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*WARNING – This article contains minor plot and puzzle spoilers*

Sometimes, strange things happen. Really strange things. Take Dali's paintings for example - now they're pretty strange. So what better place for a Myst game to open than at his Museum on the South Bank in London?

A small affair, comprising of two rooms full of props, concept art, sketches and computers (plus some highly attractive Picasso art in-between), the Myst Revelations exhibition was a reasonably enlightening, if more than slightly blatant, piece of marketing fun. As an attempt to further blur the lines between art and gaming, from an ex-art students point of view it was a bit of a failure. The lights were too dark, and some artwork was blatantly stuck on a window with blue-tack whilst other pictures were grouped tightly together behind strange Perspex stands.

Fortunately, it was a little difficult to complain on the content side of things.

Resisting the urge to steal the rather excellent standees, we (there was a few of us JA+ types lurking about) made our way about the exhibition looking at the various pictures, rather taken aback at some basic yet effective models of the environments meant to help the 3D modelers visualize concepts in the computer and marveling at the detail of the props and costumes on display. Personally, it was quite something to see Atrus' clothes hanging off the wall whilst the new, and rather impressive, orchestral Revelations soundtrack played in the background. There were also some beautiful sketches of the various machines that would be found in the game and a rather neat storyboard depicting the introduction. It was hard not to be impressed with the amount of detail gone into its creation.

As for the game itself, luckily it was installed on a few Mac's and PC's strewn about the place with some extraordinarily friendly Ubi Soft public relations staff on-hand to help guide us through the initial stages. In terms of its presentation, we were pretty much blown away. One of our group - who previously was not even considering purchasing the game - was astounded by the sheer level of detail. It goes way beyond Exile in terms of presenting a living, atmospheric world, and the introduction starring Atrus' daughter and yourself sitting in a marvelous hanging contraption traveling through the canyons of Tomhana made us all gasp.

Even better, whilst the introduction is playing, you can look about even as the girl talks. That's when we noticed things like the excellent depth-of-field technique which changes depending on what you're looking at - distant cliffs blur as you look at something closer by, and the screen focuses on any contraption you settle upon to see it in further detail. Even better were the lighting effects, with the sun obscuring your view in a superbly realistic manner in possibly the best use of lens flare yet seen in a game.

As in the demo, you use a 3D hand cursor that can tap on everything to produce a sound and interact with everything in a more physical manner than before. To be honest, it's a real improvement. After a brief encounter with Atrus, who manages to blow a hut's electricity supply in an amusing short sequence, we spent ages simply opening up drawers to watch things roll about inside, or cranking handles to watch smaller machines work. It elevates Myst to an entire new level. We even spent ten minutes searching for the famous bucket of water to dabble with, just to watch the ripples. Better yet, the hand got wet and kept dripping even when you stopped touching the surface, a neat little touch which makes you feel like you’re taking part in an actual living universe and makes you wonder what else the game has in store.

Checking the options, it had full 1024X768 support (at last!), and it was scalable so slower machines could handle it. The FMV is integrated very well but still suffers from a blur effect on the actors, who seemed a little gray compared to the wondrous environments. However, this wasn't evident in the multi-layered FMV backdrops where the sheer wealth of detail astounds. We bore witness to whirring machines, moving clouds, birds swooping past, dust in beams of sunlight, leaves falling down, cascading water in distant waterfalls - all superbly realized and animated. The only gripe was that the cyclic animation was still visible on the trees, making them pulsate rather than giving a proper illusion of wind.

The packaging, frustratingly, was also on-hand - including a Special Edition European foldout mockup. Similar to those you find with games such as Splinter Cell, it's a glossy little thing and includes a CD of the soundtrack and a DVD with extras.

All in all though, I'm very much looking forward to playing the game and am positive to report that initial impressions were astoundingly good. As far as puzzles go, there wasn't really much opportunity to get into the meat of the game, so I can't comment. However - and I'm not entirely sure if I understood correctly - it would appear on installation that there are some options for the more hardcore Mystites. What that means I really couldn't understand, so you'll have to wait for clarification in a future review. What is encouraging is that the developers have evidently been listening to the fans, and are giving them something quite special in return.

Look for our review of Myst Revelations soon here at JA+.