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Rating: 
Summary: DON'T BANG YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE WALL, THE ANSWERS ARE HERE!
Review: I fell in love with the game Riven right from the start. I had not played very many computer games before this, and had never played Myst, so therefore, Riven turned out to be a bit difficult for me. Just when I had solved a fairly easy section I would hit an impasse and thought I'd maybe end up banging my head against the table. I was hopelessly stuck at a point in the game when I came across this book - a blessing I thought! It's actually more of a curse due to the fact that the book makes it much too tempting and easy to cheat. There is nothing as thrilling as finally breaking the code, solving the mystery, and finding the answer to the great puzzle - the book eventually gives you all the answers and thus spoils the fun. I for one will NOT buy this "cheat sheet" type of book again, however, I highly recommend it to those individuals who get a thrill out of cheating!
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed
Review: So, my first comment about this honker was as follows: "I am in a house consisting of three very large rooms and several smaller rooms. All of these rooms
are entirely empty, except for a single locked chest. I have been exploring for 45 minutes. The chest is still locked. Am I having fun?" I tell you lies. My actual first comment was "I don't understand the setup of this story." The game begins in the middle of World War One, which seemed a
little... subtle... for a story ostensibly set entirely in ancient Roman Pompeii. By "subtle", I here mean "Say what?" But the narration quickly zips through
some business with oaths, love, the goddess Ishtar, and a horrible fever, and dumps you in Pompeii before you can reach for the Tylenol. It's five days
before Vesuvius erupts, and you have to find your girlfriend, who has been dumped here also. None of this makes any sense, but none of it makes any difference either, so I guess that's okay. Underline the words "You have to find your girlfriend", and
"five days before Vesuvius erupts". Go on from there. As it turns out, the key to the locked chest is lying on the floor nearby. I happened not to see it. Thus, 45 minutes in a totally empty house. It's a nice house,
if you like realistic depictions of Roman architecture. After you open the chest, some characters show up and give you some plot directives. Then you go outside and two more characters beat you to death
while arguing over a mule. I really shouldn't spend so much time lamenting Timescape. It's just that, um, lamenting is more fun than actually playing... ahem. I didn't hate playing this
game. A bunch of characters and plot threads are woven together. The storylines are acceptably complex. They're not acceptably well-written; a lot of
what happens makes no sense at all. The game design is one of those setups where, whenever you're stuck, the answer is to run all around the city, looking into every corner and crevice,
because some character is hanging out somewhere waiting to push you along. This is tedious, so I used a walkthrough frequently. You can also die, as I mentioned. You can die in timed puzzles; you can die and not know it for a couple more moves (so you can save the game in an
unwinnable state). None of this adds to the game in any significant way. It's just frustrating. (Sometimes very frustrating. Such as the chase scene in which
walking the wrong way produces the message "Game over -- you cannot complete your mission." Say what? Perhaps the starship Enterprise crash-landed
on your time-displaced nouveau-Pompeiian heinie. I like to imagine that's how the game ended, anyway.) Everything is very realistic, though. Realistic Roman architecture. Realistic Roman politics. Realistic Roman characters. Realistic Roman events (bar the
occasional prophetic vision, and, oh yes, you were sent back in time from World War One). I don't like realism that much. And that's why I'm going to stop typing now and boot up Myst 3.
Rating:
Summary: Riven Reviewed
Review: This book could by a real time saver(mental anguish) for any one trying to complete the game. There were times when the book left me wondering what to do next, but in general a good publication.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much help when I needed hints
Review: This book not only gives you the answers that you've been struggling for, but it also tells you why the answer is what it is as we follow the author in an interesting and easy to read story. I found myself on several occasions saying, "Oh yeah. I noticed that too, but I never knew what it meant." Even reading about the many answers I was able to solve on my own was enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Just a 'Go Here and Do This' Book
Review: This book not only gives you the answers that you've been struggling for, but it also tells you why the answer is what it is as we follow the author in an interesting and easy to read story. I found myself on several occasions saying, "Oh yeah. I noticed that too, but I never knew what it meant." Even reading about the many answers I was able to solve on my own was enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Too much help when I needed hints
Review: This is a great book, if you are too lazy to even walk around in Riven. I had completed everything, except for 2 of the last 3 puzzles, and all I wanted was a couple of general hints to point me in the right direction. Instead, the first half of the book, which is supposed to do just that, was more of a smoothed out walk through - not every step, but it pushed you through the whole game and revealed all of the secrets and solutions. The real walkthrough in the back is basically the same thing, just bulleted and put into command sentences. Don't buy this book if you want to take your time and figure things out on your own. If you just want to beat the game quickly, with no respect for the beauty of the programming and the story, this will do fine. On the brighter side, after I bought this and read it, I stopped hitting my head, solved the puzzles again for myself, and finished the game in 2 hours. I would still be playing around in the ceremonial chamber and with the marble puzzle if I didn't get this book. I missed the small things, which made so much difference, and I couldn't make the connections, which is what this is all about. Please, try Riven on your own first, and if you are really stuck (I mean really), then get this book. It will alleviate your headache.
Rating:
Summary: Best Book
Review: This is the best book. It is a lot like the Myst srategy guide.
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