Myst

The Surrealistic Adventure That Will Become Your World


Myst Review Done By: Brice Unland


Few are chosen. Fewer succeed. Journey now to an island world surrealistically tinged with mystery... where every vibrant rock, scrap of paper, and sound may hold vital clues to your unraveling a chilling tale of intrigue and injustice that defies all boundaries of time and space. Only your wits and imagination will serve to stay the course and unlock the ancient betrayal of ages past.

Turn off the lights, turn on your speakers (or plug in your earphones), and be prepared to lose yourself in the beautiful worlds. Enter now the story of Myst....

A great injustice has been done... and I, Atrus, have paid the price. The books I have created lead to worlds so fantastic, they could fill a lifetime. But something has gone terribly wrong and my creations are being destroyed by someone's' greed I suspect one of my sons, either Sirrus or Achenar, but I cannot be sure. I dare not write further without revealing too much. My only hope is that I can find the answer before it's too la...

"Unbelievable in a real way", pretty much describes Myst. This is one of those games that comes the closest to being "perfect" in the sense of graphics, animation, sound FX, soundtrack, and gameplay.

Myst is not a fast paced game; in fact it is quite slow. You don't do any back flips, you don't run around itching to use your trigger happy finger, nor do you race across the tops of buildings. You simply walk around in 3D photo-realistic worlds, and solve puzzles and problems. So if you can't stand games that have stunning graphics, great sound, and a "storyline", there's no point in you to finish reading this review. I will tell you now that you need to have patience for Myst, it isn't Duke 3D, Quake, Carmagedon or Descent II. If you have played any of the Journeyamn Project series or Zork Nemesis' then you will fit right into the game type of Myst. Yes, it is an adventure game, and before you hit the back button and mumble something, you should read the rest of this review, and take a good hard look at the pictures (yes, they are real screenshots), becuase even adventure games can be a heck of a lot of fun.

Seeing that Myst is quite an old game, most of you gamers will already have heard a lot about it. Although the Mac Game Gate encourages us reviewers to do reviews on fairly new games, I felt that Myst should have a review, for it is one of the games that brought the Macintosh game market to life.

Myst integrates the best graphics I have ever seen (next to Riven), astonishing sound FX, and a soundtrack that is truly magnificent. A lot of games have sound FX and soundtracks that "ruin" the game, but not in this case. The audio adds probably half of the realism. The graphics are amazing, everything is so detailed, so lifelike, it pulls you right into the island of Myst.

On the box it says, "The Surrealistic Adventure That Will Become Your World", this line speaks truth. If you turn off the lights, and plug in some earphones, after a few minutes of play, you will be pulled into this alternate reality. Becuase of the way Cyan built Myst, there is no annoying title bars, or control interface (Journeyman Projects), its just a full screen of beautifully rendered 3D scenes. You move around by means of your mouse, you just click in the direction you want to go.

The story of Myst is top notch. The story grows as you unravel more of the game. In fact the story is so good that the makers of Myst have written three books and have made the sequel to Myst (Riven).

As for the puzzles, they are a challenge. Don't expect to walk around like your last name is Einstien and solve these puzzles like Grade two math problems. No, these puzzles were meant for you to spend some time on. They are quite hard, hard enough to stump an expierenced gamer for awhile, but with a lot of thinking through sure enough they are solveable. There are more puzzles in Myst than you can shake a really big stick at. So don't expect to tell your friends you passed Myst the day after you got it.

To make things clear, Myst is a must have for a true Mac gamer. You won't find graphics, animation and sound better than this in any game, except for its sequel Riven (You can expect a review on Riven some time soon, by myself, keep watching for it). Myst is a number one game, it deserves to be in the game hall of fame, if it isn't already. I have no complaints about Myst except, the puzzles may be a little to hard for some people. But there's a hint book available for those hard to get puzzles, as well as countless web pages that have walk throughs for the game. If you don't own Myst get it, if you know someone who doesn't have it, get it for them too. Believe me you will not be disappointed at all.


Test Computer: Requirements:
  • Performa 6360
  • 32 MB RAM
  • Level 2 cache
  • MacOS 8
  • 160 Mhz
  • Any Macintosh or compatible. Running system 7.0.1 or higher
  • 4MB RAM
  • 256-color monitor.
  • CD-ROM drive
Retail Price: Demo:
  • Around $60
  • See Cyan for details.
  • No demo avialable. Check out Cyan for more info and screenshots.
Related Links: Rating:

    (1-5 where 5 is the best)


Review done by Brice Unland