Ultima 7: The Forge of Virtue by Origin Systems
Reviewed by Mark Bylander

The Forge of Virtue is the first of two "add-ins" that have been announced
for Ultima 7.  It adds four miniquests to your game, and provides the 
ability to make the Avatar "the most powerful character in the land."
The same Ultima 7 interface is here--the title screen is changed to reflect
your addition of the module, so I won't be discussing that aspect.  
Likewise the graphics are the same.  The package does include a bug fix 
for the key problem and the red screen problem, but these force you to 
lose all of your saved games.  Apparently Origin tired of complaints about
keys that had disappeared before applying a patch, and so decided to 
force you to start over so you'd have all your keys.  There is a patch 
available from Origin that does not delete the save games, so this is 
probably preferable for most players.  

First off, one gripe.  Forge of Virtue assumes that you have not finished
the game.  I had destroyed the Black Gate under the "time constraint" that
exists at the end of the game before I bought Forge.  I had to leave the
Black Gate waiting (using a Mark so I could get back) to go do this adven-
ture.  If the Guardian is as big a threat as they make out, this is 
clearly out of character.  On the other hand, all my characters are already
eighth level, so I don't know how much benefit I am going to see here...

Basically, the plot is this.  An island has arisen in the ocean south of
Vesper.  It contains shrines to Truth, Love, and Courage.  You are to visit
these shrines to improve yourself.  The fourth adventure involves the 
forging of an ultimate weapon for yourself.  Forge promises to be an 
interesting diversion while we wait for Serpent Isle, which is supposed 
to tie up the plot after the destruction of the gate.

Four mini-quests seems fairly weak compared to the massive Ultima7, espec-
ially since Forge costs almost as much as Ultima7 itself.  The game comes
on one high density disk (compressed), so it is nowhere near the magnitude
of Ultima7.  I think $15-$20 would have been a more reasonable price than
the $40 I paid.

Nonetheless, Ultima afficianados will want to have this in their collec-
tions.  I don't regret having bought it, although I was somewhat dis-
appointed in the size of the additional adventures.  Further, the game 
should have had a means to continue after the endgame instead of forcing 
the Avatar to forgo saving Britannia in order to go on a self-improvement
spree.

This review is Copyright (C) 1992 by Mark Bylander.  All rights reserved.