OOoohh, I see magic carpet got a post. That was such a clever concept. Simple design, solid replay. Very pretty for its time.
I first played that game on a friends 486DX, back before I got my very first PC in 1997 (wow, time flies). Another great game he had was Sierra's Outpost.
He also had this special electronic arts CD with a bunch of games on it. Space Hulk, Populous, Seven Cities of Gold. Most importantly though, it had Ultima Underworld and the Savage Empire, which introduced me to that series.
For me, Ultima 7 the Black Gate was it. Playing that game at age 16 was something bordering on a magic experience, something you can't ever really recapture later in life I guess. I had a P200 equivalent by that point (Athlon 586?), and I needed this special little boot disk to make the game run. This was because U7 had its own special 'Voodoo'? memory system, it also needed sound and mouse drivers on the boot disk, and a program to slow the CPU down so you wouldn't be moving at light speed. That little floppy disk was like the key to all things wonderous. I think I still have it around in a box somewhere.
I used to just play the world rather than worry much about the main quests a lot of the time. I'd have a little house somewhere to keep all my objects in, and just travel around all parts of the world collecting random objects for display and as mementos. My first play through the game took eight in-game months...
U7 the Black Gate and U7 PII the Serpent Isle can now be played on a modern PC, with a 'decent' resolution and crisp sound thanks to the folks at exult.sourceforge.net
Please note that you still need to lay your hands on a legal version of the game first.