Rating: 
Summary: Amazing game, worst interface ever.
Review: This game is truely a five star game but the control interface is just aweful! I have quit the game in several spots with a loud "arrrrrgh". Why the game didn't stick to a standard mouse look "wasd" configuration I'll never know, it's as if they were TRYING to complicate things. The graphics are excellent, some of the most amazing I have ever seen in a game, and I play a LOT of games. Personally, I like some of the puzzles I have read other reviewers complain about. Overall, worth getting, but someone PLEASE write a patch for the controls.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for Macintosh?!!
Review: What's this crap! Myst IS a Macintosh series- always has been. Now some company buys the franchise and only puts out a PeeCee version? Forget it. Myst has lost it's myth.
PS: sorry I had to give a star at all.
Rating:
Summary: Not Available for Mac
Review: If I can't play it, it should get less, but one star is the minimum.
Rating: 
Summary: Uru: short single-player game, no on-line play to date
Review: Myst, the most popular computer adventure game series in the history of the universe, continues with its latest offering, URU. The theme in URU remains the same as in past Myst games: you find yourself in deserted, mystical places and you need to figure your way out of them by solving a series of puzzles, many of which involving manipulating exotic gadgets and machineries. Every Myst game is essentially a glorified puzzle game rather than a traditional adventure or role-playing game with fully-developed stories and characters. Like its predecessors, URU appeals you with simplicity and challenge.For those who worry that URU may not run properly on their PCs, there is a playable demo for URU available in many game sites (such as gamesdomain.com) that you can download and try on your PC. I encountered no crashes or bugs, and got pretty smooth performance (30 to 50 frames per second at 1280x1024, according to the FRAPS frame counter utility, available for trial at fraps.com), while playing URU on my Pentium4 2.4GHz with 768MB DDR RAM and a GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB graphics card. Windows XP users should have at least 512MB of system RAM, as recommended by the game, to avoid long load times while traveling from one game area to another, which you will often need to do in the game. URU does not allow you to save your game freely. It does automatically save the progress you've made -- what buttons you've pressed, machines you've turned on, and so on. But it does not save your location, so you always start a game session in a "home" location. It does offer you a way to link instantly to a desired location so you can at least avoid re-treading earlier paths. But you will need to figure out how the method works, along with all other puzzles in the game. Whenever a game has no save-game feature, it is a good bet that at some point the game will MAKE you do certain things over and over. Sure enough, this is true in URU, but thankfully only for a puzzle or two. It seems that the lack of save-game is due to the addition of on-line gameplay, which has no save-game. For the first time in an original Myst game, URU offers freedom of movement in a fully 3D environment. Now you cannot "zip" past an area to save time as in past games -- you always have to run or walk there yourself. All the graphics in URU are generated in real time, as opposed to displaying pre-rendered static images as in past games. This is why URU comes in only one CD (thus no more CD-swapping as in past games) -- because all the images are not actually on the disc, but dynamically generated while the game is running. Generating real-time images also means that your PC must have enough horsepower for the task. So be sure to try the demo and see how well it runs on your PC. The most intriguing aspect of URU is the long-promised on-line multiplayer gameplay (monthly fee will apply), in which you discover new areas and solve multiplayer puzzles. Sadly, URU LIVE, as it is called, is still not available as of now, and there is still no word of when it will be. The best thing about the URU's single-player game is that it offers one of the most difficult puzzles ever in the Myst series, or perhaps in all adventure games. It requires you to perform an action far away in order to produce an effect in your current location, with almost nothing in either location that may clue you in. You may, however, find it annoying to do certain things without a save-game feature because of the large scope of the puzzle. But the game designers are to be congratulated for coming up with this devilish brain-teaser. The rest of the single-player game isn't nearly as hard nor as memorable. The puzzles that involve powering up machineries are, of course, highly familiar to veteran Myst players. There are quite a few code-breaking type of puzzles, which can be tiresome because you see them in almost every adventure game. There are a few "finding-the-concealed-object" challenges, which are made more interesting with your ability to move and look freely. But with the freedom of movement, URU inevitably has its share of action-oriented challenges that involve jumping and running, and they are always the least favorite things among adventure gamers. Unless you like spending time admiring the scenic beauty of the game's enviroment (yes, this is a very good-looking game), you'll find that URU's single-player gameplay is actually pretty short. The sheer size of the environment may give you the impression of a big game. But there are often large areas, long corridors, and imposing structures that offer no interaction, and only serve cosmetic purposes. Not to mention, there are quite a few "dead end" areas that offer nothing related to the gameplay. I finished the game at an leisurely pace in two weeks. Here is the hope that URU LIVE will be available soon...
