Rating: 
Summary: Myst URU
Review: This CD promises a few things: beautiful graphics, challenging problem and puzzle solving activities, wonderful music, a unique method of creating a toon and the ability to join your friends as well as meeting new friends in the on-line version.
The game lives up to the promises of the graphics. The challenge of puzzle solving, clue finding does live up to its usual expectations. The music is quiet and nice but I will not purchase it seperately from the game (I think it makes nice background music for small shops). Character creation is one of the best I have ever seen anywhere. At this point the CD no longer lives up to its promises. Animation of the char doesn't allow it to pick up anything & there are puzzles that require moving an object from one place to another. The result is that a person is forced to manipulate their char in such a way as to push the object around with their toes. Time consuming and not fun. The online game is quite disappointing at this stage. First, it was released before completing BETA. They were forced to restrict admission into the online game into what they termed "prologue" to those few BETA players they had already had. Then they added a few more individuals at any given time. The online game is still having severe problems with lag whenever more than a few (-20) people are gathered together in one place. I have a massively powerful computer that is able to handle any game online at this current time, whether in BETA or live, and every single time I have logged onto URU Live I have been lagged to a stand still. This is a game that I would recommend the CD for alone, but it is really quite pricey for just a CD game with the limited time play. It took me a little over 6 hours to solve the puzzles on the CD. I am pretty sure if I were under the age of 16 I could have cut that time in half.
Rating: 
Summary: No problems for my little laptop!
Review: There are a number of posts here from people who have not been able to run Uru even though they have more computing power than recommended. I find this REALLY hard to believe! I have run this excellent game on both desktop and laptop computer without any problems.1)Dell Dimension 8100 (P4 1.4 GHz, 512MB RAM, 32MB DDR nVidia GeForce 2 Pro card, Turtle Beach santa Cruz sound card) and on a 2)Dell Inspiron 8100 (1.1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 32 DDR nVidia GeForce 2 Go card, internal sound card). Both of these systems are very close to minimum especialy the video cards and certainly the sound in the laptop. Even so the game runs very well on both. The laptop is currently being used to run the game on-line in the Uru:Live Prologue. From the Uru Forums it seems that one simple solution that has solved a number of problems is to make sure you have the latest video drivers for you video card. Why not check to make sure you have the latest drivers and then give the game a second chance, and check out the Uru:Live and DRC forums. There is more to this game than just the boxed CD. In the cavern I'm asa160 - see you in D'ni!
Rating:
Summary: Huge disappointment
Review: I have to disagree with the people who are saying "Oh folks just don't like it because they don't have the system requirements." My computer ran the game just fine and it still stunk. The so called "puzzles" were tedious and frustrating, with little to no reward for putting you through the hell of solving them. The 3rd person user interface was disastrous, unnecessary, and poorly rendered. The landscapes were repetitive (note the repeating cloud patterns in one scene) and looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, not a high end video game. The soundtrack was dreary when it wasn't irritating. I'm so very sad that this game is of such poor quality both in technical matters and concept. I loved Myst, Riven, and Exile. Too bad I'll never get the same experience from this wonderful game world unless I go back to play the old three again. By the time I got to my third age in Uru, I was bored and annoyed at being treated so rudely by Ubisoft/Cyan. I packed it up without a twinge of remorse--well, except for the regret I felt for purchasing it and wasting my last holiday weekend playing it. The writers of this game should be taken out and shot for degrading the wonderful Myst mystique.
Rating:
Summary: A stake through the heart of what was a great franchise
Review: Thank God Ubisoft had a playable demo that saved me from spending any money on this game. Ubisoft would be best served to return to the format of the first three games and not exclude the Mac fan base as they have here. The game ran sufficiently well on my 1 year old Dell, but, hardware requirement issues aside, the game looks and feels more like Everquest than a Myst game.
A big disappointment for what was an eagerly anticipated game.
Rating:
Summary: This is a big disappointment!!
