Riven: The Sequel to MYST
Riven is a sequel to Myst, an old school click adventure game that revolves solving intricate puzzles and exploring surreal worlds created from linking books.
First off let me tell you that Riven is not revised for modern hardware, as such, some feature set is very archaic. The save menu operates like a word document save menu. The resolution is stuck at a piddly 640x480 resolution, this makes playing the game on modern monitors an absolutely awful visual experience. To makes matter worst, the game cannot be set to windowed mode without some major .exe hex coding voodoo. That set aside, the game is still worth playing. After all with the limitation of Riven’s game engine, which is essentially one huge powerpoint slide, it’s not too strange that the game is limited in resolution. The game is a little over 3 gigabytes and it’s 33% of 1080p. Keep in mind that this game was created in 1997, which equates to a 5 CD game. Had this game release at 1080p, it would’ve been around 15 CD’s. Have fun switching and keeping track of that many disk while playing!
– Real player with 105.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Puzzle Games.
First of all, I recommend you beat this game WITHOUT looking up a walkthough, I will explain later in the review.
This is one of my favorite games of all time. This is one of the best (and one of the only) examples of a puzzle game done right. sure there are other puzzle games out there that are great like The Witness and… uh… well The Witness doesn’t even count because that is a more logic puzzle game and I consider that a different sub-genre. I honestly can’t find a good comparison to this game other than Myst 1 (and even that has major differences).
– Real player with 32.5 hrs in game
realMyst: Masterpiece Edition
realMyst is a very simple yet sometimes complex puzzle game that was made back when home computers were just starting to find their way into households. In other words, don’t expect there to be a huge amount amount of gameplay here. If you buckle down, you can beat this game in one sitting. That’s not to say that there’s no challenge to it as there certainly can be at times.
For the most part, you’re playing to find out about the unfolding story. This game used to be a point and click adventure. It seems to have upgraded to being a free roam First-Person which can ultimately betray any new comers to the game leading you to believe there’s more to the puzzle than what there really is. You can now roam in unchecked corners and behind bookshelves which you could never do in the first place so if you’re stumped on a puzzle, it’s best not to start checking every nook and cranny. To be safe, they’ve added a feature so that you can use the point and click system which at times can be pretty difficult to use since there’s multiple things to click on so you have to be pretty precise about what you want to inspect.
– Real player with 17.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Puzzle Games.
“I know my apprehensions might never be allayed, and so I close, realizing that perhaps the ending has not yet been written.” - Atrus
And thank the great Guildmasters of The Art because this series went on to produce many other excellent games, Riven being the height of exceptionalism.
In a time before the internet I played this game and I remember being so frustrated at points. Rather than Google, we had friends who would hang out together and connect their brain processing power to try and find solutions to the puzzles. There really was nothing like this in the history of computers. This hypercard, photoreal, puzzle game with live action cutscenes and fully immersive worlds. It was jawdropping back then. If you are new to the game it may lack the punch it had from 30 years ago but it is still an incredible game today and while I understand the graphics weren’t up to a lot of people’s expectations in this remastered edition, I found the game to be very much at home as a first person free roamer on the Unity Engine. If you are a puzzle lover you will soon understand why the game is referenced so much and you will see how modern puzzle games have adapted the levels, environments, puzzles etc for use today in games like The Witness, Quern, The Room and ASA.
– Real player with 14.7 hrs in game
Saboteur II: Avenging Angel
Saboteur II: Avenging Angel is a great-remastered version of the old classic. It is a hardcore game by today’s standards. It has no in-game map. You are a female saboteur infiltrating into a secret facility. So the lack of the map does give the player a feeling of being a real spy who is infiltrating into the secret facility on her own. It does make the gameplay truly hardcore, though. The game is hard, mainly due to lack of the map. The gameplay in this rerelease is almost identical to the original game.
– Real player with 63.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Story Rich Games.
