Real MYST

Don't let cynics and gaming snobs steer you away from realMYST. It's a game worth owning. The original MYST was a truly brilliant concept in its time and, finally, the status quo of gaming hardware can keep up with what it should have been in 1993. Well, almost: This is no game for a grape iMac with a rage 128 chip. Be aware that system requirements are steep, but those with the hardware who haven't played this game yet should consider realMYST at the top of their "must buy" list. This is every bit as much of a classic as the original and it delivers MYST the way it was meant to be.

это отдельная история. Полгода спустя Presto Studios выпустила Myst 3: Exile, который был традиционно пререндеренным, но все равно чертовски красивым, а Cyan ушла в работу над Mudpie Project, полностью трехмерным онлайновым проектом во вселенной D’ni, где каждый человек, имевший доступ к Т3 (был когда-то такой маломощный канал связи) мог, подобно Артусу и его сыновьям, создавать и разрушать в реальном времени не просто объекты, но целые миры... А Myst вошел в историю — как прародитель подвида квестов «от первого лица», как первый трехмерный квест, сумевший создать по-настоящему близкий к реальному мир, и, наконец, как просто красивая, эффектная и умная игра.

Personally, before playing realMYST, I was comfortably neutral--neither a Myst-fan nor a Myst-hater, perhaps verging a little on the "hate" side because of the mechanical-type puzzles and my mechanical ineptitude. realMYST, however, has converted me forever.

The Rime age, as Cyan has christened it, is a tacked-on, muddled hodgepodge of delightful and cumbersome playing. The age is beautifully constructed ... and a letdown. It is not long, ends abruptly (occurring after the original's ending), and really has the feel of being stuck on as an out-of-place afterthought. The puzzle design in this section is at best uneven—the first discovered puzzle is a clever triumph after a couple of red herring areas, and the final puzzle is a wheezy letdown with a cruddy payoff. Were the ambient sounds more intense at Rime? Seems like it, but that could just be me.

Ce titre est donc d'une richesse incommensurable ; La réalisation technique en est à vous couper le souffle (ou à vous écoeurer si vous ne disposez pas d'une machine suffisament puissante), l'univers est proprement incroyable et les énigmes sont assez fines pour la plupart. Ce titre est vraiment exceptionnel et préfigure ce que sera la suite de la série : des énigmes et une intrigue se déroulant dans un univers de plus en plus réel. Nul doute que le prochain épisode realMyst sera un pas de plus vers un réalisme de plus en plus flagrant (limite inquiétant). Et nous ne pouvons qu'anticiper la sortie d'autres titres de cette qualité.

If you have played Myst, it probably will not take you very long to finish this game, but it's worth playing anyway. RealMYST is the ultimate nostalgia trip—a classic game that plays just as you remember it, untouched by the hand of time. If only all the old favorites aged so well.

So what do you get that is different? You get a glorious 3 dimensional palette of rich colours and textures and sounds, in which clouds move across the sky, in which the day cycles from dusk to dawn and to dusk again, in which stars come out and rain comes down. The canvas is unmistakably Myst but the finished product is so much more.

The other big (read: most obvious of all) change to Myst is the addition of a new age not found in the original. The Rime age, as Cyan has christened it, is a tacked-on, muddled hodgepodge of delightful and cumbersome playing. The age is beautifully constructed ... and a letdown. It is not long, ends abruptly (occurring after the original's ending), and really has the feel of being stuck on as an out-of-place afterthought. The puzzle design in this section is at best uneven—the first discovered puzzle is a clever triumph after a couple of red herring areas, and the final puzzle is a wheezy letdown with a cruddy payoff. Were the ambient sounds more intense at Rime? Seems like it, but that could just be me.

It is an understatement to simply say that Myst marks a pinnacle in the history of adventure gaming. Since 1993, Myst has literally changed the landscape of graphic adventure games by bringing its surrealistic appeal to the masses. With over 6 million units sold, Myst has become the best-selling game of all time. Yet, the Miller brothers, creators of Myst, have never been truly satisfied with the technology that has first created the game. Their original vision of Myst is a fully immersive, dynamic world that a player can wander through and interact in. With the advent of real-time 3D graphics and improved hardware technology, this barrier can finally be breached. The game realMyst is the culmination of the original vision of the Miller brothers and is the version of Myst that they have always wanted to make.

