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Myst Sequel Is a Captivating Game

Fantasy game delivers same compelling sense of otherworldliness as original; we give it five stars.

By Denny Arar, PCWorld   

Myst was the first genuine blockbuster in the world of computer adventure games. Developed by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, when Myst was released in late 1993 for Macs and early 1994 for Windows it set a new standard for creativity in multimedia game design. It was really the first game to fully exploit the possibilities of computer graphics and electronic music to create a world--several of them, actually--that was at once realistic and fantastic.

Game play via a point-and-click interface, consisting primarily of finding and solving puzzles with the goal of revealing the story, was accessible even for nongamers. You didn%squott have to run fast, shoot anything, or even collect money or inventory items. Even when you were having difficulty solving the puzzles, simply exploring this fantasy land was a compelling experience and a genuine escape.

And so it goes with Riven, which is due in stores on Halloween for $49.95. The five-CD-ROM Mac/Windows hybrid starts where Myst left off, in the poorly lit cave where the forever-scribbling Atrus (played by Rand Miller) enlists your aid in his search for his wife Catherine, who was mentioned but never seen in Myst. Speaking cryptically about linking books (the vehicles of transportation to the different worlds in Myst), he dispatches you to Riven, where your first moments are spent behind bars. A friendly guard dressed like something out of Star Wars babbles at you in a strange tongue, grabs the book that brought you, and is immediately shot by an ominous-looking fellow who drags the body away and releases you from your cell. Now it%squots up to you.

The use--albeit relatively sparingly--of actors in full-motion video sequences is a major departure from Myst, which was almost totally devoid of living presences (except at the very end, or via recordings). Even in Riven the puzzles don%squott involve conversations or interactions with the characters, who simply move the story forward as appropriate. Again, as in Myst, you solve problems to gain access to other areas and learn more about the story, which involves Atrus%squots ominous father, Gehn, as well as his missing wife.

But again, the game play itself isn%squott really the thing. To paraphrase the 1992 campaign slogan, it%squots the graphics, stupid. From primitive bubble-shaped mountaintop dwellings to postindustrial tramways and majestic stained-glass windows, the visuals of Riven more than live up to expectations. Audio effects, ranging from the sound of buzzing insects in an otherwise quiet woodscape to more of that New Age electronic music--plus the requisite collection of clangs, mechanical whirrs and motorized hums as appropriate--add to the sense of a strange, quasi-mythical universe.

Advances in computer technology are reflected primarily through judicious use of animation, for both the actors and various modes of transportation, but it%squots not what makes Riven so compelling. The real pleasure is the long-awaited opportunity to once again visit places that exist only in the Miller brothers%squot awesome imagination.

To play Riven, you%squotll need a Pentium-100 or faster, Windows 95, 16MB of RAM, a whopping 75MB of hard disk space, a 4X or faster CD-ROM drive and a Windows-compatible sound card.