Myst III Exile

Here’s a question the answer to which you may find quite surprising. What is widely regarded as the best selling computer game of all time? Go on, have a guess. Quake perhaps, maybe Command and Conquer – what about a game like Tekken then? None of the above. The answer is a game that came out in 1993 (which is like, soooo long ago…) and has been selling ever since. It is of course, Myst.Myst and it’s sequel Riven were the brainchild of the Miller brothers Rand and Robyn (Windy was busy at the mill). Having already developed successful titles for the children’s market, they decided to take a more grown up perspective on their craft and spent two years building what was to be the first in a series of games set amongst the mysterious culture of the D’Ni people and the fabulous worlds they inhabit.Little did they know that they had in fact stumbled upon the secret formula for computer game success. The Holy Grail of the computer entertainment market itself was about to suddenly materialise in their modest office space (thanks to the presence of a particularly hot cup of tea), and the gaming world was never to be the same again. What they had discovered and which, for some unfathomable reason, no-one had ever thought of before, was to design a computer game that required intelligence. They designed a game that was unlike any computer game ever written before in that it wasn’t a childish and mindless conduit for excessive testosterone and attention deficit disorder.Myst sold because of its unique ability to draw it’s audience in to the story and the mystery that lay within. The game revolves around a man called Atrus and his two sons, Sirrus and Achenar. It appears that these people have learned a way to write and bring to life worlds of their own design. The player travels between these fantastic places through linking books – real books which contain the very essence of the places to which you’re travelling. This power has, of course, done what all power does; corrupt. Gripped by a sense of omnipotence (go look it up) Atrus”s sons, Sirrus and Achenar have started using and exploiting their worlds in a Machiavellian fashion ( http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=Machiavellian ). Boys will be boys, but their fun is causing imbalance in the whole system. These fragile worlds are literally coming apart at the seams. In an effort to reduce the harm being wreacked, Atrus has imprisoned his sons in worlds without any means of escape. Personally I think this is rather harsh behaviour for a father, and if his sons are that evil I would doubt that he is totally blameless.The successful conclusion of Myst is reached by doing what comes naturally and saving your own neck. On doing so you come face to face with Atrus who congratulates you on treating the fruit of his loins with as much contempt as he does and ignoring their pleas to be released from the prison of his construction. His mismatch with his genetics continues in the Riven, the sequel to Myst. This time, wouldn’t you know, it’s Atrus’s father that’s at it now, causing all sorts of mischief and strife. Your goal is, of course, to imprison Atrus’s father and save yourself:the Waltons they aint.Finally then, we come to Myst III, Exile. By now one can only speculate that Rand and Robyn had made their money and were too busy fishing, but the third part of this story of Atrus and his malignant genes has been created by Presto Studios – the home of some of the more notable adventure games to date. They have taken on the task of continuing this story and have done a fantastic job.It’s oft stated that the computer games industry makes more money than the movies so it’s hardly surprising that the production values for a title such as Myst III:Exile are on a par with Hollywood. Complex digital effect video sequences have been shot and integrated with the game to allow you to interact with the story. A large writing and creative team has worked to move and grow the story of Myst in this new environment. The limits of imagination have been pushed forward with the quality of the graphic images that can be generated these days.But what of the game itself? I think you would appreciate that like Myst and Riven before them, Myst III is a game that relies on revelation. The fun of the game is to discover what is going on and why. Because of the nature of the gameplay, the story cannot be told in a traditional linear fashion. To allow you the necessary freedom to explore, the story is deliberately vague to begin with and you are led to discover pieces of the puzzle as you go along. New worlds reveal new facts and new characters and only when you’ve pieced them all together can you see why the story has the overall shape that it does. Because of this you’ll understand my reluctance to say too much about the game itself as, in this instance, it would spoil it. What I can say though is that Presto Studios have been faithful to the series by keeping alive the basic game plan of keeping someone in prison and saving your own neck.Is it any good? I think it’s fantastic, probably the best in the series so far. Having enjoyed playing Myst and Riven, this is the best of both worlds. Like Riven, the game looks spectacular. There will be many people for whom the best part of the game is taking in the incredible detail of the many locations within. Like Myst, the puzzles are a lot of fun, requiring a certain degree of lateral thought and are designed around some sound physical principles. Much as I enjoyed playing Riven, some of the puzzles were just a bit too hard because they were bound up in the culture of the D’Ni. In Myst III everything is much more “real” and I think the game benefits from this.One of the biggest problems I imagine you’d have designing a game such as this is how difficult to make it. Do you make the puzzles deviously complex or fall off a log easy? I’d say Presto have struck a good balance here. Much of Riven was, I recall, quite hard whereas a lot of Myst was really quite easy. Here there is good and bad though I must admit the walkthrough was never far away. In saying that though, 80% of the time all the walkthrough did was point my in the right direction, literally. One of the drawbacks of the incredible detail of this game is that you’ll spend a lot of your time trying to figure out if something is significant or not. Most of the time you’ll get it right, but sometimes you’ll click away in vain at a background graphics that doesn’t do anything, and other times you will of course walk right past the door to that other section that contains the switch whichstarts the chain which makes everything else work – eventually.It wouldn’t do to give too many clues, but I think it’s worth pointing out a couple of things to help the uninitiated on their way with this most excellent adventure. Firstly, pay attention. This may sound rather obvious, but it’s all too easy to skip through a location when you’re on your way somewhere and not really take a good look at the objects and artefacts lying around. Almost everything in the worlds of Myst III Exile is there for a reason and though it may not be immediately apparent why, you will almost certainly come across something in your travels that relates back to it.The second piece of advice is to explore thoroughly. When you travel to a new world or “age” through a linking book, you may stumble across all manners of weird and wonderful contraptions. Strange as they may initially seem, rest a*ured that once the location has been fully explored everything will fall into place. My main problem with this game was just not being thorough enough. What doesn’t help in this context, though it is a fabulous and worthwhile feature, is the face that this third edition of the Myst story has added a third dimension. One of the main criticisms of Myst and Riven was that they were quite static. You could move around and interact with the world, but your view was quite restricted. This has all changed. In Myst III you have a full 360 degree range of motion so can look up, down, left right, all around you at every stop. Much as this helps to draw you in to the game, it also means there’s a whole lot more you could be missing out on.The last observation is really just a follow on from the first two. Take your time. Because of all the extra detail, I would say that Myst III is not that much bigger than Riven, if anything it might be a bit smaller, but there’s a lot more to this game. The complexity and intricate nature of some of these locations is breath-taking. Don’t rush through this game. Try to absorb as many of the sights and sounds on offer and not only will you be rewarded by the richness of the journey, but you will more easily tune in to the logic and structure of the game. Let Myst III become a part of your life, and its secrets will be slowly and effortlessly revealed to you.In conclusion, this is a fantastic game that you will have a lot of fun exploring. My only criticism is that the end is quite weak and there’s not enough of it. Let us hope Myst IV is already in the planning stages and that this time they leave out the Panopticon&h**ip;