Games: Myst V: End of Ages (2005) developed by Cyan Worlds

 The end of the Myst series of games that moved from various versions of point and click to to full 3D navigation and replaced inserted actors with 3D characters. As far as the story goes its not complicated and I thought it made sense as it showed the negative effect that "writing worlds" had in the inhabitants of those worlds and what is the responsibility of those who create "ages". Visually, though not as dense and beautiful as previous games, it still have that Myst look though for games that, to me, hinge on exploration of created places it was lacking in details that expanded the places visited beyond story needs. I am not a fan of the computer generated characters, they were distracting looking and it's something cyan has not been able to really get a handle on. Their latest game Firmament suffered from many of the same issues, including FAR too much dialog and interruptions by characters into the game play. Their "comeback game" Obduction was much better, lots ot look at and discover even the game was done and used real actors in the character roles. 

The game relies, as did Myst 4 on too many confusing circular pathways, constantly going back and forth to do one simple thing to progress. Maybe people like that, I don't. Many of the ages in this game are good looking but i tink were limited by the free roaming aspect. Earlier games you could get into smaller spaces  and they had a lot more details for each age. 

Did I enjoy it. Sure it was fine. I am Myst'd out for the moment. I still have Uru to do which is the first time I will be playing it through as it was not available on Mac when it was an internet game. Because of it's early internet origins the graphics look pretty bad and the story seems to be a hodgepodge of stuff not used from other Myst games. Maybe it will change my life. Likely, it won't. I am much more excited to start getting into No Man's Sky as it looks great and I think will scratch my explore places bug. It has a no conflict mode and I'm all for that. 

Games: Myst IV Revelation, Cyan Games

 

Cyan finally remastered their older games to 64 bit and the updates were free on Steam so I can now finish playing them all, including Myst 5 and Uru which I never had a chance to play before. 

Myst 4 revelation is an odd duck in the series. While some of the visuals are as stunning as ever, the gameplay was a bit stale in places and the story wasn't as engaging as I would have liked. 

Visually, the game is pretty stunning considering it is still basically a point and click game. The different is  each node you click to has video overlays and the ability to pan around giving it gameplay ALMOST but not quite like some more modern 3D games. A lot of attention w s put in the details and designs and it shows. 

Gameplay and technically there are problems. The puzzles are sometimes just annoying and hard and don't advance the story much at all. The ability to figure them out on your own is not always possible, too much information is missing to make sense of some of it. Some of the puzzles need much more precision with the mouse and its just not there making it very frustrating even if you have something figured out. A couple of the worlds have mazes composed on pathways that are deliberately confusing and i you stop moving the mouse, the scenery will rotate on its own making it impossible to get a good sense of direction. 

At the end of the game I was literally minutes from solving the last part and could not move forward because I couldn't get to the a door. In the end I just watched a play through to see what I couldn't get to and it honestly wasn't that interesting. I would have felt cheated had I managed to get it working. 

I would still recommend playing it to see the environments and the creatures that are animated throughout. When it's works, there is a sense of a real place with lots of life. There is a lot less room to explore and discover little details that are not important to the plot but nevertheless make it an interesting place to hang out bus there was enough visual stimulation to keep me playing until I was unable to move forward anymore.