realMyst
MacPlay
Ubi Soft International
MYST took the gaming world by storm way back in 1993, the two-year brainchild of brothers, Rand and Robyn Miller, the founders of Cyan in 1988. It went on to become the most popular computer game ever, with over six million copies sold. Sequels, RIVEN and MYST 3 Exile, followed later and were also very popular.
Now comes realMyst. Okay, this is a Mac web site, so perhaps we should be a little more accurate and say realMyst for the PC arrived in the fall of 2000 and then MacPlay ported the game to the Mac world, arriving for sale just this year!
realMyst is not a sequel, but a fresh, vibrant, okay, say it, gorgeous re-rendering of the original MYST into 3D as the authors ultimately envisioned it. MYST established itself as the pinnacle of adventure gaming, the standard against which all subsequent adventure games would be compared. But back in 1993 the hardware that all but folks working in the NSA and various military weapons research labs could access would not allow a fully 3D world to actually play. So, Rand and Robyn created a HyperCard stack of 2D paintings and added incredible sound to create the next best thing. Adventure lovers were smitten and this revised work will rekindle the love affair.
The computer gaming world today takes 3D effects for granted, and so it was time to take a fresh approach and reawaken a sleeping giant. Re-rendering MYST into a fully 3D world with 360 degrees of movement allows the player to finally experience the immersive game play that the authors intended. And thus the name: realMyst. For someone like me who loved the original, it’s like being able to be inside the authors’ minds, seeing the game for the first time as it was meant to be played.
For old MYST lovers, the game is virtually the same as the original, but with one additional age, New Rime Age. If you’ve played the sequels, it’s a little anticlimactic in that the New Rime Age is basically a construction to allow MYST to end with a direct lead-in to RIVEN. It’s not really a criticism, for how else could it end? The stunning graphics more than make up for the lack of a “surprise” ending.
New players will not be disappointed. Although my two oldest boys, ages 14 and 12, remember playing MYST when they were pretty small on a Quadra 840AV, they hadn’t picked it up in quite awhile, having spent the past winter escaping from homework into Warcraft II and Starcraft Brood War. I was really curious to see what my oldest would think, who really enjoys a challenging game. I asked him to write a brief review from his perspective and here are Isaac’s summary thoughts:
The first thing you notice when you play realMyst is that it is fully 3D. On my iMac, which didn’t meet the video requirements, movement was pretty choppy but since there were no monsters jumping out from rocks it worked all right. (Though I should probably note that even MacWorld said realMyst looked choppy to them though they never said what they tested it on.)
The view, both inside and out, of the buildings is much better then in the original. The textures are much more realistic and the lighting is much better. Even the water in the ocean moves. Another thing you’ll notice after you start is that the sky constantly changes. You may go into a building at dusk and come out at midnight. Twenty-four hours in realMyst is probably worth fifteen to twenty minutes in the real world.
The game play is not much different from the original. Just hold down the mouse button when you want to move forward and move the cursor to the right and left to see all the different clues and look around. It can be frustrating at times when you get stuck though there’s always a way out of it. It’s a game of hitting switches in the right order and finding keys and secret doors. MacWorld said there’s supposed to be a few new quests but since I never played very far into the original it was all relatively new to me.
Since (unlike the original), the camera centers on wherever the cursor moves, it can be frustrating when trying to open doors or hit switches which often time need precise timing. Not to say it’s real bad, just to say it’s something you have to get used to. But despite what I’ve just written, I like this game. Many gamers who don’t have the trigger-happy-fingers of the Nintendo gameboys (excuse the pun) can use their intellect to play this game.
The game itself seems fairly stable. I only had one crash and that was in OS 9. Though I should say that in Mac OS X the game seemed a good deal slower.
Requirements:
If you like solving puzzles, riddles, and being frustrated with locks then this game may be for you. Though if you’ve already played through the original then you may not want this unless you think you’ve forgotten most of the quests. And, for many Quake-action-kids this game may be too boring however my 12 and 6-year-old brothers play it. There is virtually no action so don’t expect to see Mario or Darth Vader. Many people will like this new look at MYST though many won’t care. I thought realMyst was very clever and I am glad to have experienced it.
My final appraisal is that the game itself is true to the original. Both are masterpieces of immersive gaming. If the visual impact of realMyst is less awe-inspiring than the original was in 1993 it’s not the fault of the game or of the authors. It’s the natural result of our growing familiarity with 3D computing. Where once it was a fascinating concept, today it’s a reasonable expectation.
If you like adventure games, and appreciate truly beautiful 3D artwork, you will enjoy realMyst, providing you have the computing hardware to handle the huge 3D world. The magic of the original seems to come more fully to life in this version.
Caveat: take the graphic card recommendations seriously. This game plays noticeably better on a fast G3 or G4 with a modern 3D graphics accelerator utilizing 16 MB or more of video ram. Also not mentioned on the package is that the installer will place 654.7 MB of data on your hard drive. Before jumping in with both feet, I’d recommend taking a look at the excellent support site at MacPlay http://www.macplay.com/support/realMyst.shtml.
I love this game enough to have e-mailed Apple recommending they include it as part of their standard software package with all their new hardware. It’s that good.
MacMice Rating: 4 out of 5
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