Rating: 
Summary: Wish it never ends
Review: Amazing scenery. Logical puzzles. Nice storyline.The universe: This game makes me wish for some way to make the field of vision wider than the limited computer display. I just can't wait to pan around at each location. The worlds are so wonderful, awe-inspiring. I wish the graphics were rendered with even better resolution and for a way to zoom in. But, as with any simulated environment, there is always room for improved fidelity. To sum up: very nice graphics. And the sounds are top of the line. They fit in well at each environment and add to the ambience nicely. The gameplay: It is nice that you can take your time and not worry about timing something or making a deadline. When you realize that, you can truly enjoy all the sights and sounds and advance the events at your own pace. As the cursor changes to show you locations you can manipulate, it is a bit strange it does not show the locations you can move to. But thankfully most of the places you can go are evident, certainly the critical ones anyway. The puzzles: All puzzles are logical, you can deduct what you have to do, either on site or from information you have encountered at some point, and just touching all you can and see what happens. The difficulty level is, in my opinion, middle grade: not impossible, but not really fly-through easy either. The storyline: This is well paced. I did not like it in Myst or Riven that you were presented with long(ish) books at once, and you had to endure reading through a lot of text in fear of missing some clue. In Exile the story is presented a bit more gradually. And it is nicely explanatory in the sense that you learn why the worlds and your journey is like it is. Acting: Good quality acting all the way. At some points maybe a bit exaggerated, but well done anyway. Summary: Well worth the money. I recommend you buy the Myst trilogy if you do not have the prequels, Myst and Riven. It is not much more expensive, and you can enjoy the complete history of the universe and events, and appreciate the development of features in each sequel.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a "Myst"-ifying as the First Two
Review: If you like this type of game, and you enjoyed Myst and Riven, the sequel "Exile" just might be worth it. The graphics are just as beautiful in places; the "villain" is mesmerizing. I like the new way of 360' rotation that has been brilliantly integrated into gameplay. Unfortunately, the new creators are worse writers than the originals and even worse puzzle creators. I actually solved one puzzle by accident, which would never have happened with the two original Myst games. I suggest you buy it only if you are a true Myst fan, but don't be too disappointed if it doesn't live up to the previous two games.
Rating: 
Summary: Buyer Beware
Review: I so enjoyed the unusual story line, stunning graphics, and non-linear style of Myst and Riven. I ran both on my old, slow computer with minor problems. I anxiously installed Exile on my new Dell and immediately realized that something was wrong. I had fallen into a trap that I'm sure a few others have experienced. Read all small print BEFORE purchasing the product. Exile only runs on Windows 95/98/ME. My new Dell is an XT which UbiSoft won't support. Imagine sitting through a 3D movie with no special glasses. This distracting aspect ruined the rest of the game's good qualities. My disappointment equals a negative 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Better than the original!
Review: Myst 3, or Exile, as some twelve people must insist on calling it, is by far the superior to the original Myst. While I haven't played Riven (OK, commence with the stoning), I know a good puzzler when I see one. While Myst 3 conveys a bare-bones plot and only decent dialogue, each of the Ages is beautifully rendered and thorougly breathtaking. Each one has a very different feel, and absolutely nothing is flat. There is not a single straight line anywhere. While one Age may be organic and flowing, the next may be mechanical and rigid.
I highly reccommend it; the puzzles, while not exactly inspired, are worthwile and well-thought-out. Buy it. Now.
Rating:
Summary: (mostly) another masterpiece!
