I played through Arx Fatalis a little over a year ago. It was fun but I had
a few complaints about it after playing games such as Morrowind and the
Kingsfield series on PS1/PS2. I can draw parallels between Arx and the
other games mentioned from experience but I never did play the UU games.
Perhaps I felt that playing Arx would clue me in to what I had been missing.
Ultimately I felt it was a mixed bag.

Thigs I loved about Arx:
Single player character RPG. I dislike party RPGs in general and the focus
on a single character was nice.
Immersive environments (similar to Kingsfield)
Huge variety of food and herbal items.
Ability to grind certain items into powder which then could be made into
potions (however much more limited than the Alchemy in Morrowind).
Symbol based magic system (hard to learn but "writing" runes with the mouse
to cast spells gives the magic system a "hands on" feel missing in almost
every other game)

Things I disliked about Arx:
No random encounters (this made a cieling to how far you could level up plus
once areas were cleared there was not much fun in revisiting them)
No outdoor environments making day/night cycles and weather non-existent.
Claustrophobic linear environments and frequent load times between somewhat
small areas of exploration (Kingsfield I, and IV had similar claustrophobic
environments but they were far more non-linear and the environments were
streamed so you never broke from the action unless you visited a save game
station or brought up a menu)
Limited selection of weapons. It seemed most weapons were quite generic and
there was small variety to be found in armor as well.
Fairly limited character creation. Compared to the likes of Morrowind your
character creation and development was very limited.

Hopefully if you are familiar with UU I&II you will be able to glean from
what I've said if Arx Fatalis is similar.

Also although they are console games I've been a long time fan of
Kingsfield. They are very slow paced and suffer many limitations but the
atmosphere in them is amazing. Few games have ever given me the sense of
"being there" as these have. Overall I was hoping Arx Fatalis would be more
akin to these games but was somewhat disappointed.

-Darryl Giors

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Platt [eplatt314--yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 11:28 AM
Subject: Ultima Underworld I & II


I just finished UUW II again. I just love the 2 UUW
games. (I like Ultima I & Ultima III - VII also.)

Are there any games out there that are similar to UUW
and AR that anyone would recommend? I have heard
things about the game Arx Fatalis, and have even heard
it compared to an UUW III.