Let's start with the plot this time. Now things get REALLY Weird. **SPOILER ALERT** In Ultima VII: The Black Gate, you return to Brittania in 200 years on their side, for at first - seemingly no reason. Upon your arrival, your companions all seem to have veered off path a bit, with Dupre touring pubs, Shamino up to whatever, and Iolo is now a cranky old man, and you are thrust in the middle of a Murder Mystery in Trinsic where a Gargoyal was slain - supposely by the blacksmith, who is also father or caretaker of a small child named Spark. Also, there's a new virtue system in town - the Fellowship, run by a fat bastard named Batlin, and there's this character named "The Guardian" who keeps taunting you as you go about your quest. Ultimatley, it uncovers a series of ritualistic killings of people who refused to join the fellowship - which if you remember when I talked about Ultima IV and Ultima V - there's some bad blood between ol' British and the 700 Club - so I have a feeling this was inspired by the cult-like behavior of most religions. So you have to find out who is pulling off these killings for justice, and find out what's wrong in Brittania. Lord British is ruling by remote, almost unaware of what's going on in his own kingdom, and we have a new drug problem in the form of "Serpent Venom". Christ, so many parallels to what's going on today it's insane.

But the engine...holy crap, you thought Ultima VI was realistic. Now we get almost realistic portraits, still cartooney in a sense, but still more realistic than before. Everything is mouse driven, and you can now carry out more actions on objects, the point that doing things like making bread or synthesizing your own chemicals is possible using the actual processes from the real world. Almost every object on the planet is manipulatable. It literally is the closest thing to Virtual Reality from the early 1990's as you could find.

The first time I played this was with my bro-in-law's brother Scott, and while playing the game, I noticed under the battle formation button there was a round "halo" or "hazy-white-donut-thing" as I was calling it. All I can remember is Scott's reply..."That's a whattadut', uh, I dunno what that is." Almost 30 years later, and I STILL don't know what the hell that thing is.

I bought the Ultima Collection in 2003 from a Auburn pawn shop, and that reunited me with this game. Around the same time, I discovered Doug The Eagle's "IT-HE" site......and the hilarity that could be pulled from an open universe. I really suggest checking it out if you can. He's got the "Starless and Bible Black" walkthrough I mentioned, and the hilarity that involves "insane drug experiments" With Serpent Venom. He explains abotu his character "dickhead" who goes about the world beating cats with a "big f*** off" hammer - plus a few lewd jokes.

For me, Ultima VII was probably the first time my "dick around" tactics with "Modern" sandbox games began to rise to full power. Especially when the Exult engine came out. Now I was back up to the same insane crap I do with Ultima 6 (also as a result of IT-HE's site) - making my own homesteads, being a belligerant drunk at Empath Abbey, following Doug's rule of how to play the game - Serial Kleptomania. Breaking the glass at the jewelry shop to make the owner mad - and even one time stealing Batlin's weapons, attacking him, then using Hackmover to go on the roof of the Fellowship while Batlin cries like a b****, filling the screen (and all 512MB of the GEM's memory) with Brittania's finest! It's HILARIOUS when you wake up in the morning and find your screen full of guardsmen, and a Windows 98 SE "Memory Full" message. Ah, memories!