I was happy with the remake or rather touched up and extended first Saboteur game, in my review pointing out that it seemed possibly how Clive would’ve made it if he’d been able to back then. The same was done for Saboteur II, but having played through the whole game, I’m a bit less satisfied. I know that the original Saboteur II was different to the original Saboteur, having missions rather than difficulty levels, though each mission was like a harder repeat of the previous mission. The fact that in the end you have to do the same as what you had to do in the original game, collect 14 code chips(paper tape codes in the original) feed them to the rocket’s computer, turn off the electric fence then escape by motorbike, makes all the added content, meant to give the game a bit story, a bit redundant and misleading. I mean at the final mission you can discover a wormhole and actually be teleported into space, but then you find that to complete the mission you still have to perform the relative drudgery of finding all the code fragments. So it reduces everything else to sort of fun, bonus content, not essential.
– Real player with 27.2 hrs in game
Myst: Masterpiece Edition
I played and solved Myst many years ago, when it first came out. A friend of mine who had also played it a bit was looking for something to do while stuck at home and suggested playing Myst again. So we both bought it off Steam.
I was a bit shocked at how blocky and awful the graphics looked. I remembered it as a gorgeous, gorgeous game. But most of the puzzles hold up well and are still fun to solve. It’s still a nice point and click puzzle game, and I’m glad to have gone thru it again, but there are a few problems.
– Real player with 23.6 hrs in game
IMPORTANT! This, along with Riven, have been updated to use ScummVM. They now run excellently on modern computers, despite the lack of upgraded visuals. With this update, I fully recommend picking this up if you are so inclined.
In the pantheon of video games, few will stand as tall and defiant as Myst. The Miller brothers, Rand and Robyn, along with their development team Cyan Worlds (then known as just Cyan), created a truly remarkable game that has sent countless reverberations throughout the game-o-sphere (or whatever the hell you want to call it). Up their with the greats, monolithic and unsurpassable, Myst truly is out there and here to stay.
– Real player with 11.1 hrs in game
Quest for Glory 1-5
I began writing this as a comment following ‘Love letter to the developers.’ It outgrew the comment box, and this series deserves my full review so here goes (and then some!) Let me start by saying I am a long-time Point ‘n Click Adventure/RPG fan. Quest for Glory was not my first, but it was one of my favorite series! I began with QfG 3: Wages of War. It brought me much enjoyment! (I believe I enjoyed QfG 1+2 & 4 somewhat more though!) QfG 5 was part of the less-well-advised foray of Sierra into CGI animation. It was bold but basically misguided in my view, and I did not play Qf5 or any of the King’s Quest titles past VI (6) since they were effectively different genres (also I understand the writing suffered!) Trivial detail: King’s Quest 5 was actually my first P’n-C Adventure game and I will cherish that one in particular (darn you, Cedric!) alongside several QfG titles, notably 2, close to my heart FOREVER!
– Real player with 65.4 hrs in game
I grew up playing the third game in this series, and it wasn’t until I was about 18 that I was able to track down and play the rest. I immediately properly, wholly loved them. So glad these are finally available on Steam. This is an charming, enchanting series and there’s nothing else quite like it.
The worldbuilding in this series is off the charts. Each entry sees you in a completely different land inspired by real-world mythology (e.g., Egyptian mythology, Slavic folklore, etc.) It rivals anything of today and surpasses most of it. Coming from the current sea of the same tired Tolkien derivatives it’s a breath of fresh air. The individual stories are pretty good, some even great, but as a complete saga this is fantastic. And that’s really the best way to experience it (and the only way to appreciate the genre switched fifth game). So set aside a good chunk of time, and let yourself sink into this marvelous world.
