Myst

"A good RPG that is a little too realistic."

Since I first got into the Legend of Zelda series I've been a fan of the role-playing game genre. So when I found a catalogue advertising one of the most popular PC role-playing games of all time nice and cheap, I thought "Why not?" The game promised to have a thoroughly realisic style of gameplay, which was another bonus since the more thinking required in an RPG the more fun you can get from it. After playing some of the game, however, I was mildly disappointed.
At the start of Myst, you are the humble young reader who, while browsing around at the local library, has found this very old but still readable book called Myst. Inside it describes, in intricate detail, a place called Myst Island. You find it utterly facinating, and when you get to the very last page in the book, it has a picture of a dock. When you touch the picture, you find yourself transported onto Myst Island with nothing to do except explore.

GAMEPLAY
The first thing you must do in Myst is explore around. With the game played in a first-person perspective, it's a simple point-and-click affair as far as navigating goes; click foward to go foward and to the sides if you want to turn around. The camera angles show up really nicely and you can really admire the beauty of Myst Island while you're wondering how you can possibly get home. You can do little else in this game save move foward, turn around, examine or pick up objects or trip switches, but then that's all you could have done if you were genuinely transported to Myst Island.

Unfortunately, the realism involved in Myst is also its downfall. The only character interaction you get is with two people through a magical book, and you can't hear them clearly anyway since the transmission is fuzzy. There are absolutely no clues to be found in the game, save those you get from Myst Island's library and even those amount to a series of cryptic diary entries. Although there should be more remnant's of Myst's destroyed civilisations (and thus, more clues for the player), there are none. It would still be possible for more clues to be scattered throughout the game while retaining the realism the designers have been aiming for; the current gameplay leaves the player thoroughly bored with the lack of progress made after a few hours of thorough thinking and puzzle-solving.

AUDIO AND VISUALS
The sounds in Myst are excellent and a great credit to the game's sound department. The visuals of the game are also excellent, especially when you view a holographic recording left behind by one of the Myst Island inhabitants or the static-filled communications between two other characters. However, there are a couple of flaws which have been overlooked; the game is simply too dark. At first I thought it was another means of making the game more realistic, but after looking at the corresponding screenshots in a magazine I realised that it was too dark to see all the clues and switches. Turning up the brightness on my monitor or increasing the colour depth in an effort to brighten up the level proved futile, making a particularly challenging game even harder. Also, the animations and photographs of the people you finally meet in your adventure are a little grainy, so it's a shame it wasn't designed to take advantage of better graphics cards.

REPLAYABILITY
With the high challenge of the game and the lack of clues to be found, and also the lack of interaction with other people, leaves the replayability of Myst rather low. Although the game warns you must think puzzles through thoroughly and methodically, there are so few clues to the puzzles that you simply can't think them through at all. This game could have been improved a lot more if more character interaction was brought in, since this game often boils down to one long tedious life of puzzle-solving.

SUM-UP
While the concept of this game is entirely exellent, its execution leaves a little to be desired. With too few clues to help in solving the puzzles and essentially no character interaction, you will probably be better off playing this game with a strategy guide within easy reach. It's probably worth buying, but only if you get it on special.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/99, Updated 12/05/99