Review: I have been a devoted Myst fan since the first one came out, and this latest installment only deepens my appreciation of the creators' imaginations. I have to agree with previous reviewers in that the game is a lot like Myst 1 in terms of game play: one main island (J'nanin) from which you must solve puzzles in order to get into other islands where you solve more puzzles which help you back in the first island . . you get the picture. Only you get to start the game in one other age, in which there is a whole lot of interraction with some of the actors, in order to set the tone for what comes next. So if you've played Myst 1, you have a slight edge with being comfortable with the format. However, you do NOT have to have played the first two in order to understand the game. It certainly helps, and you have a better appreciation of what's going on in the people's lives, but there is no pertinent information that you would miss if you didn't. Basic plot: long time ago, before Myst 1, when Atrus' sons Sirrus and Achenar were growing up and learning to write their own worlds, they did some not so nice things to Saavedro's world, which left him seeking revenge on all of Atrus' family. You enter the game right as Saavedro finds a way into Atrus' library, sets it on fire, steals a special linking book (Releeshan), and flees to J'nanin. It's your job to follow him, get that book back, and set things aright. As you do this, his machinations have you running through the ages solving puzzles in order to get to the solutions of the final puzzles, which will let you follow Saavedro to the final logic showdown. Again, like other reviewers have said, the graphics are gorgeous and, for lack of a better word, emotional. They are SO good and terribly real - you feel the slick roughness of that rock, you feel the temperature change from sunny walkway to shady cave. The music is beautiful and haunting, and it is the only Myst soundtrack that I actually want to listen to separate from the game. If you haven't played the game yet and want to know what I'm talking about, I highly suggest you go to myst3.com to look and listen. There's no better way to understand than to the see/hear for yourself. The free-look feature in Exile was the clincher for realism, and added a new dimension to puzzle solving. Although, I must admit, it got a little annoying having to look EVERYWHERE for fear of missing something (which I often did). While certain things (paths, objects, etc.) weren't obvious for reality's sake, I did feel that I appreciated them more when I finally found them. Oh, by the way, the journals only contain so many hints, and some things you think should be hints aren't. Just don't throw the computer against the wall if you can't make the connection. And, like usual, words in bold are in bold for a reason. My main complaint would be the inconsistency of the puzzles: they seemed to work more on luck than on logic. Some puzzles I solved without knowing why, and some I had to sit through the endless trials before I finally hit upon the right combination. I really appreciated the ones that worked with logic, like the wheel, cup, and ball one in Amateria - that one got the brain working and was satisfying to solve. I would have to say that the variety of the puzzles and the way they are rooted in the world they exist in is very clever and admirable just for those qualities. And when you have finally gotten through all of the puzzles for each age, you are rewarded with an amazing ride that directly relates to the theme of the age - sweet. The additional presence of characters that were in the world with you added a very cool, very eerie sense of actually being there. The "villain" was a lot more interesting and human than the other ones in the other games have been, as you get to see what he's been thinking and why through his shattered journal and twisted paintings. And in the end, I found I actually did want to help him. Of course, there are multiple endings - where would any Myst game be without them? They ranged from the happy ending where everyone's a winner to the "oh-crap-I-hoped-I-saved-the-game" endings. Also, you can go most anywhere you want to go in the game world. One thing that irked me about Riven was that I was DYING to go look in the other little huts, but couldn't! And for you easter egg hunters out there, this game is no exception to the grand Myst tradition.
Rating:
Summary: Overall, an enjoyable experience.
Review: First off, let me say that it would be hard to come up with a game that was better than Riven. Therefore, I'm not going to compare "Myst 3: Exile" to Riven. That being said, Exile is excellent on scenery and good on story. The 360 degree view is a definite accomplishment which enhances the beautiful scenary. The puzzles in the game are clever and challenging. Other reviews complain that they are puzzles, just for puzzles sake. However, I found that most of them tie in to the story rather well. The ones that don't are still fun to figure out. As far as story line goes, the villain in the game is an interesting touch. He is a menacing character throughout, but as the story unfolds you understand more about him. The rest of the story develops as you link to the different worlds and solve the puzzles. One tip I would give is to read the journals that you find in the game and be familiar with them (as with all the Myst games). While it is not crucial to memorize them, browse through them every so often. That way, if you get stuck at a certain point you will know where to go for hints. Overall, I would give this game a B+. The graphics are outstanding and the story is better than decent. I definitely felt satisfied after putting in the hours trying to solve the game.
Rating:
Summary: A return to quiet, intelligent gaming.
Review: General/Summary: While I haven't yet finished the game, I have gotten a good taste of this game's brilliance. The graphics are quite beautiful, and the full 3D view grants a realism that previous Myst titles lacked. The story intrigues, the puzzles puzzle, and the game simply emits a wondrous atmosphere. Myst III tends towards what true gaming should entail: detailed visuals, subtle and accurate sound, intelligence, and a well-developed narrative.
