stop to smell along the way.

GAME PLAY

Game play is the most important factor of any game - how good is the
overall game play experience? UW2 is a package that is even greater than
the mere sum of all of its strong components. For me, UW2 is one of the
best CRPGs to come out in a long long time. While UW2 does not use any
"virtual reality" hardware, it successfully created a virtual reality for
me to get lost in for several hours each day. The only problem is that
it stayed on my mind during the day and invaded my dreams at night.
Perhaps the obsession I felt with the synthetic reality created by UW2
and the way it kept drawing me back is the best testament to its play
value.

RECOMMENDATION

I heartily recommend this game for all players except perhaps those who
hate this genre of game. Even if you don't rate it a highly as I do, it
is certain to be one of the years best CRPGs and you are bound to get
your moneys worth.

This review is Copyright (c) 1993 by Sam Bauer. All rights reserved.

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ULTIMA UNDERWORLD II: LABYRINTH OF WORLDS
from Origin and Looking Glass Technologies
Reviewed by Daniel J. Starr

Technical Specifications--

CPU: 386sx or better
DOS: MS-DOS 3.3 or higher
Memory: 2 MB RAM, expanded memory manager [e.g. EMM386.EXE]
Hard Disk: 14 MB
Interface: Mouse [strongly recommended], Keyboard or Joystick
Graphics: 256-color 320x200 VGA
Sound: Adlib, Soundblaster, Roland LAPC-1/MT-32 or compatibles
               [supports simultaneous use of separate cards for music
                    and digitized speech & sound]

For people who played the first Ultima Underworld and want a quick summary:
bigger and better graphics, better sound and music, much better plot and
atmosphere, same old interface. For everyone else, read on!

When the original Ultima Underworld was released last April, it was
revolutionary -- a true 3-D role-playing game, in which you could smoothly
turn, walk, jump, swim and fly -- not to mention swing swords, cast spells
and hold conversations with all manner of creatures. Its plot was a bit
superficial, but its dramatic interface won it a bevy of awards.

ULTIMA UNDERWORLD II: LABYRINTH OF WORLDS substantially repairs most of
its predecessor's weak points while improving on its strengths. It's not
perfect, but it is very, very good. UW2 adds to the best first-person
interface in current computer role-playing games one of the best-executed
storylines as well.

UW2 begins with a feast at Castle Britannia, where the player, as the
Avatar (Britannia's destined savior in times of danger), and the other
notables of the kingdom are celebrating the defeat of the Guardian a year
ago, as chronicled in Ultima VII. Suddenly, a huge gem of impregnable
blackrock springs up around the castle -- the Guardian has unleashed a new
attack on the kingdom, trapping its leadership within the castle while his
invading forces conquer the realm outside. The Avatar is called upon to
investigate the castle, and the ancient tunnels below, for a way to break
free of the mystic prison -- a quest that will in turn lead to other,
stranger worlds with the secrets to the Guardian's undoing.

UW2's display and interface will be familiar to veterans of the original
game. The game screen has an inventory display on the right, with command
icons and an information window on the bottom, but the majority of the
screen holds the view window, with the 3-D display of the player's current
view. The view window is about 30% larger than in the original game, and
the particular graphics in it are much more detailed. Walls and beings
still 'pixelize' when one gets too close, and faces in particular tend to
look strange, but the animations and the backgrounds look very nice.
People walk around, move their heads and arms, etc.; broad views of a
throne room or an ice cave as one turns around can be quite dramatic.
Motion was acceptably smooth on a 386DX/33, but users may find slower
machines annoyingly jerky.

The interface, inherited from UW1, uses the left mouse button to move and
turn, while the right button is clicked to look at, get, use or talk to
things, and various mouse or keyboard controls allow one to jump, look up
or down, etc. Spells are cast by invoking combinations of runes which you
collect over the course of the game. Most things work smoothly, although
there is a persistent problem with the game not permitting you to drop
things even when there's obvious empty space, and an occasional moment
when the player appears to become stuck against a wall, requiring some
fiddling before one can start moving again. The biggest interface problem
is combat, which I find impossible without using the keyboard, and even
then a frantic matter of wheeling, retreating and hacking -- it certainly
gets the adrenalin pumping, but elegant it's not.

On the other hand, the plot design and execution have been completely
overhauled, and dramatically improved, in Underworld 2. From the
beginning, there is a serious and well-defined problem; but at the same
time, the complete plot is slowly ferreted out by the player instead of
being prophetically unveiled by the computer. The game does an excellent
job of having characters and events develop and respond to the player's
actions. There are a number of subplots that are revealed (although the
game does a poor job of sustaining them), and there are genuinely
surprising twists in the situation in the castle. The endgame is
tolerable, although leaving some gaping plot holes. Aside from occasional
weak points, the plot presentation is much more sophisticated than the
average for computer role-playing games.

