realMYST

Rating:
Summary: Missing one VERY important ingredient...
Review: This is the single most incredible computer game in history. Far more visually impressive than anything I've ever seen, including the Zooilogical Garden™ demo and FAKK 2. The puzzles are smart, the story is interesting enough and the sound is just amazing. For someone who based his entire life around the original, it was quite a trip down memory lane, and (blushing) I would sometimes tear up just looking at it and hearing it's brilliant music. There is that one little nagging problem, though. This title, which originated on the Macintosh platform, has yet to show ANY progress in their mac "port". Cyan has forgotten it's roots in leaving this masterpeice exclusively among the un-enlightened (no offense). With the fastest towers in the world , the most powerful brand new OS in the world (OS X) and a range of graphic card options including the Voodoo5, ATi Radeon and nVidia GeForce, the mac would be the ultimate platform for the game.

But still I wait. :(

-MichiganJ.S (the ultimate cyan fan)

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't Work
Review: Like everone else I bought RealMyst because I was intrigued with the possibility of fluid 360 degree motion. I have an Athlon600 with 128 meg ram, an aureal vortex sound card, and a Viper II 32meg AGP video card.

After speaking with Mattel Inc, it turns out that RealMYST is not compatible with the Viper II video card due to it's Savage chipset. I also need to figure out a way to return an opened game back to the store.

Rating:
Summary: High system requirements but great fun
Review: The puzzles took a lot of thinking (and I resorted to an online hint guide often) but they weren't impossible to solve, and gave me a great sense of accomplishment once I had solved them. System requirements are pretty high. Though it says it works on 64 MB, after going through two ages, I came back to the library and the game was pretty much stuck (I would move about a foot per 15 min). Once I upgraded to 128 MB, it worked fine for the most part. Graphics are beautiful. However, if possible try to get a video card that supports FSAA (whatever that stands for :P) if you don't yet have one because if it doesn't, anti-aliasing won't work and graphics will be a bit jagged at the edges. I have that problem, and I can't easily get a video card so I'm stuck seeing the jagged edges. :(

Rating:
Summary: Its pretty, Big Deal...
Review: Yes, the graphics are very good but the game is akin to an interactive painting. And so what about the graphics? Whoopee, most games have good graphics nowadays too but GOOD games have some meat to them. RealMyst does not; it's a very bland game for people who don't like real gaming experiences.

After fifty minutes of looking at the pretty pictures, I was bored to tears and began the uninstall procedure. Phooey!

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Nostalgia
Review: The first thing that should concern you before you buy this game is whether your system can handle running this game. I have an Athlon 800 mhz, 128 megs of ram and a Voodoo 5 and realMYST runs well with these specs, though it's noticeably choppy outdoors. That aside this game should stun you with it's depth. If you remember how it felt to see the original MYST for the first time, I'm telling you that you can have that and more with this new release. I recommend this game on mood and characterization alone because now that I'm older I find the puzzle aspect of the game too simple. A minor complaint would be that you can't reverse the mouse control, but you'll get over that quick.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing if it doesn't run on your machine
Review: I loved Myst and Riven. I was ready to love realMYST but it won't run on my brand new Pentium III system since I don't have the right accelerator card. I talked with Mattel (the real publishers) and they say that it won't run on MOST systems since it requires a high end processor AND a specific graphics.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT GRAPHICS CARD or it's useless.

Sigh, now I have to find a way to return an opened software package...

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely breathtaking, yet not perfect
Review: I got Myst quite a while ago when it seemed to have first come out, so while I haven't played it in a long time, I do remember how astonished I was the first time I played it. Never had I encountered an adult game involving problem solving and reasoning, so maybe that it why I was so fascinated. The animations were breathtaking, and the plot intriguing.

I, however, was young :) lol, and could usually not play the game alone w/out getting scared. The world is very lonely w/out any contact to anyone else like other games where you can talk to people.

I will say, it was great fun traveling through the worlds taking notes on the two brother's rooms, trying to decide which brother was the "good" brother, and which the "bad" (let me note that sometimes the obvious isn't always right). I do recommend if you get this game, you plan on spending some time working to solve the puzzles, and to keep a journal and jot down everything you see. It makes it so much more fun.

