Myst 3: Exile

Rating:
Summary: Part of the Classic Adventure Games
Review: Myst 3 was great as well as the original Myst and Riven. Many people I talk to now these days only want to talk about the graphic quality as well as the ability to kill each other with a gun. Myst 3 tells people now that there are games that are really good without gun fighting.

If you liked this game look into:
Syberia
Syberia 2
The Journeyman Project
The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time
The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time
Myst
Riven

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic puzzle-based graphical adventure
Review: The original Myst set the standards in puzzle-based graphic adventure, and the standard is maintained with Myst III - Exile.

The game operates from first person perspective. You move through incredible 360 degree 3D panoramas of various 'ages' - worlds created by Atrus by an ancient writing technique - in an attempt to rescue a book containing another 'age' and prevent its inhabitants from destruction. There is another character to interact with (though this interaction is mostly by way of recorded messages) whose story you discover as you pursue him through various ages. The graphics are rich and lush with each 'age' having a clearly defined character linked to its environment.

The plot and puzzles are closely related. The puzzles are all logical in their operation and require no herculean and improbable leaps to solve, or juggling of inventory items, unlike some adventures. This is not to say the puzzles are not challenging - although a nice touch is that there are clues to the solutions of many of the puzzles hidden in the first 'age' you visit, which acts as a kind of academy for the adventurer.

Action buffs should stay away. The pace is languid and you may find yourself stumped for several days by a particular apparatus. However, an advantage of the game is that a number of puzzles are usually accessible at once and if stuck on one you can always move on to another. There are no 'timed' puzzles, and until you are almost at the end it is impossible to 'lose' the game or put yourself in a position of no return - it is only your final choices that determine the ending.

One innovation compared to the earlier Myst games is the inclusion of Edanna, a 'nature' age where rather than dealing with clunky machines you manipulate plants and animals.

Some CD swapping is required when moving between ages, but a full install is possible to avoid this inconvenience.

Rating:
Summary: Myst 3: Takes the artistry up another notch
Review: I just finished Myst 3: Exile and I'm still in a trance. Several aspects of this game are extremely brilliant and combine to make this one of my favorite experiences sitting at a computer:

1) The music. The Myst 3 soundtrack contains echoes of motifs from Myst and Riven. As with its predecessors, the evocative instrumental music accompanies your exploration of each Age, working sneakily on your emotions to pull you into an appropriately reflective mood. But in this case, it's not just one song to an area (which tends to get annoying after a couple repetitions) -- it's an ever-changing score that incorporates elements of interactivity, mirroring your progress in each Age on a micro level. Composer Jack Wall and audio programmer Roland Gustaffsson have finally solved the age old Myst problem of repetitiveness over rather long stretches of gameplay. Wall basically sliced each Age's theme into instrumental layers/motifs (pads, rhythm, melodic fragments, etc), stored each of these layers as a separate sound file, and then Gustaffsson programmed in a complex set of rules to tell those files when and how to play back -- separately or in simultaneity -- based on where you are in the game, what puzzles you've solved, etc. The result is a nonlinear sound score with a finite number of motifs but an infinite number of possible variations. In other words, even if you spend days playing, you're not likely to hear the same sequence twice. Maybe all you non-music-geeks out there are wondering what's so exciting about this, but I'm just amazed by the amount of work this approach must've taken and the fact that they actually pulled it off AND it sounds good.

As far as the actual musical style goes, it is rather diverse: Myst's usual introspective oboe melodies and haunting synth textures are augmented by dramatic moments of choral singing and orchestral grandeur, as well as an infusion of world music influences. And of course it's all drenched in the heavy reverb that defines the "Myst sound." Basically, Jack Wall has taken the scale of the project up a notch, while preserving the spirit of Robyn Miller's sound. Saavedro's music in the concluding scenes is incredible.

2) The environment. Each Age is huge. The architecture is achingly beautiful. There are steam tunnels to crawl through, giant hollow plants to climb inside, precarious bridges to cross over redrock canyons, living escalators to ride, and endless other magic. So much loving care has been placed into the design of these environments that you start to forget it's all virtual. There are a few exceptions to the realism. I found the animals in the game (there's this bird I'm thinking of) kind of annoying and not believable as animated creatures, both in terms of their simplistic behavior and their plasticine appearance. Those are exceptions.

