Call me a junkie, but I
think that, as of the time when this review was written, I have played
every single form of Riven except for its PlayStation incarnation.

JA Readers: Yes, Jen!
You’re a junkie! Go find some new games!

Well, sadly kids, until
I get my hands on a copy of the highly anticipated Syberia, I am more
content to wander the islands of the Fifth Age than go creeping my
way through the vomit-inducing travesty that is Alfred
Hitchcock Presents: The Final Cut. In fact, I went through
the entire game of Riven three more times so I that can now
give you the skinny, not only on the game itself, but on the differences
between playing it on a PC, Mac, and DVD. Talk about having too much
time on your hands, sheesh.

Oh, and for the obligatory
pro-Myst, pro-Cyan rant, please read my review for Myst:
Masterpiece Edition.

And on with the show!

Like The Empire Strikes
Back, this game rocks!

It
is a blessing to the world of graphic adventure that Riven
did not fall victim to the sophomore slump. Beginning with its earliest
conception during a 1994 road trip from Spokane to Seattle, Riven
was envisioned by the Miller brothers as a world similar to Myst
in its construction and look. But because of a chance meeting with
former Industrial Light and Magic staffer and design genius Richard
Vander Wende, Riven was given an entirely new look, full of gritty
textures and larger-than-life structures to accompany its equally
dramatic storyline. You know that hive-like tree that dominates the
front of Riven‘s packaging? Or the eerie Whark Throne Room
found beneath the surface of Survey Island? Those came from the mind
of Mr. Vander Wende.

At the beginning of Riven,
you are returned to D’ni, where you are reunited with Myst‘s
protagonist Atrus. He tells you that he must send you on an important
mission to the Age of Riven where you must free his imprisoned wife
Catherine and capture his demented father Gehn. (For more background
on the story of Riven’s creation and Gehn’s personal history, please
read Myst: The Book of Atrus and Myst: The Book of Ti’ana.
Okay, no more commercials!) In return for your success, Atrus might
be able to send you “back to the place where you came from.”
Does he mean home? Or that creepy fissure we were seen falling into
at the start of Myst? Only the Shadow knows . . . . bwahahahahaha!

So
you are transported to Riven, where you are greeted by a set of steel
bars and a guy who looks like John Leguizamo in a bad wig who steals
your means of capturing Gehn! Great! What happened to the solitary
exploration of the earlier title? Like all good sequels, things have
been stepped up, including interaction with people. Man, and here
I was feeling anti-social today.

In true Myst style,
you are given books to read and clues to decipher from them. But more
on the puzzles in a bit.

What is the first thing
you think of when I say Cyan?

Why Frisbee golf of course!
The next would be graphics: lush, detailed, tactile textures integrated
with an eye-popping palette of colors and lighting effects. In my
opinion, there has yet to be a game that has come onto the market
that equals or surpasses the graphical intensity of Riven (except
perhaps its step-brother Myst
III: Exile or Dreamcatcher’s sci-fi epic Schizm).
The attention to detail is such that when I turn off all the lights
and turn
up my headphones, I feel as if I am actually standing in Gehn’s five-walled
temple, straining my eyes to see past the grating that is blocking
my path to the giant gold dome. Cyan’s designers traveled to Sante
Fe, New Mexico early on in Riven‘s development to collect photographs
of various organic and inorganic textures to use as templates for
creating the surfaces found in the Fifth Age. When I look closely
at the outside wall of the giant gold dome, I can see examples of
these textures — in the sun-weathered wood, cracked bricks, and peeling
gold paint. My only complaint (and it’s minor) is that the clouds
do not move across the sky. While in Myst we were treated to
different and moody skies, Riven‘s sky remains a bright, hyper-link
blue with puffy white clouds. Go visit Gehn’s Age and the Moiety Age
for some variations on this.

Riven is also full
of living things. Where in Myst we had a few ambient seagulls
and butterflies, Riven is literally abuzz with golden beetles,
brightly colored toads called Ytrams, and strange creatures known
as Wharks and Sunners. The water actually ripples in this Age; it’s
not frozen as it was in Myst. Everything in Riven looks
ancient, well loved, and well abused. And I love it!