Review: I would say I'm an somewhat average game player. I have followed MYST since it first came out. It is true that after a week of adjusting and updating my computer the game itself was disappointing. The puzzles were dull by the time you did figure them out, you couldn't believe that was it and there was no storyline. At least in the first three you could immerse yourself in the story and graphics. Why make the only character besides you computerized? Save the money, try another game!
Rating:
Summary: Makes a lovely but expensive coaster
Review: I have a six month old Dell computer that was top of the line when it came out. As many have already stated, this game runs like garbage, no offense intended to garbage. I haven't seen dreck like this since The 11th Hour, another game that tried too hard to be cutting edge and wound up unable to run on most top of the line systems. Like others have posted, I meet the top end of the requirements for the video card. I have also downloaded the patch. No results. This is especially annoying because once you break the seal on a computer game, you can't return it. I meet all the requirements listed on the box, yet can't run the video portion of this game. I come here and see MANY of us are in the same boat. This is pretty much fraud on the part of Ubisoft, since they must have known that their "recommended requirements" were a load of hooey. They deliberately bent the truth just so people would waste their money on this lame excuse for a game. As for upgrading, why should I be forced to upgrade my computer to play one game, and a game that lies on the box and says it will run with system requirements that aren't remotely accurate, at that? Exactly how much money am I expected to shell out to play one 20 hour (max) puzzle game? My advice to people considering this purchase: SAVE YOUR MONEY. There are plenty of good computer games out there that will actually run on your computer. Go find one the many good adventure games that will actually run with the system requirements stated on the box. Oh, and good luck to the creators of this swill, with your aspirations for taking this game online. I'm sure your future customers can look forward to the same technical proficiency and honesty in advertising that you've shown here. I am officially done with the Myst franchise. If only I'd bothered to read the reviews on Amazon first, I could have gotten another game, and saved myself from purchasing the world's most expensive coaster.
Rating:
Summary: Frustrating and disappointing, not up to Myst caliber
Review: I loved Myst, had a lot of fun with Riven, and thought Exile's rollercoaster was the best game payoff ever. Sadly, Uru was nothing but a huge disappointment. Oh, there's a new avatar you can control in 3D and make run and jump, plenty of eye candy, and generally pretty good camera work (although a bit quirky in spots, when I could look through my avatar's body to her ankles disappearing in her shoes). Uru lacks a good story. The puzzles are almost non-existent, and what few there are don't really make much sense, and they're not well integrated into what little story there is. One whole age consists of mostly of just wandering around, trying to figure out which eye candy you can actually interact with. And you have to run and jump. This is cool, at first. It becomes a bit frustrating as jumps you think should work don't, then disconcerting in some of the more vertigo-inducing sequences, then downright gratuitous when you're forced to do the same annoying sequences at least twice. (And that's only if you actually make the jump each time.) I only finished the game because I was hoping for at least a decent payoff at the end. It's not there, unless a Peter Gabriel song does it for you. And yes, the other reviewers are correct: you MUST have a system that meets all the technical requirements. My brand-new Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz, 512MB Dell, couldn't run Uru until I gave it a new video card. Deciphering video card terminology, along with the capabilities and slot requirements of different brands and models, is not for the faint of heart. If you enjoy gratuitous frustration, this game's for you. If, like me, you were looking for a good game that you can't pull yourself away from, expect to be severely disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: On Gameplay and System Requirements
Review: I was only able to play this game for a few days recently when my brother came to visit and brought his computer along. It played great on his system, but alas, could not work at all on my system. If you don't have a super computer, this is not the game for you. It has motivated me, however, to work on getting a better system...at the same time, it bothers me that computers in general are outdated witin six months of being built, my system was top-of-the-line only two years ago and I still can't play Uru on my system. I did greatly enjoy playing on my brother's computer though. I'm a big fan of the Myst series, however they decided to sacrifice a lot on the imagery which was so incredibly clear and realistic on Riven and Exile to make it a single disk and to have 360 movement and direction. So, it looks and feels a lot like a typical first person view computer game. This was a dissapointment as one of the things I enjoyed so much about the previous games was the feeling of really being there. Also unlike the previous games of Myst, you can fall off high places, however since you've got a linking book with you at all times you don't die when you miss the jump to a sheer cliff over molten lava, but you get transported back to the starting point and have to go around and start what you were trying to get to all over again. Speed, also, is of necissity in gameplay, also unlike the previous games. I will be updating my system in the future so I can play this game...the puzzles are fun and there is mystery associated as you explore several worlds which at one time were quite advanced, but have fallen into ruin. Overall I'm glad there is another in the Myst universe, but dissapointed in the lower quality of gameplay and imagery.