Also, I beg of you not to cheat and look for help from someone or from a hint book! I, my cousins, and my aunts, all did this, and afterwards GREATLY regretted not solving it on our own. :)

My one major gripe, however, is that the end was a bit disappointing, and I remember reaching it and going, "What!? That's it? Now what do I do??" I would also suggest that you not buy this for anyone under the age of 11, as I've noticed that my younger cousins had no attention span to sit and think about the puzzles.

Overall, I would definitely recommend getting Myst, and the sequel, Riven. But take advantage of Myst being on one CD while you can, b/c I found it quite annoying when in Riven you have to go back and forth switching the five CDs. Hope I helped! :) -- On a last note, just incase anyone was wondering, I'm 15.

Rating:
Summary: A Turkey
Review: I had never played Myst before and I wanted to give it a try because of its popularity. My biggest gripe is that the game offers no options. Every game I know of allows a player to customize the controls. I always use the inverted mouse look--pull back, look up; push forward, look down. I use this in Quake, Unreal, Thief II, Hitman codename 47, Forsaken, System shock 2, Half-Life etc. etc. Real Myst does not give me a choice, and I am not going to change my personal style for one game. The mouse is too sensitive, and there is no option to adjust it (as in other games). The "walk" mode is way too fast. So, just try playing a game where you seem to be running all the time, the mouse operates backwards, and is too sensitive in its left to right movement. Well, I can just stand there and admire all the scenery, I guess.

My system is a Dell XPS B733r (733 Mhz coppermine, PIII) with a geForce 256, 64MB DDR RAM 3D card, 128MB RDRAM, Soundblaster Live audio. Actually, the music in the game is very nice, and the graphics great.

Rating:
Summary: dark and hard to use
Review: The illusion of motion, the passing clouds, the rising sun, the rain and storms were great, but God help anyone who does not know where to go or what to do in this game to begin with.

I have a new dell dimensions computer that meets or exceeds the system requirements of this game but I found it very difficult to move around and especially difficult to see necessary details. In the generator room for example, where you need to set 59 volts for the rocket ship,I could not read the numbers on the dials. If I had not kept notes from the previous version I would never have been able to set the voltage. The worst part, however was trying to set the sound tone settings on the rocket ship control panel. After setting the lever, I could not test the notes without inadvertently changing the setting. Additionally, I never knew whether I left them in the right place or not and could not tell without pulling the main lever to test them all. I finally gave up after half an hour of trying to launch the rocket ship, a task I have done numerous times without problem in the old Myst. I also found the whole game very dark and impossible to find buttons, handles, and interesting objects that I know to be there.Even after setting the contrast and lightness controls on the monitor I had a hard time finding my way around.

I bought this game to have fun and explore Myst with a fresh vision, but I found it too difficult to use and frustrating to play overall. I do not recommend this game for anyone who does not know this game intimately to begin with.

Rating:
Summary: Wow, things have changed!
Review: I have just finished reading the Myst books, and it got me into the mood to play the game again. It was then that I saw this new version of Myst on the shelf of my retail store.

I remember getting Myst when it was first released almost a decade ago, and wow, has it changed! I was a little daunted at first when I saw the super-high system requirements...then again, I felt the same way all those years ago when I saw that it required one of the new-fanged 486 computers to play! So, I slapped down the bux and installed it.

The feeling that I got when I opened the now-polygonic MYST book at the beginning was almost nostalgic, and when I was transported to the Isle of Myst, I thought I was looking at a photograph of a landscape. WOW, the graphics on this thing are the best I've ever seen! The WHOLE game, every room, every object, every WALL TEXTURE, has become three-dimensional. It must've taken a heck of an effort to recreate the Myst world like this, and the effort shows!

Now, with graphics aside, the plot and puzzles are pretty much unchanged since the original Myst. The puzzles actually seemed easier this time around (even the god-awful keyboard puzzle)...but that is probably because I was around 11-12 years old at the time! Of course, even the keyboard puzzle was more interesting to solve when it was three-dimensional.

I gave the original Myst a lower score because I remembered it as being able to be beat in five minutes (and you still can if you know what to do), but this latest recreation of Myst has breathed new life into it, and it has made me realize something: Myst is a classic that, no matter what form it takes, will always remain a classic. If you have the horsepower to handle it, pick up realMYST. After all, it's a rarity to live in the same time that a classic was created in.