FMV is in top form in Riven,
even compared to modern eye-candy like Amerzone
and The Longest
Journey. Coming completely from a first-person POV, we are
given opportunities to take some of the wildest rides since the original
Journeyman game. My particular favorites are the mine car from
Jungle Island to Book Assembly Island and the trapeze-like harness
in the Whark Gallows.

Acting
is top-notch as well. Rand Miller reprises his role of Atrus, with
the same “reluctant hero” quality his character had in Myst.
Hey Rand, you’re an amazing game developer, but are you sure there
isn’t a career in theater in there somewhere? John Keston is simply
amazing as the power-hungry Gehn. He never once pushes the emotions
of the character, and keeps true to the vision of Gehn as a cool,
sublimely evil tyrant. Keston is a decent singer as well . . . if
you find the Easter egg, you’ll know what I’m talking about!

PC: When I first
played Riven, all we had in my house was an early generation
Pentium 75Mhz computer. Riven ran on a machine slightly better
than that, so my family splurged, and we upgraded our processor to
a whopping 133Mhz!!! Even at this speed, the game ran slow,
with the FMV hanging up in places. However, the game never crashed
or completely stopped. Since that computer was a dinosaur compared
to the one I’m running now, it’s unnecessary to say that, graphically,
I had no problem running the game. The scenes looked very nice, although
a bit washed-out and flat in places. Adjusting the brightness would
help. FMV ran smoothly for the most part, but looked blocky, since
the game was developed for 640×480 resolution. However, the FMV is
well integrated into the pre-rendered backgrounds with only slight
frame seams viewable. (Did you like that term “frame seam”?
I made that up all by myself! Sheesh, talented and creative!)

Mac:
This is the platform that Riven was designed for. After nearly
five years of playing this game on a PC, I have never seen it look
better than it does on a Mac. Making good use of the new addition
to my computing family, I replayed Riven from start to finish,
constantly picking up my jaw with each step I took. I have never seen
these environments come alive like they do under the graphic power
of the Mac processor. Contrasts between light and dark are intense
and the rocks are so dusty they feel as if I have to wipe my hand
off if I touch one. I have a rock from the beach in Nice, France that
sits on my computer monitor. The reason why I chose to take this one
as my souvenir was that it reminded me of Riven. Today, as
I was wandering the Jungle Island, I could swear I saw my rock lying
on the ground next to one of the large stumps. That’s how amazing
the graphics look! In terms of FMV, it is seamless. There is no delay
in sound versus action, no hang-ups when the graphics get intense
(i.e. mine car ride), and little blockiness.

DVD: Most disappointing
lot of the bunch. I had expected great things when I purchased this
special edition version of Riven on DVD-Rom. Graphically, there’s
little difference between the PC/Mac version and this one. Faster
transfer rates do speed up some of the FMV problems in the PC version
(perhaps speed them up too much), but otherwise, nothing really
impressive. Although, I will say that the included documentary is
very interesting. And the need NOT to change discs with each movement
to a new island was a welcome relief.

Ah, it looks good .
. . but how does it sound?

Look
no further than Riven for some of the lushest sound effects
you will ever encounter. From the buzzing of the beetles to the annoyed
honking of the Sunners as you disturb their nap, Riven‘s soundscape
is top-notch. Would you expect anything less from the gang over at
Cyan?

The most impressive audio
sequence found in Riven is during the Mag-Lev rides between
the islands. The ambient buzzing of the electricity changes frequency
and pitch as you turn and pass through the arched connectors of the
supports. They shift position depending on how the car is turned and
move around as though you are actually in the car. Unfortunately,
I had my sub-woofer turned up too much during this section, not only
disturbing everything on my desk with the intense low frequency of
the sound, but also waking up everyone in my house in the process
of trying to reach the volume control in vain. Don’t you hate it when
that happens?

