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Summary: Myst III: Exille
Review: After having a terrible time with motion sickness on "RealMyst", Exile makes the wait worth it. No, the real movement isn't there and yes, I have heard there are problems with the Voodoo cards. But Exile is engaging, fabulous to look at and the soundtrack is enchanting. There is 360 degree movement as you move, so you can look up, down, left right and so on. But it isn't the wildly erratic real movement from RealMyst. It is easy on the stomach and does offer more complex puzzles. The puzzles are entirely in the same vein as the previous games so this will probably NOT appeal to serious gamers who pratically need Mensa overachievers puzzles to play video games! Most fans will now be begging the makers to finally bring the stories to the big screen. Hey, NINE hours of Lord of the Rings is ready to roll over the next three years so why not MYST? If you are a Myst fan, you will undoubtedly have one more relaxing game to lose yourself in which is especially nice with summer's lazy days approaching.
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Summary: Myst 1 was better
Review: Whats with all the bugs??? That is what I said when I tried to play this game, I love myst 1 and 2, but I think something went wrong with this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Breathtaking -- even on Mac
Review: I am running the game on a G3 Mac and have not had any trouble, though my pop-up windows un-pop (as another Mac user has stated). The full install takes up 2.6 G, but what better use is there for your drive space?I remember being blown way by Myst, and then disappointed with Riven -- which was touted as lightyears ahead of the original. I didn't think it was -- the water shimmered and there were other graphic improvements, but the puzzles were less interesting, there was less interaction with characters, and there was no real movement betwen Ages. Exile is what Riven should have been. The graphics *are* breathtaking; I found myself taking my time and looking around often just because it was so beautiful and I wanted it to last, like letting the best chocolate in the world melt on your tongue. Transitions are flawlessly smooth. There is more character activity, and these also run very well. The people at UBI have rendered the 360-panning perfectly. One does feel totally immersed in the worlds. I would give the game 4.5 stars if possible. It is an awesome game, but like its predecessors Myst and Riven, the puzzles should be more challenging. With so much energy given over to graphics, couldn't game companies put a couple of clever people on puzzle creation? If you are looking for beauty and story, rather than challenge, you would do well to consider buying this game. And thank you SO SO much for making this game Mac-compatible!
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Summary: Works on Win2000 and is Great
Review: While Exile is not officially supported on Windows 2000, it installed and ran without a hitch. I have an overclocked duron, asus MB, Matrox G400 Max (an ancient graphics card), two hard drives, a DVD drive, a CD burner, and windows2000. I have had no errors and the game starts flawlessly. If you liked Myst or Riven this game is a definite must. Remember how Myst and Riven were slide shows? Exile is similar but the slides are now full 360 degree up and down, side to side pannable. You can look anywhere you want at each point and the panning response to the mouse is excellent. There are even two modes to look around in (get the game and you will understand). This has got to be about the most immersive game I have ever played. The soundtrack is superb! and the detail in the images will not disappoint. The acting is very high quality. This game has overall high production qualities in my opinion. I have seen some of the discenting opinions. If you experience one of the bugs, that's a disaster, but the first patch has already been released. But I simply disagree with some of the statements about image quality and game play. I buy lots of games. Nearly all don't have this sort of first impression. I was in awe that the smoothness of movement and viewing held true to what I saw in game play demo movies. I just thought they were running on super souped up rigs. Mine is a good machine, but it ain't no screamer. Try it for yourself. There are a lot of extremely strong opinions being floated about this game. This is expected for any game with this much anticipation. If I think back to when Riven came out, there was similar strong opinions. Some saying the bugs were severe (which they were, and were fixed). Others said it just didn't compare to Myst...it went on and on. There was also equally loud noises from those who loved Riven. I almost didn't buy Riven because of the complaints. I decided I'd at least try it. And I loved it. The same thing happened to me with Exile. I was debating canceling my preorder from Amazon, but decided to give it a try. And I havn't been disappointed. You never know...you just might like it a lot.
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Summary: This is about Daily Radar's review!!