3) The puzzles. Okay, let's be clear, this isn't a game of reflexes. If you're looking for a shoot-em-up scenario, this ain't it, partner. This is a nonviolent game that is designed to provoke logical and experimental modes of thinking. Some people get frustrated or bored by that. Fortunately for them, there are already plenty of games out there to satisfy their tastes. There are still far too few good puzzle games out there. The puzzles in the Myst series are REAL puzzles: they don't just make you tinker with stuff at random; they ask you to draw connections, deduce the meaning behind things, fill in the missing links with your imagination. What sets Myst 3: Exile's puzzles above the rest is their interconnectedness with the themes and story of the game.

4) The 360-degree view. Takes a brief moment to get used to it, and then it's amazing. Works a lot better on my computer than RealMyst's engine, which allowed so much freedom of motion that it was impossible to navigate normally. Myst 3's node-to-node navigation with complete panning freedom provides a happy medium, while still giving the illusion of freedom of motion in the virtual space. Animation movies blend seamlessly into the picture.

5) I hated all the disc-switching in Riven. 5 CDs, constantly ejecting and inserting, sheesh! That aggravation is lessened here by the fact that each Age's puzzles are self-contained; thus the island-hopping is minimized. And if you have 2 extra gigs on your hard drive, you can install the entire game there and entirely avoid disc-switching.

Summary: this game is lovely. Don't miss it.

Rating:
Summary: Nuts and bolts
Review: This game is for the technically versed player. Nuts and bolts are needed to solve the puzzles; scenery and lay-out are interestingly confusing, somtimes. Perhaps there are too many technical skills demanded for a girl like me. But if you are a nuts- and bolts tinkerer you will love this.

Rating:
Summary: Visually stunning with interesting music...
Review: The third installment in the Myst Trilogy starts off with some of the most visually stunning graphics in the Myst series and keeps looking better and better as you dig deeper into the game.

Personally, I found the game considerably harder than both Myst & Riven. While most of the puzzles can be beaten with plenty of time, study and trial & error there are just too many puzzles that will just have you saying "This is unbelievably dumb" (The Edanna Age comes to mind). As impatient as I am, I found myself looking through the strategy guide since I just had to see what happens next.

The music is the best I have heard in the Myst series, especially in the final Age and during the ending. The storyline is also much more developed in this installment but I still felt that there were a few issues that were unresolved and unclear.

Overall, Exile is definitely a game worth playing but I'll disagree with some reviewers and say that if you get stuck somewhere and can't figure out what to do, grab a hint from the strategy guide or some of the FAQs on the net. There's just too much to explore and see and you shouldn't let a couple of frustrating puzzles keep you from seeing it.

Rating:
Summary: Drudgery
Review: I have Myst, Riven and had to buy this too. I enjoyed the previous games, once the puzzles are solved and games are saved. I enjoyed the refreshing graphics in Riven and they are better in this game...BUT jeez, what is with these puzzles...how about some game play???...If your in the hospital for a long stay you may want this on your laptop...ez

Rating:
Summary: The best game I have ever played!
Review: This is the most wonderful game in the history of all gaming- beautiful, engrossing, challenging. It has everything. I would recommend one thing, though- get a walkthrough from someplace- you'll need it. Even though it takes quite a while to complete it- (the folks at ubisoft make each game a little bit differently so there is no one way to complete certain games)- it is worth the time, worth the energy, and after it's over, you'll be begging for more.

