Posted March 31, 2010
realMyst ups the ante on the origional in that it places the player within a nearly fully traversable world instead of confining the player to the virtual "tracks" of the origional. As such, certain things that were inpossible to see in the origional copy of the game or areas that were previously inaccessable are now opened up to explore and view. The game also adds animations to the invironment, such as moving water and some weather effects, smoother animations for things like doors and lever puzzles and night and day effects.The developers have also added a new age accesable at the end of the game.
It's very interesting to get to move around Myst and its environs nearly completely without restriction. This new approach adds to the immersion of an already immersive game. When I first played this game, I actually found myself standing around on Myst island simply watching the sun rise and set or sitting in the rain in Stoneship, observing as the strom broke and then returned once more. It also makes some puzzles easier to solve via increasing the visibility and speeds up backtracking so it's not as iritating to run from place to place to check up on things. The new age is very visually impressive and provides a few new puzzles which are fun albeit a bit simple in comparison to some of the others of the game. Series veterans should get a real kick out of this added content.
The game isn't entirely without flaws, though, and ironically some of them come from the new navigation mechanic. Problems in getting around were low but in a recent play I got caught on a spare bit of geometry and was terrified that I was going to get perminantely stuck. Likewise, even though there is more opened up to explore, there's still the ocasional invisible wall to run into, sometimes without a very good explaination as to why (for example, I get why I can't go into the water and swim, but why can't I take a look at the rocky area between the library and the spaceship?). Also, Myst island is smaller than I remember. I'm not exactly sure if it's a problem of realizing the game in an invironment where everything has to be attached to each other or if the previous game with all of it's pre-rendered graphics accidentally skewed the perspective a little large, but I remember huge pillars in the garden, a giant mountain on the back of the library, a dense forest around the cabbin. These elements are still there but they feel smaller in scope. Admitedly, none of them seem particularly puny aside from the tower which now looks more like a large hill instead of an actual, well, tower.
The other thing is that there's a give and take with how things are now set up. Being able to walk almost anywhere allows you to view things from unique angles, but sometimes it's possible to miss a neat animation that the game's previous dead-set camera would point you directly at. A fully realized world typically means that the artifacts are rendered beautifully but on ocasion I find myself running across a model that just doesn't look as good as it's old, pre-rendered brother. And the quicker movement, while eliminating some frustration in backtracking, sometimes feels as though it disrupts the very deliberate pacing of the game. In the old Myst, I felt imersed because I could take in everything step by step. In this one, sometimes I zip by something really fast that I would have been forced to take a closer look at.
My griping aside, this really is a great version of the game. Myst in an of itself is fantastic and realMyst provides just as much eye-candy and enveloping presentation as its predecesor. I'm a bit torn as to whether or not I would recommend it to a newcomer (I'd advise picking up the origional or the masterpice version on this site if you're a newbie, if for no other reason than to find out what kinds of games we older gamers played when we were kids) but I can say without hesitation that I'd recommend it to someone who played the origional. It was really neat to re-explore worlds in their new state and not the least bit repeditive to go back and re-explore the old, familiar ages with all of the new bells and whistles attached. I second another reviewer's sentiment in that I hope Riven recives a similar treatment in the future.
It's very interesting to get to move around Myst and its environs nearly completely without restriction. This new approach adds to the immersion of an already immersive game. When I first played this game, I actually found myself standing around on Myst island simply watching the sun rise and set or sitting in the rain in Stoneship, observing as the strom broke and then returned once more. It also makes some puzzles easier to solve via increasing the visibility and speeds up backtracking so it's not as iritating to run from place to place to check up on things. The new age is very visually impressive and provides a few new puzzles which are fun albeit a bit simple in comparison to some of the others of the game. Series veterans should get a real kick out of this added content.
The game isn't entirely without flaws, though, and ironically some of them come from the new navigation mechanic. Problems in getting around were low but in a recent play I got caught on a spare bit of geometry and was terrified that I was going to get perminantely stuck. Likewise, even though there is more opened up to explore, there's still the ocasional invisible wall to run into, sometimes without a very good explaination as to why (for example, I get why I can't go into the water and swim, but why can't I take a look at the rocky area between the library and the spaceship?). Also, Myst island is smaller than I remember. I'm not exactly sure if it's a problem of realizing the game in an invironment where everything has to be attached to each other or if the previous game with all of it's pre-rendered graphics accidentally skewed the perspective a little large, but I remember huge pillars in the garden, a giant mountain on the back of the library, a dense forest around the cabbin. These elements are still there but they feel smaller in scope. Admitedly, none of them seem particularly puny aside from the tower which now looks more like a large hill instead of an actual, well, tower.
The other thing is that there's a give and take with how things are now set up. Being able to walk almost anywhere allows you to view things from unique angles, but sometimes it's possible to miss a neat animation that the game's previous dead-set camera would point you directly at. A fully realized world typically means that the artifacts are rendered beautifully but on ocasion I find myself running across a model that just doesn't look as good as it's old, pre-rendered brother. And the quicker movement, while eliminating some frustration in backtracking, sometimes feels as though it disrupts the very deliberate pacing of the game. In the old Myst, I felt imersed because I could take in everything step by step. In this one, sometimes I zip by something really fast that I would have been forced to take a closer look at.
My griping aside, this really is a great version of the game. Myst in an of itself is fantastic and realMyst provides just as much eye-candy and enveloping presentation as its predecesor. I'm a bit torn as to whether or not I would recommend it to a newcomer (I'd advise picking up the origional or the masterpice version on this site if you're a newbie, if for no other reason than to find out what kinds of games we older gamers played when we were kids) but I can say without hesitation that I'd recommend it to someone who played the origional. It was really neat to re-explore worlds in their new state and not the least bit repeditive to go back and re-explore the old, familiar ages with all of the new bells and whistles attached. I second another reviewer's sentiment in that I hope Riven recives a similar treatment in the future.