– Real player with 42.6 hrs in game
ABSOLUTE
absolute is a 1st-person escape room puzzler, wasd-controlled, not point & click. wander around rooms, interact with items, pick some up, use them elsewhere, and eventually escape the current location.
unfortunately, there aren’t many positives I can mention. despite the minimum requirements on the store page, it runs on windows 7 and very outdated hardware. it uses the unreal engine and actually performs better than some 2d point & clicks I had the ‘pleasure’ of playing, and it definitely should, because the presentation is seriously lacking. very basic and low quality textures, everything’s very shiny, and the audio is beyond annoying. there’s no music, but footsteps don’t sound like footsteps at all, they’re really grating, and some effects are much louder than others. and while there are plenty of ways to tweak the graphics, there are no audio settings, let alone volume sliders.
– Real player with 1.7 hrs in game
This was not fun. The audio was annoying, and with no sprint, the walking speed was far too slow.
The puzzles were less “Here’s a puzzle, there are clues scattered around, you can explore and face new puzzles if you’re stuck” and more “Find X to do Y.” Just about the only puzzle that isn’t like that is at the very end, and it’s just walking through some lasers you exposed.
When you get an item, there is no indication of what it’s used for, except that if it’s not used for anything else, it disappears. This would be fine, if there weren’t multiple unused items at the end of most of the levels, or multiple locked doors and cabinets, and multiple keys that could go to any of them. When you find items, or things you can’t do, it doesn’t tell you “This might be useful for that” or “You need this to do that.” There is also no hint system, so if you do get stuck, which happened many times, where I had stuff, but no clue what to do, it’s just “try everything.”
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
Myst V: End of Ages
So I don’t often do reviews but my reaction to this game was so strong that I felt it warranted something. As a long time fan of the Myst games (owned the first one the year it came out when I was like 8) I had high hopes especially after seeing that cyan was back in control. The 4th game was good but it had a radically different feel to me and I was looking forward to a game that integrated improved technology with an old-school feel. I got none of that. For my money, Exile is the most beautiful of the series with Revelations coming in second. I personally felt that the graphics were worse than the realMyst Masterpiece edition. The character animation were particularly terrible. Like others, I found the ages far too small and absurdly simple in design. Beyond that there are lots of glitches. I fell through the world multiple times and got terminally stuck once (fixed it by changing the control setup to classic and then back). The worst part is that I accidentally finished an age without even solving one puzzle. I drew something on the tablet that I thought might be a cunningly disguised command (gave the designers too much credit). The game interpreted it as the final command for the age which it didn’t even really passingly resemble. Once that happened I was locked out of the rest of the age and had to restart the whole game to experience it. Terrible design, unimaginitive worlds, substandard puzzles, you name it and this game has it. I am very disappointed in Cyan for releasing this in this condition and can readily say this is the weakest game in the catalog (haven’t played Uru yet so we’ll see). It was a bundle with all the other ones so at least I didn’t waste much money and I do want the story closure but have very low expectations for this entry.
– Real player with 44.9 hrs in game
I recently started back through ALL the Myst games in order, so that I could do “Myst IV: Revelation” and “Myst V: End of ages” for the first (and only) time. It was a fun journey spanning a couple months to get through them all. While I definitely enjoyed the trip down memory lane for the earlier games, this last one, Myst V, was my least favorite, for a few reasons:
1. The movement is frustrating. It feels like “free” movement, but you’re locked into VERY SPECIFIC paths, some of which do not make sense (IMHO).
– Real player with 15.4 hrs in game
Divine Divinity
After finally finishing this gem of a game I can only but recommend this game to any RPG lover out there. Beneath the now dated graphics lies a sound game with a complex world, rich lore and funny little gameplay gimmicks that made me smile a lot.
The good:
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Rich lore, decent story (if a bit cliché by now)
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Plenty of content (Took me appr. 70 hours to finish)
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Pretty extensive and flexible RPG elements (create whatever character you like as you go)
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Easy to get into, but challenges along the way
– Real player with 74.5 hrs in game
Divine Divinity
Date of this review: 15 March 2018
Update (25 April 2018): Formatting fixes
DISCLAIMER: I would like to point out that I likely achieved 100% completion in this game. Because it is so old, there are not achivements so I can’t be sure, but I did complete every quest that is listed in online guides, and I fully explored every map.