Rating:
Summary: The Emperor's New Clothes
Review: I had "pre-reviewed" this game a while back by making three stipulations that would either make it or break it as a great game. First, the developers, Cyan, had to stick to their promise of allowing the player to switch from the new 3rd-person perspective back to a 1st-person perspective. Second, they also had to stick to a promise of allowing a player to play by him or herself, even within the new "Uru Live" online scenario. Finally, they must continue to live up to the lofty standards set by their previous Myst titles when it comes to graphics and gameplay (i.e. puzzles). With regards to the first stipulation, Cyan came through marvelously! Even though so much effort went into allowing players to create personal "avatars" to represent themselves in the new 3rd-person perspective option, they also made switching back to the classic 1st-person view extremely easy by using the F1 key. Cyan touted this new perspective as the best way to enjoy the game citing, for one, that the 3rd-person view would give the player a better sense of scale in the enormous environments of the new ages. Personally, me wife and I found the 3rd-person view to be very awkward at times because, in several places, the only view available was from in front looking back and down at the avatar which then made moving of the character exactly opposite to what was intuitive. For most of the game, we kept the view in 1st-person and just tollerated the times that we needed to switch back (or the game purposely switched back) to a 3rd-person view. This was usually necessary in order to solve some of the new "physically challenging" puzzles. More on that later. A game of this beauty must be viewed from a first person perspective. Avatars just spoil the view. I don't need to see what I would look like super-imposed into these environments. I know what I look like; I don't need some goofy representation of me to distract from the wonder of the ages. Judgement on the second stipulation will have to wait until the Uru Live option of play opens up to the general public later on. Apparently, in order to handle the crush of users that the online gameplay is expected to generate, Cyan is relying on the cashflow generated from the sales of the standalone game in order to upgrade their hardware accordingly. We're probably talking teraflops of CPU and terabytes of disk needed. Regardless, from the documentation I've read so far, it's looking like the online world of UruLive is going to be exclusively a communal affair with emphasis on neighborhoods and cooperative puzzle solving. Sure, you might be able to download an age or two to explore on your own, but you'll only get as far as the first "physical" puzzle that takes at least two avatars to stand on separate platforms or some such (yes, that's how imaginative the puzzles have been so far). I like Myst games where its just me against the environment. I don't want to go exploring where other "tourists" will get in my way. Looks like the online world won't be for us. If you like the SIMS Online and Everquest genres, then go for it. Finally, to the meat of the game: the tech. Yes, the graphics are, once again, drop dead gorgeous. I still can't believe the view once we finally got "topside" on the first rotating building in the Gareeshen age! All four main ages had visions of pure beauty and, believe me, we had no problems appreciating the immenseness of these environments from the 1st-person perspective. What's even more incredible is this game comes on only ONE CD! Gone are the days where they have to pack 4 or more CD's (or a double-sided DVD) with tons of JPEGs and video clips linked together. Everything now is rendered in splendid real-time 3D. I knew this game was being developed based upon the technology similar to RealMyst so I expected it was going to take some real horsepower to run it. I got all new hardware recently and, trust me, it was worth it. On a cherry machine, this game is gorgeous in sight and sound! Where Cyan failed (and miserably so) was in the gameplay. As you can probably tell by now, we weren't too thrilled with the added layer of physical puzzles. Now that you have the freedom to go anywhere, do anything, the developers thought it was a logical step to add agility tests (running, jumping, pushing objects) into their puzzles. The overused puzzle of "pushing" objects made us think we were playing a soccer game! I'm expecting a Myst game, not a FPS or Mario clone! On top of that, more than enough of the other puzzles in this game have such impossible levels of logic and lateral thinking built in to them, that they've taken all the joy out of solving them. We had to resort to hints off the internet more times than I am proud to admit. Myst and Riven were hard, but at least the solutions to the puzzles made sense. Finally, we didn't appreciate playing hide-and-go-seek with all the Journey Cloths and Relto Pages. Three words: what a copout! PLEASE, take the tech from this game and meld it with gameplay on par with Myst and Riven! If that is what you are expecting, try something else. I'm holding my breath that Mysterious Journey II might get it right.