But my blood really got pumping at the end, when I figured out how to enter the new bonus Age created just for this game. You know what? I don't want to spoil any of it for you, so I'm not going to describe it explicitly. But I will say that it's very fun figuring out how to find the linking book, and the Age itself is really (surprise surprise) great to look at, with cool (hint) weather effects of its own. It's quite short, but it does tie the games of Myst and Riven together better than the original ending did (though still without any explicit ending per se, which still annoys me a little).

Chances are if you ever played the classic Myst, you hated it and wish you bought something else, or you loved it and spent many late nights escaping into the game. With millions of copies sold, I'm going to guess that most of you have at least dabbled in the world of Myst. If you are one of the people who couldn't stand the original, you are most likely not going to enjoy realMYST. Conversely, if you lived and loved the classic game, then realMYST would be worth checking out. If you actually fall into the middle category of people who have never clicked around Cyan's famous island, you really should, no matter what version you get.

Eigentlich hielt ich die Idee einer aufpolierten Neuauflage von Myst ja für eher abwegig, aber beim Praxistest musste ich dann doch zugeben, dass das Spiel in modernisierter Verpackung locker mit manchem mithalten kann, was heutzutage erstmals veröffentlicht wird. Es hat schon seine Gründe, warum gerade Myst damals diesen großen Erfolg hatte, während all die Nachahmer mehr oder weniger floppten - der wichtigste und auch heute noch gültige dürfte sein, dass das Spiel eben gründlich durchdacht und äußerst logisch ist. Natürlich werden alte Hasen wenig damit anfangen können, denn auch mit einem Bonus-Level bleibt Myst halt Myst. Wer es aber noch nicht kennt, darf nun zugreifen!

So realMyst really is in a conundrum. Even with 3D graphics, realMyst isn't really worth playing if you've already played through the original, especially once you realize some of the puzzles you'll have to redo in order to get to your favorite ages. The new age is nice, but short, and the puzzles in that age are in the same vein of the other ages -- which could be a good or a bad thing, depending on how you feel about the puzzles in Myst and Riven in general. Hardcore fans won't want to venture into the Myst universe when there are so many other beautiful 3D adventures to undertake, and casual Myst fans who want to explore their favorite locations freely will undoubtedly find that they don't have the hardware muscle to push the polygon power needed to make realMyst run smoothly.

My general impression is that the authors really took this project seriously. Great graphics, the way the old locations have been remade, the ages and the puzzles all go to prove that. But one question still remains: what did they achieve by doing this? I can understand arcade conversions to a certain extent - your computer will now let you beat your old high-scores, remember favorite levels and enemies, finish the game, or at least, reach a level you never reached before. On the other hand, new players may be attracted to realMyst, but I doubt that any of the old players will bother with same old puzzles and solutions, completely identical to the original.

With some serious updates to the engine, realMYST would serve as a modern reminder that the original was an impressive game that was equally defined by both its fascinating detail and its original story. In its current form, realMYST is suitable only as a novelty for fans of the original, who will want to see the new epilogue. You still have to listen to Atrus' speech at the end, but afterward you're given a new age to visit and some new puzzles. The epilogue serves as a more comprehensive link to Riven, though it's still somewhat open-ended and lacks the conclusiveness you want when a game is finished. It may be a novelty, but it's still a mostly worthwhile one for those who fondly remember Myst.

Real Myst kämpft anno 2001 mit den gleichen Problemen wie schon das Original vor sieben Jahren. Was nützen mir die edlen Grafiken, wenn sie so entsetzlich steril sind? Nie fühle ich mich auf den menschenleeren Inseln wirklich zu Hause. Außerdem frage ich mich, wer dieses Spiel heute noch braucht. Es gibt genügend moderne Alternativen wie Monkey Island 4 oder The Longest Journey. Und für Fans der Serie steht Myst 3 bereits in den Startlöchern.

Going back to Myst was like going back to the cabin your family used to go to on vacation, and finding out they've added a refrigerator so you don't have to use the industrial freezer in the mud room. An improvement, to be sure. But then you remember creeping out of bed in the dead of night for a snack, crossing into the cold outer room, listening to noises and wonder if that hatchet murderer you were sure was out in the woods had seen you move by the window.