Myst III: Exile

Myst III: Exile is the finest game ever, not only are the graphics spectacular and the sound amazing (the soundtrack alone is equal to if not better than most movie soundtracks), but the surreal location actually seems believable. Just like the backgrounds of the Final Fantasy games; the world does look real.

And as if that's not recomendation enough, one of the main characters is played by Brad Dourif. As I'm writing this I am trying to think of a critisism for the game and I can't think of a single one. The advance from Myst to Riven was awesome but the advance from Riven to Exile is far beyond anything I could have imagined.

The game is also suitable for players of any age although even the cleverest of adults will strugle with some of the puzzles.

11 out of 10 and even with that score I'm being mean.

The original Myst created a genre all its own. It's sequel Riven took things to a new level by creating an incredible interconnected set of islands with puzzles weaved through them all. Exile takes the best of both those worlds and mends incredible puzzles with an engaging environment.

This was always one of my favorite installments in the Myst franchise because it really simplified things after the often-agonizing Riven. The environments are still lush and interesting, but this time a bit more contained. No taking a trolley from one island to another over and over again just to pull a single level. Instead, you just solve one puzzle in one basic location and move on to the next one.

The storyline still moves on in this one too, as it focuses on Saavedro, a man looking for revenge on Atrus based on the earlier actions of Sirius & Achenar (Atrus' sons).

Finally, one new addition to the interface is the ability to look 360 degrees around you. It is no longer a true "point-and-click" game, in this aspect, but it allows much more range of motion. No more clicking like a madman trying to find the right angle to solve a puzzle, or missing a key detail because the angle isn't quite right.

Overall, Exile is a great third chapter in the Myst saga. It takes the foundation of the original, mixes it with the landscapes of Riven, and creates the best overall game in the franchise to that date.

I just finished Exile about a day ago and I am still impressed just thinking about the game. Everything, including sound, graphics, music, story and acting all came together to create this masterpiece.

I could talk about all the technical aspects of the game, but I'll focus more on the movie aspects, namely story and acting. Like Myst and Riven, you explore predominantly empty worlds, with the occasional actor to keep you company. The story is told by finding messages and journal pages left behind by the villain of the game. The story is not complicated, but it is enough to keep the player motivated until the end of the game.

As for the acting, everybody holds their weight. You see characters only rarely. Atrus, played by Rand Miller, appears mainly at the beginning of the game. He is used to playing Atrus, having done so in Myst and Riven. Maria Galante takes the role of Catherine. Though a small role, she carries her weight as does Miller.

The real star, though, is Academy Award Nominee Brad Dourif (Best known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). I don't want to give anything away, but he has the power to make the player's heart beat with fear, especially when holding his giant hammer. He does a great job.

Overall, I highly recommend this game! It is not overly difficult, a problem with Riven, and it is extremely rewarding. So go out and buy it!

I found a few of the puzzles to be very difficult so I cheated and used a "walkthrough." After using so much of the "Riven Walkthrough" I was disappointed and so decided to "tough it out" with Exile.

Recap:

Myst = Part 1

Riven = Part 2

Exile = Part 3

However, there was one part of Exile, the Island world of Edanna, which drove me utterly nuts. So I did use the walkthrough for that. The other puzzles were just tough enough that I could solve them in a reasonable amount of time.

The pleasure of solving them on your own is what you should really strive for. If you stick with it you just may discover how you learn... and how you make mistakes. :)

Enjoy 10/10

-Zafoid

PS: Luke 1:37 "For nothing is impossible with God."

-Z

Game sound is very important to me. I wear headphones, so if a game has good stereo sound, I almost feel as if I am there. Good music can also add emotion to a game. This game has all that (as did the original Myst), wonderful raytraced graphics, and seamless Quicktime overlays. For me, it held up very well, even though it was released three years ago.

Effects. Not only are sound effects panned correctly when you turn around, they were recorded well in stereo, so sound great. Wind chimes, wind, ocean water, river water, creaking bridges, clanking machines. Effect sounds are imperceptibly looped. They get muffled when you enter a tunnel. I sometimes leave the windchimes running while I'm reading or doing paperwork; the quality is that good.

Music. Each level/section has its own theme music. Segments are played at random intervals, to add ambiance, without getting tedious. The Options menu has a "Music frequency" control, so you can control how often music is played. When not playing the game, load the M3Data subdirectory into your MP3 player, to hear all the pretty themes again (1.5 hours of mp3's!). Occasional choral accompaniment adds even more emotion. Music themes are often heavily panned -- I suppose to make you feel that the theme is all around, or following you around. And also to spook you. If you really like the music, there is a Jack Wall soundtrack CD, though it is currently out of print.

Graphics. Myst depends heavily on realistic graphics to increase immersion. While 3d graphic cards keep improving, raytracing still looks better. The large storage capacity of CD media allows the Myst games to avoid the downside of raytracing: rendering speed. Exile adds the ability to "turn around" at each location -- the render is for an entire sphere, rather than just the rectangle of the monitor screen. Quicktime movies allow playing back video recordings left by characters in the game. But they also permit animation of gadgets, machines, or even an alien squirrel. The transitions between the raytraced images and the animations are almost imperceptible.

Puzzles. I always have trouble with them, though I can usually solve one or two in an evening. Any harder though, and I would probably have gotten tired of seeing the same level for too long.

Media. The "anniversary" edition of the Myst trilogy is on a DVD-ROM (at about what I paid for Exile alone). This would remove the need to switch between the four CD's, or give up 2 GB of my hard drive space for the "full" install. If I had it to do over, I would have bought the DVD version. I think that all versions require a non-copyable key disk to be in the CD drive, or they refuse to start up. My CD version certainly did.

Crashing during the movies/animations? My marginal laptop CD drive (Samsung 308B) corrupted about two data files per CD, during the "full" install. After spending about 5 hours -- upgrading my video and sound card firmware and drivers, trying multiple versions of DirectX, updating Quicktime, and banging my head, I thought to diff files. It was the CD drive. Fortunately, the "full" install copies the CD's verbatim to the hard drive. To fix, I just copied the CD "Data" directories across the network, from a computer with a better CD drive.

Game trailer / advertisement. Search apple.com for "myst exile".

Summary. I love the Myst games, because I feel like I have spent the evening outside, in beautiful natural settings. Even if you don't like puzzles, this is still a place you should visit. Cheat your way through the game, if needed, just so you can see all the beautiful worlds. Go for the journey, not the goal.

For an even more immersive experience, try RealMyst. It is a remake of Myst, with interactive (ala Quake) graphics. Search apple.com for the Mac demo, and gamesdomain.com for the PC demo. (Many sites have bad links to the PC demo, so keep looking.)

Jan '05 update: Official site (myst3.com) is gone. Use a web search to find trailer: myst3_480.mov