Ultima: The Ultimate Collector's Guide: 2012 Edition

Wow. What an enormous book!I wasn't sure what to expect when I purchased this behemoth. Maybe some (game) author's design notes, some 6502 assembler algorithm snippets, some stories about the in-game characters (Dupre, Iolo, Shamino) or other nonsensical trivia. This is not that book. While there is a little bit of trivia, this book is exactly what it's title says it is, "The Ultimate Collector's Guide". It is amazing the amount of Ultima related product and swag released into the wild. Certainly enough to launch a man to the ISS. And it is amazing the amount of research and work that when into crafting this book. The (book) author must have put a great deal of his life into this tome.The first four fifths or so of this book is full of clear black and white photographs of the various editions and versions of Ultima. It also has some game art, trivia and notes scattered throughout. The last fifth of the book is a "checklist" of the same material.I loved these games as a kid. I credit two people, Nolan Bushnell (Atari) and Richard Garriott for instilling in me my lifelong love of computers and software; the basis of my career as a software engineer. I can still remember the day when I lugged my Atari 400 over to a schoolmate's house in 1982. I showed him Star Raiders on my Atari. He introduced me to Ultima I on his Apple ][. I could not wait for Ultima I to come out for the Atari. I played Ultima I to conclusion in about five days. Ultima II took about two weeks. I played Ultima III with my brother for two months in the summer of 1983. Ah, the carefree days of youth. I loved these games. The cloth maps, the detailed manuals, the ankh. I still have my original 5 1/4 floppies for Ultima I through Ultima IV.As I mentioned, this book is exactly what its title says it is, "The Ultimate Collector's Guide". It is at a price point that will tempt only hard-core Ultima fans to be sure. I would like to have seen some color images and maybe a DVD with the games, artwork and audio files, but alas, that is not this book.Thank you Richard Garriott and thank you Stephen Emond.

I was under the impression that this was a collection of scans of the manuals and strategy guides of the Ultimas over the years. Not that I have a problem with this book, it has given me an insight of All the versions of Ultimas that are out there and what it would take to collect them all. Plus some background of the behind the scenes of the making of some of them.

Not at all what I was expecting... More related to a retailer or hard-core collector looking for the different releases of the Ultima series.

I love to play the game but it was to old for my computer -very sorry

My son loved it

I should start off by saying, if you're looking for more info about the gameplay, anecdotes about development, history of Lord British and Origin, etc. there are other books like Shay Addams "Official Book of Ultima" you should consider. But if you're a collector, or doing market research, or have any other reason to want to look into every single product, version, foreign translation, and related product... This is a better source than most game series will ever have. The amount of research that went into this book is probably comparable to the amount of work we put into making one of the Ultima games to begin with!There are also pages of trivia and interesting facts about each of the games, including things I didn't know myself - I'll be browsing through those for a while. The author also obtained the original lyrics to "The Cheese Song" from Ultima Runes of Virtue from the composer, 'Manda. To my knowledge this is the first and only time those lyrics have been published. There's a photo of one of my origami dragons also, which were mailed out to people who found the secret room in that game.The whole book is filled with tidbits of info like that, from Akalabeth (and the high school project D&D games that preceeded it) right on through to info on the cancelled Ultima X, and the t-shirts Richard had made up for the team at the end of the series. With info on hint books, trinkets, console versions, compilations, if you're an Ultima completist this is your guidebook!

As one of the people involved in the creation of several Ultima games included in this book, I might be a bit prejudiced, but holy cow this is an amazing piece of work! Frankly, any warm feelings I may have about individual games or fond memories of their creation are irrelevant, since the book doesn't get into evaluation much. It's all about the comprehensive listing of and visual guide to all things Ultima.This book is nothing short of amazing. Every box, every disc, every map, every ad, every poster, every t-shirt... everything (well, nearly everything) Ultima is included and illustrated. I can't even imagine the research and years of collecting materials that went into this Guide.If you're an Ultima fan or video game historian, stop reading now and just buy this.

I was fortunate enough to be able to contribute to the creation of this book. (look for my name in it!) This book is THOROUGH. It has a permanent place on my desk now as I reference it daily when surfing ebay for Ultima related items. Not only does this book help me determine how complete the items I'm bidding on are, it made me aware that my collection wasn't even 10% complete.Buyer beware. It will make you think much less of your collection. ;)

An interesting guide for the collectors of Ultima series. It has the descriptions of everything published related to Ultima games.