Riven: The Sequel to Myst

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic. How could anybody NOT like it?
Review: How could anybody NOT like this magnificant game? I've always loved a challenge, and I found Riven was it. The Puzzles are difficult, but not "so-difficult-that-i-hate-this-game"...more of a difficulty which gives you that tingly feeling in your gut when you solve one of those big puzzles. This game teaches you patience, observation, and determination. That is the overall puzzle of Riven (and Myst of course)...if you give up because "it's rubbish" or "Its too hard" or "I hate the gameplay" or even "It's a slideshow", you fail at YET another puzzle which will be relevant to you in the future. You need to always keep your wits about you otherwise you'll miss something. The Animal puzzle, once I had finally cracked it after several months, I saw the video clip afterwards and, man did that give me the tingly feeling. Yes, there were 3 bits when I appealed to a friend for help...but those were 3 REALLY obvious points I should have been able to get. Don't blame the game because YOU can't do it. blame yourself for NOT SEEING it. Use thinking Those people who say "It's a slideshow"...think how much MORE time it would take to create the game. how much WORK the creators have to go through. How much DISK SPACE/SWAPPING there would be, how higher the MACHINE SPECS have to be. It's a good game, and you should appreciate the hard work, because Riven isn't gonna get any better than it is. Yes, realtime movement would be nice, but it ain't gonna happen without severe degrading of graphics, stalling and crashing computers, about 18 CDs and an extremely high price...and there'll MORE complaining. Teach yourself to read Machine specs before you buy. I've had minimum specs ever since I bought it and I've had no trouble

ok, enough gripe. Fantastic game - buy it at all costs :)

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, Mysterious, Challanging Game
Review: What I have to say has already been said before, so I'll be breif. Besides the graphics, challanging games and what not there were two things that I really like about this game. One is that you can play in many different ways. A friend of mine started playing this game about the same time as I did. Instead of exploring and not trying to figure anything out until hitting a brick wall like I did, he focused all his energy on the first thing he found. The other thing I liked is how attached you become to the characters. Now, this isn't provided much in the game, especialy if you haven't played Myst, so if you play it I would suggest reading the books or just looking up information online about the character. It makes the game much better. Even without that though it's a wonderful game.

Rating:
Summary: Too opened-ended for most.
Review: Riven looks like Myst. Riven sounds like Myst. Riven plays like Myst...sort of. The producers emulated Myst in almost every way but they decided to change one important thing: they made it more open-ended. In Myst, you start on a small island, told what to do (collect pages) and have unlock other areas to proceed. In Riven, you are dropped in large area of five interconnected islands with only the vaguest idea of what to do. To find your way on your own requires a meticulous manner and loads of free time. My advice is spend a reasonable amount of time then use a walkthough as needed.

A technical note: I could not this running in Windows 2000. Riven requires Apple Quicktime 2 to run and after installing that I could get the sound to work. It may have a conflict between Quicktime 2 and Quicktime 6/iTunes also installed. The game ran fine on Windows 98.

Rating:
Summary: Well, it's better than Myst
Review: I enjoy playing the Myst games once through, they are fun and challenging. However my computer would not allow me to hit a certain switch for some reason, and I was therefore never able to get to the location on the cover. Even if I had, I would never play the game again, I would know how to do everything, and therefore, what would be the point? At least it is better then Myst in which you can win within about 15 minutes of starting the game, but still... Any 60 dollar game (as it was when it was released) should last longer than this. With the detail put in, the game itself is rather short, with puzzle solving accounting for much of your time. Also some puzzles can be so frustrating when you know what to do, but can't (the stopping the scopes thing, the puzzle at the top of the dome on the first island). I thought it was a beautiful game, but I wouldn't get it unless it is below 20 dollars, otherwise I don't really think it's worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking and mesmerizing
Review: It goes without saying that the world of Riven is beautiful, all inclusive and fun to walk through. However, this game is based soley on its beauty. If you love walking through beautiful environments while investigating clues to the book of D'ni, then get this. You find clues, but you don't always know what they mean. This game is utterly confusing and can get VERY boring for most people. I bought a guide to help me and I got very far in the game but still didn't know what I was doing. The guide at least helped me to explore more places that I probably would never have seen.

Honestly, if you can get this game cheap -- any of the Myst series games cheap, do so if you wanted to buy it. I mean cheap like under three dollars if possible, because there isn't much to do in the game and you'll probably play a while, put it away and never look at it again. Not for impatient gamers, non gamers and not for anyone with a short attention span. The puzzles are for naught, they are hard, confusing and don't make any sense. The complete 3D world is really what you're paying for. That's why I say if you can find it cheap, buy it because it's really a waste of money otherwise, despite how beautiful it looks and sounds, there's just not much you can do besides walk around and look -- some interactions, and you may get giddy when you solve a few puzzles, but over all it's just for the fantastic visuals and music.