Review: I'm sorry, I haven't played this game yet but I have Played Myst and Riven and what The Daily Radar said about them really, REALLY made me angry!! First, Myst's puzzle design far outdid ANY other game like this that I have ever played, and Riven only had one or two "illogical" puzzles. Second, the ending, if you have the smallest, slightest, or most diminuative immagination, was completely awesome, not to mention the fact that since there IS a Myst3 the first two didn't really end now did they? Third, I agree that the graphics were deliciously beautiful. But The Radar seems to not notice that that is what the game is about (the wonderful, meaningless toys, refiend architecture, lucious landscapes, and the entire D'Ni culture that is). They designed the game to bring THAT to you. They even mannaged to bring the culture of a race that revolves around Writing Descriptions in a book to link to different worlds to you, AND emmerse you in it and it's history!!!! Now you tell me what other games' gameplay is THAT detailed and structured. If you agree, or disagree, E-Mail me at....
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Summary: Runs Fine on my System, But a Little Slow
Review: I have a Dell System with 400MHz Celeron, 64MB of RAM, an ATI Rage 8MB graphics accellerator (integrated on the motherboard), and Win 98 (1st Ed). I did the full install of Myst 3 to my hard drive. I had no problems with the installation and the game runs fine. I did notice, however, that the game runs pathetically slow in Direct3D mode (hardware accelleration ON). The graphics are beautiful, but the panning creeps along at a snail's pace -- too slowly to really be able to play the game. Switching to software rendering mode speeds things up significantly, but at the expense of graphics quality. It seems the software mode leaves out a lot of textures and details that really help with the graphics clarity. I found I had a hard time navigating in the software rendered mode. It's kind of like walking around without your glasses on (if you're near sighted). The images are a bit blurry, and I tended to lose my orientation easily (did I already go up this hill?) The response is good enough in software mode to play the game, but you miss out on too many visual details to really enjoy it (especially after seeing what things COULD look like while running in Direct3D mode). So, unfortunately, if you have a "lower end" system, like mine, you have to choose between game speed and graphics quality. I imagine if you have a faster processor (>600 MHz) and a decent graphics card, the game is probably outstanding. I'm enjoying the game, but feel like I'm missing out on the full experience by not being able to run with the hardware graphics accelleration.
Rating:
Summary: pretty easy. pretty and easy
Review: over in 4 days on my own, no hints. now to wait another 4 years for the next one. atrus once again is really indebted to me. maybe he will pay back in the next game. the pictures in exile are stunning, but beautiful graphics do not a good game make. the only stumper i found was in the voltaic age in the room with the rivenese numbers. it was hard only because it was late at night; solved it first thing in the am. seriously, though, i enjoyed every minute, but myst and riven are more satisfying games, giving a greater sense of accomplishment. hence, only 4 stars for exile. incidentally, it ran without a hitch on my imac. for a game thats harder, but with less spectacular scenery, try riddle of the sphinx. cheap too.
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Summary: I have no Idea what those people are talking about........
Review: Why people say the game isn't that great I have no Idea about. It has a few cons, but the pros certainly make up for it. Here are the cons first: When the people are talking to you when it's not in a movie, the sound is a bit off sync. The moving things that are not part of a movie are also a bit blurry but still pretty good. The game is a bit short (me and my brother beat it in 3 days, totaling up to about 12 hours). Ok, here are the pros: the graphics are crisp and detailed (like all myst series games are), the storyline is good, the puzzles are not too hard but not too easy either, and it also has multiple endings. You can also look 360 degrees after every step you take. Let me add a few comments and problems before you buy this game, though. If you want to have the game so that you don't need to switch between the 4 cd's all the time, you have to install the whole thing, which is about 2 gigabytes! I know computers now can store a lot, but that still is a ton! The second thing is that if you have a voodoo 2 or 3 like I have, it can't support 32 bit 3-d, and you have to play the game in software mode instead of direct 3-d, and it makes your game a bit slower and choppy at some times. But if you don't have those two cards, and you have a good graphics card, then your pretty well off with this game. You don't even need a fast processor either. So if you have the stuff for this game, and you love good gaming, buy this game NOW!
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Summary: More of the same...not real-time walkthrough!
Review: Although I'm not very far into the game yet I'm really disappointed that it is still a point and click movement instead of allowing real movement like Half-Life. See the stairway, click on the stairway, disolve to standing at foot of stairway, click higher on stairway, dissolve to halfway up up stairway... you get the idea. Puzzles I've encountered so far are VERY similar to those in earlier games, but that's pretty much the part I love. Enjoy
Rating:
Summary: It rocks!
Review: This is the COOLEST game in the whole wide world. ...this game deserves 10 stars. Go buy it, it's awsome.
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