Once again you must...Enter a deceptively beautiful world torn apart by age-old conflicts... where secrets lie hidden at every turn... and nothing is as it seems. You must search. You must explore. You must summon every spark of intellect and intuition. Only then will you learn the truth about this troubled land and its inhabitants. You must let Riven become your world- before an entire world is lost.

Three long years, every Myst fan has waited for the arrival of its sequel... Riven. Now it is upon us. And let me tell you, I would wait another three, becuase the wait was well worth it.

You may have remembered the time when Atrus was sitting behind his desk writing in his book, and he spoke of a greater foe, and that he may need you sometime in the future... will the future is now... My worst fears have been realized. The damage is more extensive than previously imagined. I must act while there is still time. I must find someone... to send to Riven.

Riven is mesmerizing, completely stunning. It has everything Myst ( find my review of Myst here ) has, times two. I thought no game would be able to have graphics as good as Myst's, well Riven doesn't have just as good, but better. It was said that Riven used a graphics program specially built to make realistic water like we have never seen in a computer game before, and well let me tell you, the water in Riven looks beyond real, it is as if mother nature herself, constructed the water.

Riven had a lot to live up to, I mean Myst was noted as the number one best seller on CD-ROM of all time. Now if thats not a lot to live up to, besides Myst's stunning graphics, sound, and gameply, then shoot me. And Riven lived up to it, on the graphics, sound, and gameply part anyway, it hasn't become the number one best seller yet, but hey it was only released a month ago, give it some time.

Riven is Myst all over agian, just better, and on a different world. You still have to solve puzzles and problems, and figure out how to get to different parts of the world. In my review of Myst I mentioned how great of a story Myst had, well Riven works on the same foundation of the Myst story, it just continues it.

It is usually hard for a sequel to be better than its predecessor, espically with the standard that Myst set for itself, but the great creators at Cyan have really outdone themselves on this one. They not only made a better sequel, but just like when Myst was released, they raised the standard for all adventure games. I guess we'll see how the other adventure games compare to Riven. With that, most adventure games will be compared to Riven, just as they did with Myst.

Riven unlike Myst, has a lot higher requirements to run. But this is to be expected, with the amount of animation, and the sound FX, and soundtrack, the 68020's just wouldn't be able to take the work out Riven would give it. So as a bare minimum, Riven requires at least a 90Mhz PowerPC. I haven't mentioned it yet, but Riven comes on five CD's, thats right "FIVE" CD's, with that in mind, you can only expect a mind blowing game.

There is "a lot" of animation in Riven. And all the animation is high quality. Now I must tell you, there is a part in Riven where, you have to ride this car type thing, that runs on cables, you turn it around, and it starts to move. No big deal right? Well after it got going, it sped up a lot, and it followed these cables that twisted with turns, and up down, and as well, the cables shook. This "ride" felt EXACTLY like a roller coaster. It was as if I was actually in this car type thing on the cables, it was the coolest and most life like thing I have ever expeirenced in a computer game. After that ride, I realized that Cyan did a lot of work in those three years, and the work they did is magnificent. And the best part is, I only started playing, there is going to be a whole lot more of cool stuff like that to come, and many more suprises.

The puzzles in Riven are quite challenging. It is probably a good bet that you won't be passing Riven any time in the near future, but it is also probably a good bet that a lot of people will be buying the Riven Hint Book. Hey I'm only on the first few puzzles and I'm already having problems. But like in Myst, look at all the possibilties, and see the puzzle as a whole, and you will find the answer. Although a lot of guess and test never hurts.

The graphics as I have mentioned many times are excellent. Beautifully rendered 3D scenes. Now the sound FX and soundtrack are very convincing, they play a very important part in Riven, just as much so as the graphics and gameplay. Gameplay in Riven is the very best I have seen in adventure games. It keeps you coming back for more and more.

To sum it up, Riven is surley one of the best games for 1997 and 1998. And I will be suprised if it doesn't reach the Best Selling Game of all time name. Simply, Riven delivers the best graphics, animation, gameplay, sound FX and soundtrack in the game market today. And it will stay that way for quite awhile. Riven is a mind blowing experience of a game.

Good Points: Unbeatable graphics, animation, gameplay, sound FX and sound track. The puzzles are desighned well, and are convincing.

Bad Points: The puzzles may be too hard for some people. The requirements to run it aren't low, you need to have a 90Mhz PowerPC.

Review done by: Brice Unland