Rating: 
Summary: Atrus: Super Genius?
Review: Much has been made of the astonishing intelligence and creativity of Atrus Nusbaum (yes, I am one of the few to be made privy to the family name). However, it must be noted that time and again, when things go ill, Atrus is forced to rely on the competence of a bumbling ignoramus who has no choice but to try to resolve vaguely-known crises by wandering around poking at things and trying to penetrate the obsessive secrecy of the Nusbaum family and their strange habits of paranoia. I can only credit the animals of Haven and the ladies of Serenia with uncommon kindness for not following me around and laughing as I wandered in circles trying to make sense of my surroundings.
By not following Atrus's ill-advised initial instructions, you can spend the rest of your life relaxing in Tomanha while Yeesha practices her flute in perfect safety. Perhaps in time Yeesha would grow up and fall in love with you. If you do obey Atrus you can count on spending many hours trying to clean up after his latest mess, if only to avoid having him sue you for being such a hapless failure as a babysitter.
You will find that Sirrus and Achenar have changed substantially since the original Myst. Sirrus, who was once so suave and sinister, has devolved into a petulant, pop-eyed whiner. This is nothing compared to the transformation undergone by Achenar. Once a drooling, fearful, truly disturbing figure, his time on Haven has left him an intrepid and initially enthusiastic survivalist, albeit a bloodthirsty one.
My 3-star overall rating is due solely to the installation problems produced by the game's copy protection. The game would not install on my G5 Mac, presumably because it has a DVD burner. The only way I could get past this idiotic limitation was to install game on an older G4 Mac which has only a basic DVD drive, then transfer the files to the G5 over the network. Even so, the game did crash occasionally. Otherwise it worked beautifully, displaying all the visual effects without difficulty.
Rating:
Summary: SO looking forward to this game!
Review: The advanced "buzz" about this game is incredible and not just because it is a continuation of the uber-popular Myst adventure game series. At this year's E3 convention, the submitted graphic example from Myst IV won the "best in show" prize against submissions from all other genres of video games. Another indication of how good the game's "tech" will be is that it is being released on DVD only (DVD's holding roughly 6 or 7 CD's worth of data). Oh, and by the way, it won't be just one DVD, but THREE of them!Apparently, one of the reasons for the bulk of the game is that there will be over one hour of DVD-quality video embedded into the game to help advance along the story. This is a bold step for the Myst series since all the the predessesor games had pretty limited in-game storylines. Other than an occasional journal or holographic snippet found along the way, you pretty much had to wait to the end of those games to watch the revealed resolution play out in video cut scenes. In this story, we apparently get to witness just how dysfunctional Atrus' family really is. The bad boys from the first game, Sirrus and Achenar, are back in this chapter and play havoc with the serenity enjoyed by Atrus, his wife Catherine and their young daughter Yeesha. Like Myst III - Exile, this game is not being developed directly by Cyan the makers of Myst, Riven and URU. Presto Studios, the maker of Exile, is no longer around, so the reins have been handed over to UbiSoft (in particular their Canadian branch) who was also a partner in the whole URU project. With the unfortunate demise of the ambitious URU Live internet project due primarily to financial reasons, I imagine both Cyan and UbiSoft are staking quite a lot on this next chapter. If they can successfully blend the traditional mystique of the original games with a rich and immersive story like, say, Syberia, while blowing everyone away again with eye-popping graphics, then I think they will once again raise the bar of the adventure game genre (and quite possibly with PC video games in general). A bold claim, certainly, but one of which I think the pioneers of graphical adventure games are more than capable.
Rating:
Summary: BEST MYST GAME YET
Review: This game will not only shed light on new and old questions about the Myst Saga but will also feature some of the most detailed graphics for any game that has been made. Looking forward to playing it.
Rating:
Summary: Inconviences, but still a good play
Review: What I found to be most amazing was that, unlike previous myst games, there is not a single scene that does not have at least two moving objects--many scenes have five or six. The graphics are simply incomparable to that of the previous three. The clouds move, the water now does more than just simmer, and the curser is now fully customizable. My heart goes out to all of those graphic designers who had to make the vey lighting be affected by the position of the clouds in the sky.
The music is actualy rather unremarkable, with the exception of a few of the songs in Serenia. It isn't bad, per se, but it isn't amazing either. I do think that Ubisoft went a *bit* overboard with the whole Serenia mystic deal. The origional myst game wouldn't have been caught dead with an age like Serenia. Again, this isn't necesarily a bad thing.
I do have one problem with the plot: it seems to almost die out at the very end, just the last scene. It almost seems like the anti-climactic ending of Myst has come back to haunt us. What I wish, since the wolds are so painstakingly done, is that you could wander around even after the main story-line is over. It seems a shame to rush through the ages so quickly, without really paying attention to details that might otherwise have escaped one's attention. Anyway, most of the time, the storyline outdoes anything Myst III Exile offered up.
Ah, yes. The DVD drive issue. I admit, it was rather stupid of Ubisoft to create a program with such an obvious flaw. My warning to you: if you have a DVD drive that can burn either CDs or DVDs, don't buy the game until you get a cheaper non- burner. I (for example) was able to find a good DVD drive for $14. Also, if you have a Mac laptop (like me!), be warned that at its present state, the game does *not* support the video drivers for it yet. Ubisoft *says* that is woking on the problem, but I have no idea how long it could take to fix.
My final word: despite its obvious flaws, this game is worth playing. It is a bit harder than Exile (myst III), but that just makes it more fun to play. And if you really do get stuck, there's always the built-in help option, a new and long overdue feature to the series.
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