CREEPINGNET'S WORLD
ULTIMA VII Part 2: SERPENT'S ISLE
In 1992, to continue where the previous story left off, Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent's Isle was released. **SPOILER**, when we last left off, we found out Batlin, the head of the Blue Rinse Circuit ripoff "The Fellowship", was behind the ritualistic killings, and had run off to Serpent's Isle. Lord British sends the Avatar and his companions Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre, to follow Batlin and take him down. Just where is Serpent's Isle? Oh, just Old Sosaria, the same one from when we were trying to kill a contemptuous punch-card computer way back in 1983, in Ultima III: Exodus.

The story starts with your crew aboard a ship getting stuck in a teleportation lightning storm that splits everyone up, and displaces items in your inventory with other items. You also have to do the copy-protection dance here or the NPC's get really supercalifragilisticexpialawhacky and really fun to watch XD. Basically they all sound like a drunk David Attenbourogh trying to describe an east German Swallow while interjecting randomized banter....that's about how best I can describe it. Anyway, the whole first part is a fetch quest where you have to meet many zany characters, find your party, and swap the objects you had with the objects in town, maybe join a tribe of warriors in Monitor, and maybe get to have a nice "time" ;) with the barkeeper.

Anyway, I feel like this was the calm before the storm of Ultima VIII: Pagan, where things get really dark, people complained about the series, and things start to edge toward that shark-ramp.
I Wanna Whack Batlin Upside the head with my Guitar - My Experiences
So I got this with the Ultima Collection in 01' when I bought it from a pawn shop in Auburn. Up to that point, I thought Ultima VII was one game, not two, guess I was wrong. Also the first Ultima to have voice acting, where yeah, you can obviously tell that's Richard Garriot voicing Lord British himself (fitting, as he IS actually Lord British). Again, this is one of those "VooDoo (DooDoo)" Memory Manager nightmares that suggests loading HIMEM.SYS, and then loading everything you can into HMA to get the bloody thing working - something I'm becoming a skilled expert at.

I always found it hilarious that this game took place in what's left of Sosaria, complete with Fawn, Monitor, and other towns last seen in Ultima III when unintentional hilarity was found in the form of being attacked by Ninjas and Scuba Divers who unleashed their hellspawn of Jello People and R/C UFOs on us. However, it just seems things have gotten a whole lot more wacky in this installment, so much it's one of my favorite games where the execution is more amusing than the plot.

So of course our journey begins with all our colleagues and objects they have, being zapped by a teleporation storm, and now you're being fawned over by ladies in Monitor, while being forced to join a "guild" of sorts. Iolo is in jail and god only knows where Dupre and Shamino are. Wandering the land, I found a town full of people straight out of an episode of "Keeping up with the Kardasians" - all obsessed with Beauty...the real joke of that is head west a little and you'll find a empty house with a Tandy 1000 on the desk named a "humming box"....yes, of course I moved the Avatar into that house as his vacation home/timeshare, who this go out looks less like David Coverdale or George Washington, or Sting with long hair - and instead were given 2 options - what looks to be the Highlander and yep, Paul Dean from Loverboy. So let's see, immortal time traveller, or legendary Canadian guitarist.....you take your pick!

So as my party of a geriactric bow maker, stone faced Septic Tank Guy (our Septic tank guy when I was a kid was named Mr. Dupre), the Brawny Towel dude minus a few pounds (or maybe it's Andy Brass from Bigfoot Racing), and and my pick of the immortal or the Canadian rock legend (c'mon, I'm a guitarist, who did you THINK I was going to pick, if it were a choice between Mitch Hedberg and Tony Iommi, you know I'd pick Iommi every time though I look like Hedberg), go around trying to find each other and the stuff the Brittanian TSA (Teleportation Storm Association) lost during our travel....can't help but gawk at all the lunacy, like Mr. Dupre turning into the Bane of Chaos, or talking to the worlds looniest Mortician in RPG fiction history. Seriously, this guy is more like a Maniac Mansion character, exactly the kind of dude to say "Good day to you sir, do you want to sample our experimental coffins? Shhhh...don't tell anyone about my new invention, that's where we hide the bodieeeeeeeees.". Then there's the massive Bro-Pack called "The Wolves" which reminded me of that time the coaches wanted me on the football team - there's a reason I did not join....literally "hanging around" by a coat hook totally unwelcome to the team by it's members does not sound like fun.

Speaking of Football, I had some real fun in Hackmover one day in Exult....well, somewhereabouts Mr. Dupre and Paul Dean found themselves in the middle of an Ogre version of the Dallas Cowboy's football team complete with cheerleaders. Look, I know Richard is a Texan, but uh...at this point, this is just a Hondo office, a Compaq store, and a Famous Dave's away from being Texas at this point....Dallas Cowboys complete with cheerleaders, a self-righteous bro-truck pack of guys who call themselves the wolves, another rotund self rigteous nitwit just a TV show away from being a Kenneth Copeland! This was before I started growing tired of running from various beasts and decided Dean, Dupre, and our now hack-mover-retrieved favorite Uncle Iolo all took up residence in what we dubbed New Alberta, west of the Mirror Dress-Up Club Castle. Using Banana Peels as a deterrent to any "Wolves" or other monsters that might show up.


Reviews, Walkthroughs, and Technical STuff
Creepingnet's Guide to getting Ultima 7 and Serpent's Isle working