Games that Stole My Life #2

Myst

Or to be Precise, the Myst series of games, yes, Myst, Riven, Myst II: Exile, Myst Iv Revelations, Uru and Myst V: End of ages have all taken up an inordinate amount of my time. The series focuses on you, a mysterious traveller who gets dragged into a mysterious book. You become embroiled into the affairs of Atrus, one of the D'ni, a people who could write links to amazing worlds in books.



Myst


The story starts with you trying to work out what has happened on this deserted island, and which one of Atrus's Sons trapped both him and Catherine. As you travel through the ages of Myst you see the signs of both son's corruption, but who was responsible, Sirrus, who plundered ages for wealth, or the more sadistic Achenar. Both try to blame the other in garbled messages from their trap books. The revelation at the end is of course, it was both.


I started playing Myst in School, it came free with the Apple computers that had been donated and being one of the better computing students I, along with others, was occasionally allowed to go to the lab at lunchtime and play games. The look and feel of Myst blew me away, the atmosphere, the mystery. Even now if I load up Myst, I can almost smell the pine on Myst Island. This is a game that virtually requires you to sit down and spend about 20 odd minutes in game reading. Oddly enough when I left school without knowing how Myst ended I needed to buy my own copy, and did, in pre-Internet days my only source of advice was a certain mate who had sometime net access and could provide me with hints. Regardless, this game took as many hours of my life online as it did offline, sitting in classes or in front of the TV I'd be trying to solve puzzles in my head or work out what I'd missed. Once I'd beaten it I would occasionally still load up the game, just to play the story again. I still get annoyed that RealMyst is so thin on the ground, yes I prefer ed the Myst IV engine, but to wander around Myst island with changing weather. Wow.



Riven

Following the events of Myst Atrus contacts you once again, try and free his wife Catherine from the clutches of his power mad Father Ghen in the age of Riven. And there may even be a way home for you.

For me, this was a long awaited sequel. What happened next. Surprisingly, at the time I was a little disappointed. Initially the more uniform look of the different islands of Riven was a let down after the variety of the ages of Myst. However the plot was interesting, and seeing the sadistic way Ghen kept his followers obedient through fear was interesting, if nothing else because you, as the outside observer get the view from behind the curtain. Riven also suffered from puzzles making slightly less sense, in Myst, they were hints to combinations to access the valuable link books, in Riven some made sense but others (The generator puzzle for example) didn't really make sense (Why have a coloured bead puzzle to switch on power?) Overall though a very good addition.





Myst III: Exile

For a few years this was just a cover picture and a selection of images and concept sketches to me. My machine lacked the oomph to run Myst III. This led me to do something purists will no doubt call a travesty. I played Myst III on the Playstation 2. Yes, I played it on a console, my enjoyment was not diminished of this tale of a nutter who was tortured by Sirrus and Achenar out for revenge, plus you really felt like you were learning a little about the "art" of writing worlds. We also had a good selection of distinct areas, mechanical islands, anachronistic tech and giant organic areas. This was the Myst I remembered. It also had a fantastic "Gotcha" moment on the villain, who I'd found sympathetic, but also fallen afoul of the ending where he basically stabs you in the back.





Myst IV: Atrus has invited you over to see him and his family, and you apparently haven't learned that things go wrong when you drop in. Sure enough, he's been visiting his sons, who he trapped in their ages during the events of Myst, and wants to know wheather he should let them out. While he's away getting parts for a machine there is an explosion and his daughter Yeesha disappears, and worse, it seems that one of his sons is responsible. But which one.

This was excellent, it had the varied ages that drew me to Myst, a decent mystery (Albeit similar to Myst) and my favorite graphics engine, the set nodes made a game that looked better than its sequel, it had the neat feature that you could tap surfaces, in fact the sound could deserve lines of review alone, Only two puzzles were hellish and the mystery was really well presented. Plus it had the superb version of Peter Gabriel's "Curtains" in it. One I must return to at some point.





Myst V

Set many years after the events of Myst IV, Yeesha is all growed up and the events of Uru are in the past. Things are beginning to fail and collapse, and it may be Yeesha's fault. This is so far (With a small caveat) the only Myst Game I am yet to finish. You must re-assemble some sort of tablet, then work out if you can save the Myst universe.

This game had an several new gimmicks, it was split over 4 distinct ages and the D'ni city itself, well at least the access to the City, nice to see areas from the books realised though. Anyway, puzzles are mostly solved using a tablet on which you draw symbols to make events happen in the age. Its a bit weird and can be an utter pain. Each time you draw a symbol you have to drop the tablet and let one of the Bharo (From Uru) judge your drawing, and they're pretty damned fussy. Still, nice touch of having Yeesha and an older D'ni man follow you through the adventure, giving advice and trying to talk you to their way of thinking. Problem is there are far too many timebound puzzles, where you do one thing and have a limited time to do the next few steps. It removes the easy and thoughtful pace of the previous games. Also while the engine used (Same as RealMyst and Uru) allows you complete free roaming, the node based system of IV looked better and seemed more immersive. Another I'll have to go back to and see if I can finish.

Uru

This was a fairly bold attempt by the Myst bods. A Spinoff, so not directly related to Atrus, experimenting with some 3rd person and platform elements, and finally it was to have an online feature, so the game could be played through as a group of friends solving the puzzles, creating new ones and just hanging out. The story follows Yeesha, Daughter of Atrus and Catherine and various prophecies of the D'ni and dark secrets in their past.

This game had a lot of nice touches, not just tat you could run around the ruins of D'ni, and Visit the cleft in the rocks Atrus grew up in. Although those were nice touches. An element of the plot featured an abandoned expedition to the D'ni city by a group called the D'Ni restoration committee, who were investigating this underground city and hoping to open it up for study. The gameplay basically featured exploring several ages in order to highlight a series of "Journey Cloths" througouht each area. You had a home base of your own little island (As seen on the cover) think it was called Rhelto. A neat touch was you could pick up pages for your personal Rhelto book to add things like weather and decorations. There is even a page for trees but they take time to grow. The basic story of exploring the patchier parts of D'ni history is compelling and despite the 3rd person and some irritating platform parts it is a fun game to play. The caveat from Myst V being the only game i didn't finish, not exactly true. I completed the main quest of Uru, but didn't play through the two expansions, Do D'ni and Path of the shell. So those adventures still wait for me. I also never had a chance to try the online element before it collapsed. However I believe there is a new version of the online game out. I'd be interested to meet that online community

So, not only has the Myst series taken many many hours of my life, but it plans to take many more. In fact, when I fix my big computer, I feel a Myst Marathon coming on.