Our hero Sabreman is cursed to turn into a werewolf
every night. Here he is in mid transformation, which is a
game-pausing effect you’ll see every couple of minutes.
You certainly don’t want it to happen in mid leap.CLASSIC HERO
B
ack in 1984 Ultimate was
Britain’s coolest, most
revered, most secretive
software house. You could see
it in their magazine ads – while others
went to great lengths to spell out every
selling point of a game (High score
table! 100% machine code! Extra life at
10,000 points!), Ultimate’s ads were
nothing more than a full colour page
with a stylish game logo and the name
of the company. No screenshots, no
text whatsoever.
Knight Lore was arguably their most
influential game, creating an entirely
new genre that was soon flooded with
copycats. An adventure presented
in a startlingly solid isometric 3D
perspective, it was by far the best
looking computer game anyone had
seen at the time. It was a glimpse into
the future.
The 3D view gave a new dimension
to what was otherwise fairly standard
gameplay. Piling up items to reach
higher platforms and judging jumps
from entirely unfamiliar angles meant
Knight Lore, with its awkward rotate/
move tank-style controls, was an
experience unlike any previous game.Developer Ultimate
Publisher UltimateGenre Role-playing game
Released 1984