Rating:
Summary: Really Cool Game
Review: You begin when you meet with Cathrine and Atrus. This guy suddenly appears and steals the linking book to Atrus' new world. YOu have to go get it back. You start on J'nanin. From there you can choose to link to the islands of Amatera, Voltaic, or Edanna. Voltaic follows the traditional machine-driven portion in every game in this series. This was the last Island I completed and it was probably my hardest. Amatera is the Island of these astounding man-made phenomenas. Thats the only way I know how to explain them. You can't just describe it, you gotta see it. I liked that Island the most until I got to Edanna. This is nature like you've never seen it before. It was the most amazing thing I have seen from an adventure game yet. YOu almost wish it was real. Once all islands are completed your not done yet. You have to visit the home world of this crazy guy who stole atrus's new world, N'Rauyan. Be careful though. There is more than one oppurtunity to die if you don't do it right.

Anyway, this game is awesome. I think its harder than Myst but easier than Riven. I did not use a strategy guide so its not impossible.

Rating:
Summary: great game
Review: I finished this game not too long ago. In this Myst game, there are six Ages, although only five of them have puzzles. For those of you who have never played a Myst game (and, if that's the case, then you might want to play the other two, or at least read the books), an Age is a world that you can get to through a special book. Books that can take you to Ages have a panel in them that has a picture of that world - if those books no longer work, then that panel is black. The game begins in Tomahna, which, from what I got to see of it, is pretty enough that I found myself wishing I could look at more of it. You get to talk to Atrus a bit in Tomahna, before the two of you are interrupted by a man who steals Atrus' newest book, which links to Releeshan. This is not good, because this book is intended to be the new home of the D'ni people (who we first found out about in the second Myst game, Riven). Atrus is unable to follow the man, so you follow him instead and are taken to a learning age. While there, you will have to collect information that will help you in the other ages you visit. Three of these other Ages can be visited in any order you wish, while the fourth one can only be visited after you've learned all you need to know in the other Ages. In the process of learning things about the various Ages, you also learn about the man who stole Atrus' book and why he hates Atrus so much.

First, the graphics. All the Ages are lovely, so much so that I eventually got used to it. Occaisionally, there were things that I saw that really grabbed my attention, but it was only when I first started playing that EVERYTHING was amazing to me. It all looks great, and you can pan 360 degrees around, looking at everything. The only things that were a bit iffy were the people themselves. As usual with the Myst games, you don't get to see many people, but there are a few in this game. By themselves, the people look fine, but when you take them in with the background, they look a bit matted on. I don't know what it is, maybe they don't have the right shading and shadows or something, but they don't always look like they're a part of their environment.

Looking at the background is fine enough, but I'm really starting to want to play with more things in the different evironments. I think Riven was the best of the three Myst games at this. There were a lot of objects around that you could both look at and play with. Myst III does have several objects that you can do things with, but it didn't feel like there were enough of them. There were lots of beautiful worlds, but it felt almost like being in an expensive glass store, where you can look but not touch.

Now, the puzzles. For the most part, I really liked them. It was usually possible to figure out what you were supposed to do without having to make godlike leaps of logic. Also, when you did something correctly, there was usually, although not always, some sort of immediate indication of that. That helped with my frusteration levels a bit, because the there wasn't as much of a likelihood that I would do something correctly and not realize I could go on to some other puzzle. In each Age, there were puzzles that were pathetically easy and puzzles that drove me crazy, but I usually felt like it was possible to solve them. There are no timed puzzles, and no puzzles where you are forced to compete against the computer, which is very nice.

The story, such as it was, was interesting enough. This is not one of those games that plays like a movie with interactive puzzles. There are several possible ways to end the game, all of which depend on your choices just before the game ends. Before that, don't worry, there's really no way you can "mess up" and find yourself stuck without any way to go forward in the game. The only part of the game that is, for me, really replayable is the end.

Definitely worth buying, if you like adventure games. Some of the game might go over your head if you aren't familiar with the Myst games (you'll probably be asking yourself you Atrus is, or who the D'ni are), but I still think it would be an enjoyable game.

Rating:
Summary: Great game
Review: This game is wonderful, especially at the bargain prices you can get it nowadays. I'm about a 1/3rd of the way through, and the graphics are great and the puzzles are challenging. Some mention that this game isn't fully-3D, but it would be a disservice to this game to make a quake-like engine for it. I would recommend glancing at a walkthrough if you get stuck somewhere for more than an hour (But don't keep following it).