Second, these aren't action games they are puzzles and very difficult ones, if you get bored easily you won't like them. Very few people will win one of them in just one session, even if you have the time and patience to sit at the computer for a very long time. With hints they can be solved rather quickly, but that takes most of the fun out of them. Also they have almost no replay value as the puzzles aren't at all challenging after the first time you solve them.
The scenes are beautiful and strange, but most of the animation is slow and choppy at best, not bad enough to be frustrating but you will definitely notice it. (quicktime version 6.5.2, the most current at time of this review, will run them without problems).
The Myst series is not your run-of-the-mill computer game. It's more like a set of graphic novels in which you have to solve puzzles in order to discover the next piece of the story. You can't change the story or the outcome in any way, you just help it move along.
If you enjoy a mental challenge, and complex storylines without graphic gore or violence and very little action, you might find these games quite enjoyable. Even if you think you don't like computer games you might find that you like these they're very different.
I certainly like them, and I intend to buy Myst IV as well.
Finally, a few tips but no spoilers.
Look at everything carefully, don't get in a hurry.
Check every direction in every scene.
Read everything.
Click on every button, lever, and light.
Look behind every door, from both directions.
Many of the puzzles involve providing power to a device before it will work, sometimes you have to complete an extremly complex series of actions before a device you encountered much earlier in the game will work.
There are a few places where you can actually lose completely if you do the wrong thing so don't forget to save, and then try everything, sometimes what seems wrong is actually right. Sounds are important too.
Breaking things isn't always bad.
Sometimes puzzles seem complete when they're not (did you miss a final button, switch or lever?)
And lastly Be patient, take a break and let it rest for a while if you're stuck.
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I purchased this product thinking that I could run the entire 3 CD set on my Mac OS 10 operating system. Unfortunately I had to buy it to find out that only Myst III (Exile) works w/OS 10. The other two CDs (Myst I Masterpiece Edition & Myst II Riven), will only work w/OS 9. I don't have OS 9 on my computer and it's no longer available.The description section for Myst 10th Anniversary DVD Edition is definitely lacking crucial information. It needs to say that it will work with Mac, but only if you have OS 9 AND OS 10 installed on your computer. This way no one else will waste their money.
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If you are like me -if you are someone who really does not get into computer games much because they rarely engage you beyond the first couple of hours -Myst is a very pleasant surprise. Like many people, I am disgusted by the grotesque or mind-numbing nature of most of the games you see for computers and in arcades. Myst is a game that I think is attractive to readers and gamers who like more contemplative entertainment, and (this is just a guess) it probably attracts those of us who enjoy playing games like chess or Scrabble on a computer. This game takes more patience, it requires you to really use your reasoning abilities, even to get out a pad and pencil to sketch courses of action. It is not about instant gratification (blowing away your enemy) but rather, it is about entering a sort of fantasy world and trying to figure out why things look and act the way they do, then acting on your hypotheses. Each time you do uncover one of the answers (and I don't want to give any of them away here) you are rewarded by gaining access to a whole new realm of mysteries that is more complex than the previous one. Along the way, the music and the images border on the edge of mystery, and sometimes even horror. But it is an implied horror, something you sense rather than something thrown at you, and the game never crosses the line into tastelessness. It's one of the very few games I have ever tried where, hours after I shut down the computer, I got an insight into how to go about a particular strategy, and then I wanted to get back into it and see if my idea worked. How often do video games cause that reaction in players?Once you have "won" the game, there is nothing new to experience. However, it will take you a good while to get there. If you compare this to other entertainments, for example, going out to movies, you realize that the hours you'll spend on the game, even if it does have an "ending," are well worth the price. Even after "winning," it is interesting once in a while to go back into the game just to take a look at the images again.
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I have windows XP--just so you know.The first game I played in this three disk set was Exile, for I have played the originals of the first two games before. It ran perfectly, but that might be because I bought a brand new very up-to-date video card to play Uru on. (It didn't work with my old card.)
Having Riven on only one disk is great, but I haven't played the whole game through yet (since I played the original very recently). The only real problem with it was the music was a little choppy. Same with Myst. Since I have bought the soundtracks, however, this isn't too much of a loss--besides, the music was a little choppy and off in the original sometimes anyway.
The following goes for all three:
Graphics: Five Stars! They are excellent and detailed. You can see yourself in these beautiful worlds, and completely get lost in them. They are very fun to explore just for hours at a time, so traveling back and forth from place to place rarely, if ever, gets tedious. It is also a wonderful addition, in Exile, to be able to look around you almost 360 degrees--though it moves really fast and sometimes gave me a headache when I played in the dark.
