When I saw Myst V sitting on the shelf at Sam's Club, I knew it had to be mine. At first, I thought I could wait until it dropped in price a bit ($50 at Target, $40 at Sam's), but I gave up and bought it. It's worth that just to send the game industry the message that we want to see more games like this.
Myst V is a fun game, though I will admit to liking Myst IV better for reasons I'll discuss in this review. If Myst V really is the end of the series, then I would rank it second, with Myst Exile coming third, followed by Myst and Riven. The less said about the other game the better--I don't even want to use its name here. Let's just call it Myst BOOBOO.
Here's the lowdown: there's nothing really bad to say about Myst V, though I had fewer of those "WOW" moments as I did with IV. Part of the problem is the graphics. Myst V is immersive 3D with real-time rendering. What this amounts to is a noticeable reduction in graphical quality from IV, and a lot of jerky animation and movement (I'm running a 2 ghz Athlon with 1 gig of RAM and a GeForce 5200 with 256 megs of video ram, and the thing clunked and stuttered even when I moved the video quality sliders far to the left). I'm not at all sure that the move to 3-D was worth losing the beauty and smoothness of what Cyan accomplished with Myst IV (a masterpiece). A well-acted "live action" segment would be far more effective than the stammering, Kraftwerk-like movements of the characters in Myst V. (I might note that I can run Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 just fine. The problem is in the software). Thankfully, the acting is minimal, but, boy, did I cringe everytime I hit one of those segments (perhaps they should've gotten the blonde-haired dude from Exile back--he was awesome).
Another problem is a gnat--meaning a small problem with the capability of becoming a BIG annoyance. The latter Myst games feature a "camera" tool that works basically like a built-in screenshot device. Myst IV even let you annotate your screenshots. This turned out to be a GREAT way to take notes--and at the end of the game, you have a nice "photo album" of your trip. Fun! Well, Myst V has the same tool, with a bonus--the pictures you take double as saved games. GREAT IDEA. So, what's the problem? Well, it's stupid, but there is no way to skip to the last page of your photo book. Everytime you open it, you start at page one, and have to manually advice through each page (if you save often and take lots of pics and notes, this gets VERY tedious). The pages also take awhile to turn, adding to the frustration of the mandatory clicking. I searched for a fix for this and found other people griping about it on the official forums, so I'm not alone. I ended up going through the book and deleting all my previous notes and saved game points to speed up the process (and ended up losing some vital clues). Argh. I don't know why this wasn't caught during playtesting, but it's a nasty little gnat. The same problem plagues the dialogue book which automatically records everything the characters say. Since the dialogue is crucial, this feature is as well, though it'd be nice to have a "SKIP TO END" button (or perhaps it should start each time with the latest entry).
Another problem (that thankfully didn't happen to me) involves drawing on a tablet. One really neat innovation is Myst V is the ability to talk to creatures using stone tablets. You find symbols throughout the game that you can etch onto a tablet. You then drop the tablet and scamper off (the creatures are shy of humans). If the creature recognizes the symbol, it'll do a bit of magic for you. It's a NICE feature, and way too much fun. Unfortunately, there is a symbol you can etch on the tablets that will instantly zap you to the end of the game, allowing you to skip all the other ages--and it's pretty easy to mistakenly etch this symbol on the tablet by accident. I'm glad it didn't happen to me, but there should be a failsafe in place to prevent it.
Now that I've done by complaining, let me get to the high points. The spotlight here is on the tablets. I really enjoyed experimenting with the creatures and thinking about how their powers would help me get through the puzzles. These guys are cool! Another great feature is the ability to quickly teleport around an age. Once you find the right symbols, you can get around very easily (there is no "zip" feature needed--and this way makes more sense anyway). Another "Golden Cadillac" feature here is the choice of THREE different navigation systems. If you liked the original interface (Myst), you're good. If you want first-person shooter style control, you've got it. If you want something in-between, you've got it. FINALLY, the choice is up the player, not the developer. I APPLAUD Cyan for this. They have SPOILED ME ROTTEN. I will accept no less in future adventure games!
The puzzles in Myst V range from easy to hard. None are impossible to figure out by serious thinking, though I did consult a hint book on at least one occasion. Most of the puzzles are very involved, but you are given enough clues (visually, orally, and textually) to form a hypothesis and conduct experiments. Cyan did a much better job here than usual of providing feedback, so you can figure out if you're on the right track when working through a puzzle. The puzzle I couldn't figure out involved four telescopes and a bunch of symbols. It was a beast, and the feedback was minimal (i.e., you might do everything right and not know it--it involves waiting for five minutes or so until something happens). My advice is that if you get hopelessly stuck on this level, save yourself some frustration and consult the hints. You're never going to get it. Another such moment occurs on the level with a gladiatorial arena. It involves etching a symbol on a tablet that isn't found on the level, but a scrap of a journal you get early in the game. Again, there is a wait involved, so even if you guess right, you might know it unless you know where to stand and how long to remain still. Maybe I could have guessed this one, but damn, there wasn't much to go on. There's at least one more of these "waiting" problems. I actually had the puzzle figured out, but it wasn't working. So I looked at the hints, and there it was--duh--just WAIT FOR IT... Yeah, I hate waiting for it. I have memories here of that awful Myst game whose name shall not be mentioned--"Wait 11 minutes in this spot and do nothing. If you move at all the puzzle will be reset and you must start again." Yes. I ordered a game, not a torture device.
Perhaps the coolest part of the game happens at the end, when you get to go back to Myst (the original game). This time it's in 3-D, and it's a trip that's a mix of deja vu and nostalgia. Unfortunately, nothing works anymore, but it's a nice way to end the game. Unfortunately, if you do everything right you won't get to see Myst--so save and make the "bad decision" at least once so you can check it out. Really, the "bad ending" is cooler than the "good endings," which features some lame dialogue from Yeesha and being called an "idiot" by Esher. At least the bug-men seem to like me now. Thanks, Cyan.
I'll hopefully have more to say about this game later, but I must now get back to my C-64 remixes. :-)
Bookmark/Search this post with:
– 
– 
– 
Recent comments