===Notes About Me===
Graphics/Animation: I usually don’t care about; I still play NES games occasionally.
– Real player with 71.7 hrs in game
Myst
I’ve played Myst ever since I was a little kid, and have been a big fan my whole life, so I may be a bit biased, but I’ll try to be objective here.
TL;DR: This is the best version of Myst, but it’s not the most polished and could use a lot of improvements in the sound department.
Positives:
Myst’s core elements, across all releases of the game, are great, and I’ve always recommended people try it out. The story, puzzles, and places are all enjoyable to dig into. As a kid I just played Myst to explore its surreal worlds, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve also learned to appreciate the puzzles and the story and the way it’s told. It has some rough edges and a bad puzzle or two, but it’s absolutely worth playing, and this release smooths some of the issues of older releases out, with a handful of tweaks and accessibility improvements, making it even more enjoyable for newcomers.
– Real player with 15.2 hrs in game
Complete pcvr walk through here: https://youtu.be/MK3xmWD95B8
So I haven’t played Myst since the early 90’s when it first released on the PS one. So this was like a brand new experience to me as far as remembering what the heck I was supposed to do. I can say that once I touched that book and transported into Myst Island I was completely giddy with awe and overcome with that feeling of nostalgia! What Cyan has done here is absolutely amazing and totally gorgeous!
Graphics: Now I played about 20 minutes of the quest 2 version of this game and it didn’t do it for me due to the limitations of the hardware. Everything just felt small and fake. But this PCVR version is stunning. It looks pretty much exactly like Obduction as far as the graphics go. Stunning detail, beautiful animations of grass blowing in the wind and waves gently splashing against the rocks. fantastic lighting,.. it’s just all around a beautiful game that really makes you feel like you are there. All of the worlds are a sight to behold! My only complaint would be the 3D models they used for the characters. But I see on twitter they have now included a classic video mode so you can choose to have the old live action videos for the characters instead of the models. Which for me is the ticket.
– Real player with 6.8 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake
2nd or 3rd time playing this one. It’s one of my favorites for the storyline. As Nancy Drew, you stay in a cabin on a lake in Pennsylvania that was once owned by a Prohibition-era gangster. Local legend has it that his four dogs still haunt the property. A state park operates in the vicinity, and you can go to its visitor center. While there is a real Moon Lake State Forest, it doesn’t seem to be related to the game as the game places itself in a fictional county.
Playing it again in my current playthrough of all the games in order, I liked it a little less. I think that’s because it was so memorable, the pleasant surprises weren’t so surprising (though I still didn’t remember who the culprit was–as usual, everyone is damn suspicious). I have to admit, though, that the puzzles weren’t as satisfying. The best was probably the one where who have to put files in order by year, except those years are written in Roman numerals. Most other major puzzles revolved around finding nature-related items in a forest maze. Finding the birds to photograph would have been fine, but it became overused the moment we had to trudge around there looking under specific rocks to find several bugs. On the other hand, the well/water pump puzzle was too simple and I feel like an interesting educational opportunity may have been missed there.
– Real player with 12.3 hrs in game
I do not recomment this game for anyone who enjoys puzzles, solving mysteries, or a good challenge. The game goes out of its way to leave the hints as vague as possible and just give you the solutions through the in-game task list. The entire things felt like playing along to a walkthrough. I play on Senior Detective and usually the tasklist is there to remind you of information you’ve picked up, but in this game it just outright tells you what information you need for which puzzle and what to do to solve it. And if that isn’t enough Nancy will outright tell you! There were so many interesting puzzles here that were spoiled before I’d even gathered all the hints I would have needed to solve them the legitimate way. The only thing the game seemed to let me do was fiddle with wheel puzzles once it had given me the solution I needed to get to. Gee, thanks.
– Real player with 12.0 hrs in game