Myst: Masterpiece Edition

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: How I wish I'd read "St. Chris" review here before buying Myst ME! I agree with him/her completely. My big disappointment was the sound, too. I played the original Myst on Macintosh a few years ago -- I just finished Myst ME on my new Mac G4. The sound isn't as good as the original -- it's always at the same level and blasting. But most disappointing of all is the shortened music! Half of Myst's orginal haunting appeal was the soundtrack! If you've got a high-powered Mac, pass on Myst ME -- and pray that Disney doesn't screw up Myst III: Exile for Mac players.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: How I wish I'd read "St. Chris" review here before buying Myst ME! I agree with him/her completely. My big disappointment was the sound, too. I played the original Myst on Macintosh a few years ago -- I just finished Myst ME on my new Mac G4. The sound isn't as good as the original -- it's always at the same level and blasting. But most disappointing of all is the shortened music! Half of Myst's orginal haunting appeal was the soundtrack! If you've got a high-powered Mac, pass on Myst ME -- and pray that Disney doesn't screw up Myst III: Exile for Mac players.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: How I wish I'd read "St. Chris" review here before buying Myst ME! I agree with him/her completely. My big disappointment was the sound, too. I played the original Myst on Macintosh a few years ago -- I just finished Myst ME on my new Mac G4. The sound isn't as good as the original -- it's always at the same level and blasting. But most disappointing of all is the shortened music! Half of Myst's orginal haunting appeal was the soundtrack! If you've got a high-powered Mac, pass on Myst ME -- and pray that Disney doesn't screw up Myst III: Exile for Mac players.

Rating:
Summary: Sadly, not even as good as the original.
Review: I'm one of the most dedicated Myst fans anywhere. I fell in love with the original Myst even before there was a PC version, I've got the soundtrack CD and t-shirts and posters and all the books, I've won trivia contests, I'm friends with one of the programmers -- and I just can't recommend Myst Masterpiece Edition for the Mac. I'm sorry to have to say it. Its one arguable strength is the higher-quality images, but that's all it has over the original. Otherwise, it's a jarring step backward.

A brief history: Myst was originally created by Cyan Inc. on Macintosh systems using Macintosh programming tools. It masterfully exploited the Mac multimedia capabilities of 1993, squeezing the highest possible quality out of 8-bit sound (akin to a good AM radio) and 256-color video.

It was later adapted for Windows, not by Cyan but by Broderbund, who gave their best shot at porting the program but ran into technical limitations: The full-length soundtrack songs were cut short, the scene-to-scene transitions became rougher, the sound effects lost some subtlety, and the images weren't quite as good as on the Mac.

When Mattel (now the owner of what was Broderbund, through a dizzying series of corporate buyouts) created the Masterpiece Edition for Windows, they based it on the previous Windows version. Broderbund used almost none of the master full-length songs and sounds available from Cyan. Nonetheless, Myst Masterpiece for Windows *is* much better than the "original" Myst for Windows, because it has full-color graphics, smoother animation, and the online help system.

Myst Masterpiece for the Mac is a straightforward transfer of Myst Masterpiece for Windows -- a port of an update of a port. The end product has sharper pictures than the original Mac version, though often not noticeably nicer or even, surprisingly, somewhat *worse*. Nothing else about it is an improvement, except possibly the added help system, which gives away hints perhaps too easily. They STILL didn't go back to the audio source material; the songs are the same clipped Windows versions, so you don't get the whole musical experience. (Until I played Myst Masterpiece for the Mac, I never realized what the PC users had been missing all these years! The songs truly lose their character when shortened. It's a shocking difference.) The soundtrack audio was cleaned up to remove noise, but became muffled in the process. And a particularly effective subtlety of the original, where sounds are quiet at a distance and grow gradually louder as you approach, is gone: Now the music or sound effect just comes on full blast as if someone suddenly turned up the dial. The wind on Myst Island, for instance, sounds as if it's always about to knock you over, even when you're standing inside a building.

I've played this and the original side-by-side, and I can't believe they call this one the "Masterpiece." I just can't recommend it...except for one problem: As I played Myst on my PowerBook G3, I noticed that the original has some incompatibilities with the current Mac OS. You can't reliably play the original on a modern Mac! At the moment, the "Masterpiece Edition" is the only game in town.

