Gameology 2.0

Review Of

Presto Studios. Myst III: Exile. San Francisco, CA: UbiSoft, 2001.

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I've been meaning to put my thoughts up for some time on yet another game my wife and I recently completed--Myst III: Exile. My expectations for this game were low. It wasn't developed by Cyan, for one thing--they outsourced it to an outfit named Presto Studios. The reviews I'd read suggested it was a fairly lackluster entry in the series--a "cash-in" with little value compared to Cyan's earlier masterpieces, Myst and Riven.

My experience with Exile was that it is even better than its predecessors. If it doesn't break much new ground, it makes better use of the resources Cyan developed only roughly.

For one thing, Myst III is more fun. I never felt that sense of existential despair I experienced with Riven. There is more sense here of what the player needs to accomplish. The puzzles are more intuitive and nicely grouped together to minimize backtracking or that vague feeling that the current puzzle is unsolvable and won't be until much later. I was only forced to consult a hint site once. I'm glad I did, because the secret to the puzzle I was stuck on turned out to be something I *thought?* I had already tried and had ruled out...Ahhh.

The game worlds of Myst III are simply breathtaking. One world involves a series of giant-marble puzzles that really caught me by surprise. I seldom feel compelled to describe a puzzle as "beautiful," but these were simply a joy to solve, and the visuals are highly rewarding. Anyone who has played the game is likely to remember the "marble level" for some time; I found it one of the most creative and memorable moments in my rather extensive history as a gamer.

Perhaps the key technical innovation here is the introduction of 360 degree view. Exile isn't 3-D in the sense of Doom--you still have to click around the screen to go to the next "room" or area. However, when you get there, you can look all around--in 360 degrees. What's even neater is that if there is an animation playing, you can still see it if you look around (you aren't just frozen there in front of it).

My wife and I are divided in our opinion of the screen-acting. I found the performance of your nemesis, the "exile," simply riveting. I sympathized greatly with the character (he's been exiled for twenty years or so; lost and forgotten in one of Atrus' worlds.) He was deceived by Atrus' sons and wants to exact vengeance, but he's a much better developed character than my description here may suggest. He's definitely richer and more faceted than the villain in Riven (Atrus' father). There's one scene in particular that really stirred me. I didn't break into tears, but I'd never felt so guilty before about the effects my actions in a game had on the characters of its game world. To put it simply, at one point, the player tricks the villain and leaves him stranded on the outside of a barrier. He's now stuck in a prison much smaller and limiting than the barren worlds he was mired in for so many years.

It takes the exile a moment to realize what has happened; then the player sees the awful realization on his weathered face. The once-haughty villain (or perhaps that was just desperation or fear?) cracks, and we see a human on the screen, not a "non-player character," as we so basely refer to them in the lingo. It's quite a moment; even writing about it now brings back some of the feelings I felt when I first witnessed it.

Of course, good players will take the actions necessary to free the exile and send him on his way back to his family. This causes another great scene--we see the villain's shock that anyone would ever perform a "random act of kindness" for him, and he waves before clambering aboard his ship.

Well, I can't go on about this game forever. I really enjoyed it and found it quite moving--something of which I felt not the barest twinge in the prequels.