Gameplay: The gameplay is quite simple and rightly so. Myst III revoles around the point and click method of gaming. The game attempts to alleviate the potential boredom of wandering around in circles by allowing the user to remove the pretty fade in/out screen transitions and "zip mode" to sections of a given area quickly. Bear in mind however, stopping to at least look at the roses is a large part of the experience of this and many other adventure games. My only complaint is that the mouse doesn't tell the user where the user CAN'T go on, say, an island. This may sound like a strange grievance, but I'd like to know the places I can't go, so I don't waste my time clicking all over the screen--when I'm stuck on a puzzle--in search of a place I haven't yet explored. Graphics: The lighting is marvelous; the colors are vibrant, and the exquisite detail is truly wonderful to behold. Sound: I enjoy subtle ambient music and effects. The music's frequency of play can be adjusted to accomodate the user. Overall, the sound is excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: 5 stars as a game, 3 stars as part of the Myst canon
Review: The original Myst was something of a breakthrough game as it provided an intelligent and immersive experience, matching the subject matter to the medium perfectly. In retrospect it was certainly the least impressive of the three (to say nothing of its wait-and-see disappointment of an ending), but as number one out of the starting gate, we couldn't have asked for more. Riven, in addition to being technologially superior, far exceeded its predecessor in story and game play. Myst provided an array of random puzzles, each related to the age in which they took place, none of which were really evocative of the story or the world in which they took place. Riven cleaned up all of that by providing what can best be described as an archeological experience: the player was forced to uncover as much information as possible about the D'ni and the man trying to give the D'ni new life as a means of escape from his prison. The design of the game revolved entirely around Gehn's synthesis of the D'ni in Riven, and the only way to get through Riven was to take in all that visual information and integrate it into the challenges that were woven into the story. Exile falls far short of Riven's accomplishments, reverting back to Myst's original design. It's good eye-candy and the 360 degree free-look (very well designed by the way, as it caused very few problems on my computer during game play which was not at all what I expected) is fantastic. But whereas Riven demanded that the player unfold a story and a culture to solve its puzzles, Exile is entirely about getting from point A to point B much in the same way the original Myst was. Of course, the player is travelling through ages that were created by Atrus (which was not at all the Riven experience) for the sole purpose of instructing our all but forgotten nemeses Sirrus and Achenar - so in that regard, perhaps it only makes sense that we should have a simalar gaming experience. Still, the game remains a step down. The Riven environment was a great deal more threatening to the player (as they moved through the game under the watchful eye of Gehn) than that of Exile, where your nemesis (Saavedro, played very well by Brad Douriff) keeps himself at a bay but lacks the omniscience of Gehn and hence the menace as well. In all fairness, its difficult to surmount a calculating nemesis like Gehn (played by John Keston) and likewise it may be that the game's creators never really sought to do so (we feel sorry for Saavedro more than fear him, in part because of his predicament but also because of his tendency to come unhinged, which the shrewd Gehn never succumbed to as he oiled up to you, trying to win your loyalty). Lastly, Exile failed to pick up on a crucial improvement that Riven had over Myst - the lack of game play linearity. This is really the only effective medium in which a story's linearity can be scrambled by the audience. Of course, every person will experience the game differently and in whatever order they choose, but the game does not offer enough variables to allow for that aside from an array of plausible final moment endings. I finished Myst in about a week without having to devote my entire life to it, likewise with Exile. Neither accomplishment speaks to my genius (though my genius remains, nonetheless) but rather the fact that getting from point A to point B comprised the whole of the challenges. Riven, due to its massive size, attention to detail, and demand that the player unfold the story (rather than have it handed to you) took me nearly 3 months to get through This is not intended as a testament to my stupidity (though my stupidity remains, nonetheless), but rather to point out that the integrative story and non-linear format imbedded in Riven is much more conducive to the medium and in that regard, more challenging. Overall, I reccommend that any fan of the first to and/or the novels play through Exile. I am glad to have another chapter in the series. It's pleasing to see that the story is divorced enough from the original two that it doesn't interfere with the rather elegant ending put forth by Riven (provided, of course, that you finished Riven with the most ideal of the 8 plausible endings). I only hope that Myst 4 will surpass Exile in the same way that Riven raised the bar over the original Myst.
Rating:
Summary: Original still the best, but this was fun
Review: It's so far proven impossible to improve on the original Myst game. Riven was a wash-out, from my perspective, but the graphics and puzzles in this one were satisfying and rich. It made me want to live in those places where it took place.
Rating:
Summary: Worked well with my Windows XP!
Review: I've always been a fan of the MYST genre of games and by no means an expert. I guess with my limited computer knowledge, I somehow got Myst Exile to work beautifully on my Windows XP system and it runs at only 500 MHz (so it's old...but it works!)
I just loaded the game and the patches before doing anything and had a blast! Myst 3 is good fun for the patient gamer and for those who know that problem solving improves thinking. I can see how the influence of the Journeyman series influenced this game. It reminded me of the Journeyman III game, which I enjoyed a few years back.
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