Rating:
Summary: Needs lots of power...
Review: To start with, I hope you have some money to make upgrades. I happened to be lucky enough to have built my own gaming PC with 512M of very fast memory, a very fast large hard drive, and an ATI ALL In Wonder 9000 card that runs a 52" plasma screen. Something I put together just to play games of these sorts.
Speaking of graphics and sound... yah they are very nice. This could be the first game that take FULL advantage of surround sound. The menuvering takes quite a bit to get used to and even after playing for hours it's sometimes quite a pain in the @ss. However I have gotten the hang of it in 3rd and 1st person setting... it just takes lots of practice.
The puzzles are boring. Most of which consist of jumping or walking to this perfect spot or running here and then there with perfect timing not to mention there is no real save position, so if you miss the perfect jump you have to wait for what seems like hours to return to the starting point then link back to where you were which is another eternal wait... (in reality it's less than a minute on my machine, it just seems like forever) of course you do this several times since you'r not sure if you'r doing the right thing or not... unless you want to just play the thing with the cheats sitting right by your side so you don't waist an hour jumping down a hole just to find out you were supposed to jump down that hole but two pixels to the left.
I loved all the other Myst's. This one I suffered thru. I certainly hope they don't expect ppl to pay for online gaming with these kinds of bothersome puzzles. It's worth the ~$...if you have a system that can run it or you want to update your system anyway. it'd better not be a standard machine you bought in a store, it'd better be some custom thing you had built.
I've run into a few other problems that I'm not sure what they are... like all of the books are just black blank pages. I have fixed these problems with the ATI 9000 series video card. With out the latest in drivers and hardware the game is impossible, as in some puzzles can not be solved because you can't see them.
So to sum it up... I'm disappointed but it's playable. It's close to a perfect game though. A few revisions... little things and I think ppl would have been happier, I would have been. Now after playing the entire game with the new video card I'd have to say it was worth the cost. The worlds are great to look at.
Don't buy the game if you do not have a killer PC sitting in front of you and it sounds like you must have a new ATI video or G-force card with new drivers hot off the press. Don't buy the game if you do not have lots of time to spend watching a reload sequence. This game is not for the run around an shoot it ppl. This is NOT Doom or Castle Wolfenstien, this is a state of the art attempt to use the best technology. I've never seen a game that has day and night and thunder storms as good... as real as this one. Even after finishing the game I find myself going back to look around.
-jim
Rating: 
Summary: Been there, D'ni that....
Review: Now that I've finished the entire game, I like it better than I did while in the middle of playing it. The other reviewers are correct in stating that you will probably have to upgrade your video card in order to play. I did, plus added more memory. But the game worked fine after that. My biggest complaint with Uru is that, unlike the previous Myst games, finishing Uru depends a great deal upon your dexterity. There is jumping, walking jumps, running jumps...I confess, I once jumped off a cliff in sheer frustration! You figure out what you must do, and then spend "hours" trying to accomplish it! C'mon Cyan...we don't need busy work in our games!! I must say that the old thrill of snooping around, opening doors, going down hallways and reading other people's journals is alive and well. Just be prepared to "panic link" hundreds of times before you're through!
| 
