Gameology 2.0

Review Of

Cyan Worlds. Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. San Francisco, CA: Ubisoft, 2003.

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Yup. I'm a glutton for punishment. Even though I had plenty of negative things to say about URU, I felt morally (or perhaps financially?) motivated to at least give the included expansion, Path of the Shell, a fair chance. It game with the pack.

The most accurate review I read about Shell was that it "was clickable art." I couldn't agree more. The graphics are wonderful, the music is wonderfully emotive, and the worlds themselves are interesting. There are worse ways to spend an evening than walking oneself through Path of the Shell. Where Shell bottoms out is in two areas where adventure games must excel: puzzles and gameplay. The majority of the puzzles in Shell are simply unsolvable without a walkthrough, a point that almost every other review I read agreed. I can't imagine how anyone, no matter how intelligent or experienced with the genre, could get through this game without a walkthrough or at least a hint guide. Still traumatized by the abusive puzzles of URU, I didn't even try. Amazingly, the other aspects of the game (graphics, sound, and atmosphere) are enough to almost makeup for this problem. One stage in particular involved traveling to the same island at vastly different times. The effect is quite ghostly. The final island is an asteroid floating through space; Tangerine Dreamish music plays and, by God, the effect was so surreal and awe-inspiring that I was almost willing to forget the wretchedness of the rest of the game. It's obvious to me that Cyan has one of the best art and sound crews ever assembled. The storyline isn't so bad either. The problem is that the puzzles and interface have become increasingly awful.

A few of the puzzles are simply so embarrasingly awful that it's hard to imagine they underwent any sort of external review. Several of them involve standing in one place, doing nothing, for a period of a little over 15 minutes. That's right. And if you dare move, oops, you must start over.

Another puzzle involves both a 15 minute wait and pixel-perfect accuracy. Essentially, you're setting 12 levers. If you set one just a hair off (and the hashes you're supposed to line them up with are hard to make out), you've just wasted 15 minutes. Try again. Does this sound at all fun? It's not. At least Yeesha doesn't make any appearances until the end, though a longish monologue at the end was enough to make my teeth grind.

I'm surprised that so many reviewers seem willing to forgive this game its faults, just as I was with URU. My guess is that Cyan's heritage is enough to give some reviewers myopia; they're unable or unwilling to see the defects and poor choices made by the developers.