Rating:
Summary: an unhappy ubisoft customer....
Review: I bought Uru ($49.99) and the strategy book that goes with it.($19.99). I have the other 3 games in the Myst Trilogy and enjoyed them very much, without any problems running them on my 2 year old and fairly expensive system. However, after installing the game, I discovered that I don't have the proper graphics card so the game will not run. It will cost $150 (cheapest price) to get the appropriate card. And now I am stuck with a game on which I spent $70. They won't take it back because it's been opened. Yes, I know I should have checked into the system requirements a little more ...but I had faith it would run like all the other Myst games have on my computer. I think Ubisoft should refund to those who don't have the appropriate graphics and don't want to spend the money to get another card. Or perhaps they can come up with a version of Uru that will run on my machine. I am not happy and will have to find someone willing to buy the game and book already opened. I feel cheated by Ubisoft....which is too bad, since I love the other games and will just have to be happy playing them over and over, especially Riven. (my favorite). I gave the game 1 star, but don't really know how the game runs since I can't run it!!
Rating:
Summary: Awesome graphics
Review: One month ago, I rated this game as a one star and advised "buyer beware". This was because I didn't do my homework and just assumed I could use my 2003 top of the line Sony Vaio with the standard Intel video card. Oops.....OK, so you need to invest a little, $100+, to play a very nice game. The graphics are awesome, beautiful texturing and smooth moveability(does such a word exist?). I couldn't give it a 5 rating because frankly I'm bored with the same old puzzles, riddles and strange scenery. Granted they finally improved the soundtrack a bit, but I almost feel like I'm just playing a glorified version of Riven. I would like to see more planet earth scenery, more interpersonal dialogues and some humor(like a new version of Legacy of Time which I LOVED! If only Red Orb still existed....). Regarding the URU live, it seems like it has potential, once they improve their servers to handle the traffic and shorten the LONG downloads and numerous crashes to desktop. Bottom line, I'm playing it and enjoying it, so it was worth the purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: Correct System Requirements
Review: Amazon has the wrong requirements listed. Here is the correct list taken from the Ubisoft support website. Pay particular attention to the video card listing. In order to play this game properly, your computer must meet or exceed these minimum requirements: Supported OS: Windows 98SE/2000/ME/XP (Only)
Processor: 800 MHz Pentium III or AMD Athlon or better
RAM: 256 MB RAM or more
Video Card: 32 MB Nvidia Geforce 1,2,3,4, or FX - ATI Radeon 7000-9800 or better
Sound Card: DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
DirectX: DirectX 8.1 (Included on disc)
CD-ROM: 4x or faster (NOT recommended for use with CD-RW's)
Hard Drive Space: 2 GB free hard disk space
Peripherals Supported: Mouse, Keyboard
Display: 800x600 16-bit display
Rating:
Summary: The Real System Requirements
Review: The requirements that Amazon is listing are incorrect. Here are the correct requirements taken from the Ubisoft support site. In order to play this game properly, your computer must meet or exceed these minimum requirements: Supported OS: Windows 98SE/2000/ME/XP (Only) Processor: 800 MHz Pentium III or AMD Athlon or better RAM: 256 MB RAM or more Video Card: 32 MB Nvidia Geforce 1,2,3,4, or FX - ATI Radeon 7000-9800 or better Sound Card: DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card DirectX: DirectX 8.1 (Included on disc) CD-ROM: 4x or faster (NOT recommended for use with CD-RW's)
Hard Drive Space: 2 GB free hard disk space Peripherals Supported: Mouse, Keyboard
Display: 800x600 16-bit display
Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Money
Review: I LOVED Myst and Riven I WANT SO BADLY to love Uru But Uru won't let me I am trying I have downloaded tonsa stuff Nothing works - I keep crashing before I can play - and my nifty new PC is only about 3 months old....!
| 