Robyn Miller’s musical
compositions are equally impressive, having grown in darkness and
intensity from his original work on Myst. The instrumentations
are subtle, functioning not only to set the mood, but also to enrich
the player’s overall experience. Unlike the raucousness of the music
in Shivers
(another one of my all-time favorites), I never felt that Robyn’s
compositions overpowered any one place in the game. Though these pieces
stand on their own as amazing musical compositions, they blend in
seamlessly with the gaming experience. Go buy
the soundtrack now!

PC/Mac: Amazing
sound, no issues with anything sound related on either machine. Now
all I need to do is hook up my surround sound system to my Mac and
we’ll be in business!

DVD:
Good, sharp sound. However, there were some places where the actors’
voices wouldn’t synch with the movies. (Yes, I know that Sheila Goold
who played Catherine was dubbed over in postproduction!) I attributed
this issue to the higher rate of transfer on the DVD, just as I addressed
the FMV problems earlier.

Is at as much of a challenge
as Myst?

If you like mind-bending
logic puzzles and general excruciating torture, than yes, Riven
is much more of a challenge than its predecessor. In all seriousness
though, Cyan outdid itself with the quality, quantity, and originality
of the puzzles. Some of the solutions will definitely have you scratching
your head in wonder (i.e. the Moiety linking cave “how the hell
do you get the last animal symbol to open the vault” puzzle).
However, one of the most frustrating yet entertaining puzzles has
to be the five walled, rotating temple on the first island. Since
I’ve played this game a gazillion times, I have that particular puzzle
down to a science. But man, first time around, I was as clueless as
a Britney Spears fan watching A Clockwork Orange. My sanity
was saved by the fact that there are no mazes in Riven and
only one sequence that has the possibility of being called timed.
And most significantly of all, you can die in this game. Although
this doesn’t become an option until near the end, tread lightly folks.
Finally, like the aforementioned Schizm, you will have to learn
the D’ni numbering system and facets of the Rivenese culture in order
to solve many of the puzzles. This aspect of the game functions very
nicely to further submerge the player into the game world.

Riven
is extremely non-linear. You can progress extensively into the game
without completing the early temple puzzle that I just spoke about.
This is wonderful for someone who just wants to load the game and
wander Riven‘s lush islands without facing too many of the
more difficult puzzles. Taking a Sunday stroll, as I like to think
of it.

The ending can never
truly be written.

Although Riven‘s
ending is just as ambiguous as Myst, there’s a definite finality to
it as well. (If you think that I have just contradicted myself, please
send all comments to [email protected].)
I won’t spoil anything for those of you newbies to gaming, or for
the vets that refuse to give in to “the man” and play Riven,
but I promise you: you will enjoy this game for one reason or another.
It’s not only phenomenal gaming, but it’s a work of art.

Final Grade: a nauseatingly
cheerleader-like “A”

If you simply adored
Riven (or even just liked it) then check out the following:

Watch: Return
to Oz (just don’t let it give your kids nightmares)
Read: From Myst to Riven by Richard Kadrey; all the
other Myst novels
Play: Myst and Myst III: Exile; Schizm

System Requirements

PC
· Windows 95 required
· 100MHz Pentium or faster
· 16MB of RAM
· Minimum 75MB hard disk space
· 4X CD-ROM drive or faster
· 640×480 display, High Color
Windows compatible sound device
· Video and sound cards compatible with Direct X

Macintosh
· Mac OS required
· System 7.5 or higher (Classic environment under OS X)
· 90MHz PowerPC or faster
· 9MB RAM
· Minimum 65MB hard disk space
· 4X CD-ROM drive or faster
· 640×480 display, thousands of colors

Windows DVD-ROM
· Windows 95 Required
· 166MHz Pentium or faster
· Minimum 82MB hard disk space
· Generation 2 DVD-ROM drive or newer
· 640×480 display, High Color
· Windows compatible sound device
· Video and sounds cards compatible with DirectX

Macintosh DVD-ROM
· Mac OS required, System 8.1 or higher
· PowerPC G3
· 16MB of RAM required; 9MB free
· Minimum 84MB hard disk space
· Generation 2 DVD-ROM drive or newer
· 640×480 display, thousands of colors