Review Uru: Ages Beyond Myst Developer: Cyan Worlds, Inc. Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: Adventure Release Date: November 2003 Platform: Review by Jennifer Miller November 19, 2003

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To tickle the ear

Top notch . . . the sound is incredible. The game was engineered to make use of the EAX chip that is found in the SoundBlaster Audigy series soundcard, which before I became a destitute student, I invested in. And let me say, this is the first game that has taken full advantage of the capabilities of that card. We are presented with a realistic soundscape full of color and life. Moving from caves to open landscape, you hear a definite shift in resonance and echo of sound coming from nearby machinery or animals. My subwoofer rattled my entire desk when I made my first link out of the Cleft. Everything sound-wise in the game is organic and completely believable. And you know what made me REALLY happy? FOOTSTEPS!!!! My avatar had footsteps that changed from terrain to terrain. I cannot tell you how realistic a game feels to me when I can hear my feet echoing over the pavement of a street or crunching through the snow. This is part of the reason why I will forever sing the praises of Presto’s Journeyman Trilogy. Without footsteps, I feel like a disembodied ghost floating through the game.

Music, same story. I was absolutely blown away with the some of the samples I have heard thus far. There’s an art gallery pictured on the DRC site that I was able to view while I was in the Uru world and the music in the background of that chamber is unbelievably beautiful. It’s a simple soft beat on large drum with light soprano voice chanting above. Achingly beautiful stuff . . . so much that yet again, I got a little choked up. Later on, I visited a chamber somewhere on Ae’gura in D’ni and the music I swear could have been lifted right out of Riven with the synthesized oboe and ambient bells. Robyn? Did you leave us a little treat here?

Do not adjust your monitors. What you are about to see is compellingly real.

Can I just say that the graphics positively kick ass? Is that reasonable for me to say here? I know we’re a family site and all, but I have to express this as bluntly and strongly as possible. They kick ass! I have never seen a game just look so incredibly beautiful and yet maintain this gorgeous realism throughout the entire period I was playing. Myst has always challenged our perceptions on what can and cannot be real. And let me just say that every location I found myself at seemed positively authentic. Never once did I feel like I was in a cartoon. Cyan has managed to fuse the 3D graphic capability of a FPS engine with their incredibly high standards of graphic detail. Combine this with loads of ambient animation and seamless movement between locations, and you have a nearly perfect graphic experience. The only game I know of that can even come close to this kind of detail and flexibility is American McGee’s Alice.

Cyan has also given the player the option to toggle between a first person and third person perspective, so if you really can’t stand watching yourself running around, you have the ability switch back and forth. I recommend this for puzzle solving, but I’ll explain that later. When in third person mode, you can get a better sense of just how large everything is. These Ages are just overwhelming their scope. With the previous games, I always felt that each island kind of existed in its own little box and that there was little beyond the areas where I would be required to solve a puzzle or read a journal. With Uru, these Ages positively feel alive and I feel like a tiny little speck of dust walking through these massive areas. And trust me, at 5’10”, this is a big deal for me to feel small.

Like with its sophomore release Riven, Cyan has yet again raised the graphic bar for adventure developers everywhere. I believe that the time of the static, pre-rendered background might be getting short and the world could be turning to more games like this. Could you imagine what The Longest Journey 2 could be like if it was developed in a similar fashion? Mind-blowing, kids, that’s all I have to say.

But which dot do I connect next?

Now, just because I made such a huge deal of the graphics, interface, and sound, doesn’t mean this game is lacking in puzzle fodder. In fact, it has some of the most “outside of the box” puzzles I’ve ever had to deal with. Carla Melloni says in her article that some of the puzzles are not nearly up to par with those found in Riven. I’m going to have to disagree with her. Riven tested the limits of your logic – some places in Uru will test the limits of your patience. Puzzles vary widely in type, from the basic learn how to turn on a machine, to the run as fast as you can in twenty seconds to get all parts of a machine to work. So not only do you have to be quick with your mind, but also quick with your fingers, like I alluded to earlier. (Dirty jokes can be kept to a minimum, thank you.) In one Age, you have learn how to manipulate a steam vent system in order to learn how to “fly” over tall walls of stone, while in another, you have to put your pattern recognition skills to the test when creating a design of lights on a massive tower floor. Not to mention the many places where you have leap over large canyons and onto narrow pillars of rock in order to progress. All without falling into the deep abyss. But there is no death in this game, just constant linking and relinking if you don’t get your jumping skills down early.

The major task given to you by Yeesha is to locate and touch seven cloth panels located in each Age. This is where I feel the first person perspective really comes in handy. While these panels are by no means small or terribly difficult to find, Yeesha has taken special care to hide them places that you might miss if you are in third-person mode. When in first person, you’re able to scour the walls and see things in much greater detail than with third-person mode. These panels or “Journeys” as Yeesha calls them, represent her philosophy of the quest, that discovering and searching out is more important than getting to your destination. While I agree with Yeesha’s philosophy, I sometimes found this to be frustrating at the same time. Even after I may have seen all that there is to see of an Age, I would still find myself scouring for that one elusive Journey before I could “complete” it. Located in every Age is a vault with Yeesha’s symbol on it that can only be accessed after all seven Journeys are found. But what is in each vault, we don’t know and that remains the big mystery.

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