The atmosphere of the game is another strong point. Digitized sound
effects let the player hear his or her footsteps -- and others'. Water
splashes, swords clank on armor, and dying monsters moan. The music lends
appropriate moods to the situation (and is more varied and less grating
than in UW1). At appropriate moments, the Guardian jumps in to taunt the
player, as sudden and nasty as ever. (Unfortunately, digitized speech is
only provided for about half his lines, an annoying inconsistency.) The
designers have made good use of the alternate worlds to provide distinctly
different settings -- ice caverns, a floating keep, a prison tower, a
psychedelic place from somewhere out of Star Trek, and others.

There is no explicit copy protection; I encountered only one bug, an
occasional tendency to start pausing every few seconds -- this only
occurred during games when sound was enabled, and could be fixed by
restarting the game. One hopes a patch is forthcoming, but it's hardly
fatal.

ULTIMA UNDERWORLD II: LABYRINTH OF WORLDS still has some rough spots, but
is by and large an excellent game. The scrolling 3-D display that was the
centerpiece of its predecessor has been improved, while the storyline
execution is far more sophisticated than that earlier game's -- indeed,
better than most on the market today. Those who liked the original should
certainly get this game; those who haven't tried either will probably also
really enjoy this game, assuming they can put up with the occasional
interface nuisance. Ultima Underworld II may not be quite as
revolutionary a game now as the original Underworld was a year ago, but
it's certainly hard to beat.

This review Copyright (C) 1993 by Daniel J. Starr. All rights reserved.

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ULTIMA UNDERWORLD 2 : Labyrinth of Worlds by Looking Glass Technologies
Published by Origin Systems
Reviewed by Mitch Aigner

System requirements: 386DX/20, 2 Meg RAM, 13 Meg Disk space (from box)
    (Minimum) 386DX/33 (in my opinion)
                     486DX/33 (for full benefit of the 3D scrolling
                               effect)

Overall rating: (on a scale from 1 - 10) 9!!! (-1 point for bugs)

The game takes place in Britannia, after the events of Ultima7. You are
trapped in the castle of Lord British by the evil Guardian,.. along with
several other folks. Diehard Ultima fans will know exactly who these
folks all are,... who can be trusted, and who can't. The rest of us will
just have to guess.

Your mission: Free yourself, and everyone else, from the Guardians' grasp.
This is accomplished by visiting 8 other worlds (other than yours). Each
of these worlds is very different, and very unique.

Contrast with Underworld 1: This new game has much improved graphics, more
objects/items, and a bigger 3D viewing window. The amount of territory to
explore is much larger than in the original. Several other enhancements
have been made. The user interface is identical (which I consider to be a
positive attribute), so that Underworld 1 players will immediately feel
right at home.

GAME PLAY: Fabulous 3D scrolling effect. Just like being there! You can
turn any direction, any angle, look up, look down, and fully interact with
the environment. The environment itself is also 3D. There are pits,
pedastals, elevated walkways, and other 3D landscapes to explore.

The user interface is very easy to use, once you get used to it. There are
icons for talking, weapons, using items, etc,... but these are unnecessary
once you get the hang of the interface. If you are just starting out, the
icons make life easy. Once you have some experience, you can use all of
the short-cut methods, and forget about the icons. This is a nice feature
to have, as it makes life easy for the beginner, yet allows the more
experienced users to really get the most out of the game.

Play consists of exploring new worlds, talking to folks, killing monsters,
collecting neat stuff, and solving puzzles. The role you play is that of
The Avatar from the Ultima series. You are a hero, as well as a pillar of
virtue,... and this is important to understand while playing the game.
Lying, cheating, and stealing are frowned upon (except when absolutly
necessary). Also, attacking anything that is not trying to kill you is
not always a good idea (you can actually talk to some of the monsters, and
need to do so in some cases, to complete the game). So be polite !

SOUND/SPEECH: Support for Adlib, SoundBlaster, and SoundBlaster Pro. While
speech is limited (takes lots of disk space), sound is abundant. The
sounds really add a lot to the game, and can literally save your life! If
there are any nasty critters about, you will probably hear them before you
see them. You may also be ambushed from behind. With a sound card, you can
save yourself from some nasty surprises (rest assured that there are more
than enough _other_ nasty surprises in store).

With the lights turned off, and the sound turned up, the illusion of
alternate reality can be really intense.

OVERALL: This is the best game that I have ever played (as of 1/1/93) If
you are a fan of Might & Magic, Eye of the Beholder, and other such games,
... you have got to try this!

BUGS: Considering that this is an Origin product, there are surprisingly
few bugs. The main problem seems to be in allocating the available memory
for both graphics and sound, at the same time. After a while, the action
halts for a moment (screen freezes), while the memory gets juggled around
for the next event. This seems to be a memory frag-mentation problem,
and only gets worse. The frequency of this occurence increases as time
goes by. This results in mangled sound, and a loss of fluid motion,...
which goes from bad to worse. There are a couple of ways around this:

1) Quit, and then restart the game (annoying)

2) Turn off the sound (really annoying)

This review is Copyright (C) 1993 by Mitch Aigner. All rights reserved.