Note: Screenshots were purposely not included with
this review. We felt that pictures of the original Ages won’t do them justice
in freeze frame, and we don’t want to give away the look of the new Age.

I
feel somewhat obligated to begin this review with the traditional polemic on the
Myst phenomenon. Released in 1993 blah blah blah … brought a new level
of photorealism blah blah blah … new kind of first person exploration mystery
game blah blah blah … alternatively praised and reviled in the computer gaming
world blahbiddyblah.

Nope. Not going to go there. You know what Myst
was, or you wouldn’t be reading this piece!

For all of us Myst and
Riven fans, it’s a heady time to be a computer gamer, because we have the
improbable embarrassment of riches of not one but two new Myst games
coming up! In the doom and gloom of today’s adventure gaming world, who’d have
thought such wonders were possible?

Tentatively titled Myst Dimensions
and Myst3D, and newly christened realMyst, this new game is
a souped-up, real-time rendered version of the classic original.

My first
advice to one and all is: calm down. It’s essentially the same game. Yes, there
is an additional Age added (more on that later), but it’s still Myst. The
gameplay is identical; the puzzles are unchanged.

However, the fact that
you can now glide around these beautiful environments at will in gorgeous real-time
3D is truly a revelation. I think this is the game that should drive a stake in
the heart of the notion that RTR games can’t look as good as prerendered. This
game is drop-dead gorgeous eye candy from start to finish.

To begin with,
of course, there’s the sheer beauty of the game’s original environments. The lovely
Myst island, the soggy wonder of the Channelwood Age, the creepy openness of the
Selenitic Age, etc. But the designers weren’t satisfied with merely recreating
those wonders in 3D. They added stunning weather, water, and animal effects that
truly make the game pop visually. The Stoneship Age, for example, with its roiling
water, thunderstorms, and sunsets, is hauntingly beautiful to behold. And the
variety of fish visible from the underwater study are fascinating to watch.

The
Channelwood Age is perhaps the least changed of the original four ages, but nevertheless
the slow-moving, swampy water adds greatly to the atmosphere. Additionally, navigating
the treehouse maze with full freedom of movement is much less frustrating
that it was with the slideshow version.

The Selenitic Age is enhanced by
eerie red fog that’s truly creepy (and cold!) to walk around in. Not to mention
some pretty adorable bats!

Even though the game was the same, it was a real
pleasure to revisit these mysterious, beautiful places again.

But my blood
really got pumping at the end, when I figured out how to enter the new bonus Age
created just for this game. You know what? I don’t want to spoil any of it for
you, so I’m not going to describe it explicitly. But I will say that it’s very
fun figuring out how to find the linking book, and the Age itself is really (surprise
surprise) great to look at, with cool (hint) weather effects of its own. It’s
quite short, but it does tie the games of Myst and Riven together
better than the original ending did (though still without any explicit ending
per se, which still annoys me a little).

However, there is a downside to
all this good news, I’m afraid, and that has to do with the enormous system
requirements. At minimum, you need a 450 MHz machine with a pretty macho 3D card.
For adventure game players, who tend to not update their computers as often as
action game players, this could be a real problem. I played the game on my (now)
wimpy 350 MHz machine, and I wasn’t able to enjoy the game fully. Much of the
movement was jerky and ragged, rather than the flowing smoothness I was hoping
for. The indoor environments were fairly smooth, but when I was outside, forget
it. To top it all off, this problem was at its worst in the new Age! I had to
play the final part of the game in excruciating slow motion. It reminded me of
the time I accidentally tried to run Prince of Persia 3D with my graphic
accelerator turned all the way down! Well, I had it turned all the way up for
realMyst, and it still wasn’t up to snuff.

So I can heartily recommend
you explore this new version of a classic, as long as you bought your computer,
say, five minutes before reading this review.

Final Grade: B

If
you liked realMyst:
Watch: Zardoz
Read: The Myst
novels
Play: Myst and Riven, of course

System
Requirements: 450 MHz (at least!)
128 MB RAM
(at least)
3D video card. Maybe it’s time to upgrade your hardware …