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March 23, 2006
Myst IV Diary
Among my birthday presents was the sweet nectar of Myst 4. I hadn’t played a Myst game since Myst III: Exile came out back when I was in D.C.; I think I ended up completing that game in 48 hours of non-stop play. Needless to say this was well before meeting C.
I suspected that another binge like that was probably not in anyone’s best interests. So I let Uru, Myst IV, and Myst V pass by (didn’t hurt that for most of that time my only computer was a relatively-pokey PowerBook).
But I’m back, baby. Picked up Myst IV at Fry’s and have been working my way through it on the iMac when I get a chance. I’ve poked my way through two Ages now, and have reached Serenia, a.k.a. the “Age of Plot Development.” Here are a few thoughts on the whole experience, FWIW.
The FMV—The first scene in the game places you in a sort of flying rail-car… with some random FMV little girl. The whole thing is kind of unsettling (she’s not much of an actress) and while it’s technologically impressive (you can swing your perspective around 360° while she’s talking to you), it’s not very Myst-like. I want to explore recently-abandoned islands full of dark stories, not have Punky Brewster tell me how to use my camera.
Atrus and the first puzzle—Atrus is still kicking, and is the second person you encounter. He also completely ruins the first puzzle (a kind of quasi-electrical wave-matching thing) by walking you through it. It’s like ten minutes of him “helping” you by saying things like “try turning the left knob” or “Hmm… that’s not right.” I almost threw the computer out the window. Shut up, fat man! Myst is about figuring things out for yourself. I spent four hours using three air-horn things to talk to a bunch of monkeys and loved it. Luckily Atrus takes off shortly afterwards, and hasn’t really interfered since, so stick it out.
The graphics/the worlds—Everything looks fantastic. This 360° view thing was introduced in Myst III, but everything’s much more animated now and it looks great and very alive. I”ve spent most of my time on a sort of jungle island, with little monkeys and everything running around. It takes getting used to, but the feeling of immersion is real. I was poking around Achenar’s now-abandoned study and C walked up behind me and really startled me. Oh, and the depth of field effects—where focus changes depending on what you’re looking at—are fantastic.
The music—The box art heralds that Peter Gabriel did the music for Serenia. Well, he phoned it in. Serenia’s music, at least so far, is not that great. But the ambient music everywhere else is good and fits in very well with what’s going on on-screen. I wish I had a CD of some of this stuff.
I love Myst. I love Cyan, and I mourned the death of Uru: Myst Online, which seemed like a really groundbreaking effort, but maybe ahead of its time (see Tycho’s reflections on this point). I’ll post more thoughts here as I move through the game.
Posted by Rob Courtney at March 23, 2006 09:06 PM
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