However, Cyan -- too far out of the loop for so long in the development of new versions of Myst -- *is* carefully overseeing in-house development of realMYST, a real-time 3D version that promises to deliver the realism that Masterpiece Edition still only hints at. My advice: Skip the "Masterpiece" and wait for realMYST. Or use an older Mac system and enjoy the original -- the *real* masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Sadly, not even as good as the original.
Review: I'm one of the most dedicated Myst fans anywhere. I fell in love with the original Myst even before there was a PC version, I've got the soundtrack CD and t-shirts and posters and all the books, I've won trivia contests, I'm friends with one of the programmers -- and I just can't recommend Myst Masterpiece Edition for the Mac. I'm sorry to have to say it. Its one arguable strength is the higher-quality images, but that's all it has over the original. Otherwise, it's a jarring step backward.

A brief history: Myst was originally created by Cyan Inc. on Macintosh systems using Macintosh programming tools. It masterfully exploited the Mac multimedia capabilities of 1993, squeezing the highest possible quality out of 8-bit sound (akin to a good AM radio) and 256-color video.

It was later adapted for Windows, not by Cyan but by Broderbund, who gave their best shot at porting the program but ran into technical limitations: The full-length soundtrack songs were cut short, the scene-to-scene transitions became rougher, the sound effects lost some subtlety, and the images weren't quite as good as on the Mac.

When Mattel (now the owner of what was Broderbund, through a dizzying series of corporate buyouts) created the Masterpiece Edition for Windows, they based it on the previous Windows version. Broderbund used almost none of the master full-length songs and sounds available from Cyan. Nonetheless, Myst Masterpiece for Windows *is* much better than the "original" Myst for Windows, because it has full-color graphics, smoother animation, and the online help system.

Myst Masterpiece for the Mac is a straightforward transfer of Myst Masterpiece for Windows -- a port of an update of a port. The end product has sharper pictures than the original Mac version, though often not noticeably nicer or even, surprisingly, somewhat *worse*. Nothing else about it is an improvement, except possibly the added help system, which gives away hints perhaps too easily. They STILL didn't go back to the audio source material; the songs are the same clipped Windows versions, so you don't get the whole musical experience. (Until I played Myst Masterpiece for the Mac, I never realized what the PC users had been missing all these years! The songs truly lose their character when shortened. It's a shocking difference.) The soundtrack audio was cleaned up to remove noise, but became muffled in the process. And a particularly effective subtlety of the original, where sounds are quiet at a distance and grow gradually louder as you approach, is gone: Now the music or sound effect just comes on full blast as if someone suddenly turned up the dial. The wind on Myst Island, for instance, sounds as if it's always about to knock you over, even when you're standing inside a building.

I've played this and the original side-by-side, and I can't believe they call this one the "Masterpiece." I just can't recommend it...except for one problem: As I played Myst on my PowerBook G3, I noticed that the original has some incompatibilities with the current Mac OS. You can't reliably play the original on a modern Mac! At the moment, the "Masterpiece Edition" is the only game in town.

However, Cyan -- too far out of the loop for so long in the development of new versions of Myst -- *is* carefully overseeing in-house development of realMYST, a real-time 3D version that promises to deliver the realism that Masterpiece Edition still only hints at. My advice: Skip the "Masterpiece" and wait for realMYST. Or use an older Mac system and enjoy the original -- the *real* masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Welcome Home Myst!
Review: Once upon a time I owned a copy of the original Myst, but I eventually had to replace it. Myst ME was available for Windows at the time, so I committed Macintosh sacralidge and purchased the Windows version. (Though any hardcore Myst fan would support this decision.) Myst ME offers improved graphics and sounds, and the movies are much clearer in QT4. These enhancements promise to only be more evident in Myst ME for Mac, the original OS for this game. If you don't own a copy of Myst or if you just want to visit again, this is a wonderful enhancement of the classic game, and I highly reccomend it. Anyway, it might be nice to get reacquainted with the Myst and Riven mythos before Exile comes out next Spring. (However, if you own a high performance system, you might want to save your nickles and dimes for realMyst due out Q4 this year, featuring real-time renderings of the Myst Islands and a whole new Age to explore!)