The animations were excellent, and looked like real people/creatures (probably because they used real people), but sometimes in Myst/Riven it was tiresome to have to watch an animation all the way through before you could move again--especially if you had seen it before. In Exile, most of the time you can move around while animations are playing, which is great.
Gameplay: FIVE STARS! Though it is hard to get used to the scrolling in Exile, it is always simple to move around and interact with things etc. etc. All the puzzles fit into the game, the plots have no holes, the acting is great (for computer games) and it is always very absorbing (for lack of a better word). When you finish a game sometimes you open it up again to see if there can be another ending, or simply to look at the beautiful scenery again.
Music: Four and a half stars; and that only because it can be choppy and grainy in the first two games sometimes. Otherwise, it supplements the game perfectly and gets better from sequel to sequel. The introductory music of Exile gives me chills, sometimes, for it is hauntingly beautiful.
If you are not patient, or not willing to spend a lot of time solving puzzles, this game is not for you. If you really want to play, however, but find the puzzles impossible, there are strategy guides available and plenty of online help. (I myself used the internet at least twice per game, and let me tell you--it is way less satisfying than solving it yourself).
If you love shoot-em-up and other sorts of fast moving games, this game will never be for you.
But, if you have a big imagination, plenty of patience, a grasp of logic, and a love of mystery, you'll get right into these games. You can practically feel the wind on your face and smell the salt from the sea when you're standing there staring at it all--and you'll wish it'll never end.
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First, reviews of the actual gameplay can be found elsewhere. My major point here is to share how one could likely get this to work on Windows Vista. This works, in the least, for Myst Masterpiece and the 5-CD Riven (which I had earlier), so I would think it very likely it'd work for the DVD Riven and probably also for Myst Exile (if Myst Exile didn't work already). I got this info from a Google searchThere're 3 things you need to do/know to get the game working:
1) Set the correct compatibility mode for the shortcut to each game. This is Windows 95 for Myst and, I think, for Riven as well. I also gave the program administrative privileges in case there were issues with saving files; I'm not sure if this makes a difference.
2) Copy the System32 Quicktime files that "come with" each game into the Program Files directory for the respective game. Of course, it's probably a bad idea to have multiple versions of Quicktime installed (if it's even possible), so this gets around the issue that the different games appear to use different (and, more importantly, now outdated) versions of Quicktime. Here's what I did for Myst:
uninstall the current version of Quicktime (happened to be the latest Quicktime Alternative for me, which didn't seem to work with Myst)
install the version of Quicktime that comes on the Myst DVD
go to the C:\Windows\System32 directory
find the Quicktime files just installed; I found 3 (they should have an old "modified" date, I think 2003 if I remember correctly; to figure out precisely which files are relevant, cross reference the dates of the files in the System32 folder with the dates of the files in the Program Files\Quicktime folder)
copy these Quicktime files from the System32 folder to the Myst program files folder (it's possible not all of these are necessary, but more doesn't seem to hurt)
uninstall this version of Quicktime and, if necessary, delete the System32 files if they weren't cleaned up
Myst worked for me afterwards. I used a similar procedure for the 5-CD Riven; I'm thinking it likely that the DVD Riven will be fixed that way as well. Additionally, for Riven, I read somewhere to set "fEnableAudioProxy=true" on the appropriate line within Mohawk.w32 (a text file found in the Riven program files folder). Not sure if this is necessary, but I read somewhere to try that first, before installing and copying Quicktime, so I did; it didn't work, and I just left it.
3) I had trouble saving games initially since there was no line editor to enter the desired file name in the "Save As..." dialog box, so I created dummy (empty) files with the correct extension (*.mys for Myst; *.riv for Riven) in the program files folder to overwrite with the saved game. Annoying, but easy to work around.
So all in all, it takes maybe 5 10 minutes to get all this done for each game, which isn't very much time. If you're not very "computer literate", your best bet is to get a friend to help you. The trickiest part is finding the installed Quicktime files in the System32 folder, which I did based on the modified date (I just found a group of files with the an "old" modified date that matched at least one of the files in the Program Files\Quicktime folder).
Since getting Myst and Riven to work, I haven't had any issues with the game freezing or anything. My biggest "functional" complaint, though, is that it completely taxes one of my cores at 100% ALL THE TIME. Do Myst and Riven really not know how to just sit pretty and display a still image while I decide what to do next?! This has a tendency to make my laptop super hot, which has a tendency to make my laptop super slow, so once in a while I have to take a break to let it cool down. If your computer has heating/cooling issues, beware.
Also, to reiterate some hints from another post:
Read everything.
Check every direction at every location.
Pay attention to sounds, they are often subtly important.
Look behind every door (both sides).
Good luck!
Jeff
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