To top more on that, there
are many places I feel that I was left without a purpose except to
find the seven Journeys. With one Age especially, I felt as if I had
hit a roadblock with no idea where to go or what to pursue next. I
had completed all the puzzles presented to me thus far and found four
of the Journeys, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do next.
This may be the only critical drawback to the storyline of Uru.
Because these Ages are so massive in scope, your story would sometimes
get lost under all the technicality and richness of the history. I
would become so wrapped up in the history of a place that I would
lose touch with my real mission to pursue on and thus, have no clue
what to do next. All the machines had been fixed, all the power had
been put back on and all the rooms had been accessed . . . so where
are the other three Journeys?

So with Uru, your
mission comes threefold: 1. To unlock the mysteries of each Age Yeesha
presents to you 2. To find all seven Journeys in each of the Ages
3. To keep sight of your goal and eventually make your way to D’ni
while getting around the red tape of the DRC.

There
are also the various bonus chambers you’ll gain access to along
the way and the collection of pages for your sanctuary Age of Relto,
where you’ll begin each game. This I found frustrating as well,
because after the wonderful linking system in Exile, I felt
like this was taking a step back. So if I’m in the middle of
a puzzle on Teledahn and I have to leave for class, when I come back,
I begin in Relto and have to retrace my steps from the last Journey
I found in Teledahn. Yeesha gives Relto to you and this becomes your
home, where all your linking books are stored and where you can alter
your appearance by using an editing screen for the avatar. So suddenly
halfway through the game you want to become a blonde, then voila,
it can be done. Myst fans will note the similarities between
the landscape of Relto and Myst Island.

Get out your wallets
all my adventuring friends

While not at the state
of the art of hardware, Uru requires some heavy end technology
if you want to fully experience it. First, get a soundcard with EAX
technology, then a set of surround sound speakers to match it. Throw
in at least a later P3 or Athlon processor, plenty of RAM, and video
card from the last year or so, and you might just make the minimum
technical qualifications for Uru. To fully experience the
live portion, be prepared to shell out the $35 plus a month for broadband.
I know that adventurers aren’t use to having to deal with higher
end hardware and we all spend our money on games instead of new peripherals,
but consider this a direct order: if you want to experience all Uru
has to offer, get thee to a CompUSA IMMEDIATELY!!!

I don’t want to address
bugs in this article because I played Uru off of a pre-release
version, so I’m sure anything major found in my version will
have been cleaned up before shipping. When I get my final release
copy, I’ll tack on an addendum about bugs if there are any.
Knowing Cyan and how thorough they are, I don’t expect to see
many, if at all. Word of advice though: I know some games recommend
that you pause or shut off any virus software that might be running
while you play the game. Leave it on with Uru. My computer
likes to spontaneously reboot if I pause McAffee before going into
the game.

“The ending
can never truly be written.”

Atrus’s
words were never truer than here. With the launch of Urulive approaching
soon, the possibilities for expansion of the game are limitless. Rand
Miller stated in a recent web chat on urulive.com
that his goals for Uru are to make it a real community where
people can come together and work towards the common goal of restoring
D’ni to its former glory. Over the months, he wants to see options
added where you can build your own D’ni neighborhood and even
create an Age. Also, with the web connection, the Ages discovered
in the primary Uru game can be updated and changed over time.
This adds to the sense of constant evolution and feeling of exploring
a real living world.

Rand also adds that his
greatest concern is “that people won’t understand what it is.
Since it doesn’t fit neatly into existing gaming categories, it might
take some time for people to begin to understand what Uru
is.”

And he is exactly right.
Uru is neither a pure adventure, nor a pure RPG in the sense
of Final Fantasy or Warcraft. It is an astonishing
synthesis of the two, taking the story and puzzle elements of the
adventure and the graphic flexibility of the RPG. Adding in a dash
of online gaming, and Cyan might just have created a game that will
appeal to gamers from all genres. This could be the first true blockbuster,
cross-genre game.

Uru is set to
become one of the most compellingly rich and complex worlds ever created.
With the game arriving in stand alone and online formats, Cyan is
set to hit the gaming world with the most powerful one-two punch its
seen since the original release of Myst. Will it catch on as Rand
so hopes it does? Only time will tell . . . but God I hope so!

Final Grade: A (what
else did you expect?)

If you enjoyed Uru
and my lovely review of the game, may I recommend the following for
your edification:

Read:
All the Myst novels. If you haven’t read them yet,
then shame on you.
Watch: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the
King
Play: Syberia 2 (No real relation to Uru;
I’m just really excited for it!)
Visit: The D’ni
Restoration Council, Uru
Homepage, Uru
Live

(Carla Melloni’s
wonderful article that gives some great perspective on the origins
of Uru can be found here.)

Many thanks to the
great people at Ubisoft and Cyan Worlds for letting me get an early
peek at Uru, to Katie Postma for her support, and to Randy
Sluganski for letting this Myst fanatic get her dream assignment.

System Requirements:

• Operating System: Windows®
  XP/ME/2000/98SE (only)
• Processor: Intel®
  Pentium® III 800 MHz or AMD Athlon™ (Pentium IV or Athlon
  2 GHz or greater recommended)
• RAM: 256 MB RAM
• Video Card: 32 MB NVIDIA®
  GeForce™ 1, 2, 3, 4, or FX; ATI® Radeon™ 7000-9800
  or better
• Sound Card: DirectX®
  8.1-compatible sound card (DirectX 8.1-compatible EAX 3.0 recommended)
• DirectX Version: DirectX
  8.1 (included on disc)
• CD-ROM: 4X CD-ROM drive
  or faster (not recommended for use with CD-RWs)
• Monitor: 800×600 resolution,
  16-bit color monitor (1280×1024 resolution recommended)
• Hard Drive Space: 2
  GB (4 GB recommended)
• Peripherals Supported:
  101-key standard keyboard; two-button mouse
• Internet Connection:
  Not required (ADSL/Cable modem recommended)