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Uru: Ages Beyond Myst Review by Jen I have played all three previous Myst games and liked them all fairly well. Unlike many adventure gamers, though, Myst was neither my first nor my favorite. The first two, Myst and Riven, were designed by Cyan, a company formed by the brothers Rand and Robyn Miller. These were both groundbreaking in their visual beauty and in their gameplay style: they are inventoryless, first-person, environmental games set in a parallel world in which it is critical to pay close attention to your surroundings. Exile, the third in the series, was developed by now-defunct Presto Studios under license from Cyan. Exile continued the point-and-click tradition of Myst and Riven, with the addition of node-based panning instead of largely static slideshow-style screens; the overall feel of the game, though, was pretty much the same as its predecessors. Uru is not the official Myst 4; rather, it marks the return of Cyan to the development of the D'ni universe as well as the first real massively multiplayer online adventure game. Cyan began designing Uru for online play some years ago; recall the hue and cry when it was announced not only that the next Myst was to be an online-only game but also available only to those with broadband internet connections. Only recently was it announced that Uru would come with a single-player component in addition to the subscription-based online "dungeon," for want of a better word. This article is about that single-player experience since, as of this writing, the online component is available to very few players worldwide, and I'm not one of them. It is scheduled to open to everyone who wants to play (and who has a credit card number to pay for the subscription) in January 2004. Well ... one thing's for certain: This ain't your daddy's Myst. The most marked differences are the 3D graphics with attendant direct control, the ability to switch between first and third person, and ... wait for it ... your character jumps! Yep, you read it right. There are a number of puzzles that require multiple (meaning two or three, in most cases) attempts to complete a finicky vault to a high ledge or a low mesa surrounded by flowing lava. Let me elaborate on that jumping part a bit. Yes, you must make some death-defying leaps, but you never have to rush and you don't really die. Most of the time, if you miscalculate, you just go back and try again. Sometimes you have to travel a bit to get back to the part where you must make the attempt, but that's by far the worst of it. If you're determined never, ever to play a game with jumping, no way no how, then you'd best give Uru a miss; if, however, you're willing to give it a try, you'll likely find the jumping is no big deal. The graphics are stunning, as you might expect from a Myst game. Eye candy junkies will eat this with a spoon and smack their lips in satisfaction afterward. As well, the sound design is masterful—as your character turns, the sounds move with her. The environmental ambience is very realistic, at least within the confines of the game world. Water cascades, rock grinds against rock—the sheer scale of the visuals and their attendant sound effects is really something to behold. This is a big game world! On the whole, the puzzling style is pretty true to the Mysts that came before. You are thrust, in all of your wondering ignorance, into a strange place and must absorb clues from your surroundings as to what to do with the artifacts that you find here and there. Some of the puzzles are obtuse, as might be expected—you'd best have that walkthrough handy before you start. Others, though, are "gimmes," which is unusual in a Myst game. The control scheme takes some getting used to, as with all direct-control games, but it is simplicity itself. You have your movement keys and your jump key. That's about it. All of the commands may be assigned to whatever keys suit you, and you can even use the mouse for much of the moving around if you so choose, although it is awkward. You will be required to use the keyboard to do things like jump (eek! there's that J word again!), toggle run/walk, switch points of view (between first and third person), and sidle. Not that I ever actually had to sidle, mind you ... but I could've if I'd wanted to. In each Age, the object is to find and touch seven Journey Cloths, which take the form of handprints on burlap. Once you have found all seven and then touch a final eighth handprint, you are through with that Age. (Or are you?) You are free to return to these Ages at any time, though, just to explore further or see if you missed anything. After a relatively brief introductory Age that takes place on Earth, in New Mexico, to be specific, you get your own little Age called Relto, a platform in the sky with a hut and a hill. Inside the hut is a bookshelf where all of your fine, shiny new linking books are stored as they become available, with plenty of empty slots for subsequent online Ages. You carry a linking book with you at all times that takes you back to Relto when used. If you "die," you are carried back to Relto. As well, Relto contains a wardrobe where you can change your appearance, not just your clothes but your features and I suppose even your gender. Within each linking book, you get a choice of going back to the beginning of its Age or to the last Journey Cloth you touched. In addition to finding linking books within the Ages, you will come across a different sort of page for your own book, green hieroglyphs that, when activated, add little personal touches to Relto. These can all be turned on or off at your pleasure. I'm still not quite clear on what these are good for, other than some slightly amusing farting around; I suspect they will come into play when the MMOAG (now there's an acronym I never thought I'd see in print) opens and you must distinguish your Relto from those of others to which you may be invited. For now, they are just fun little extra goodies to locate and obtain. Bear with me while I theorize a bit here: I suspect the single-player experience was built from some of the episodes originally planned to be online-only. The mechanics of the whole thing are set up to accommodate online play. For instance, you can't save in Uru—your progress is marked on quitting, and you always begin subsequent sessions in Relto. This can be a curse when, say, you miss a jump and land back in Relto and have to link and trek back to the jumping-off point to try again. Fortunately, at least for me, no jump took more than two or three attempts, but still ... a bit of a pisser, 'twas. Also, throughout your single-player Ages you will catch glimpses of a great cave city that you will not actually visit. I think this is the city of D'ni that forms the nucleus of the online experience. As well, there are areas that are blocked off with cones and barriers such as you find around big potholes in real life. I bet those will go away as new online content is developed, giving access to more areas within the Ages you've already visited and tying them all together. A drawback, a big one, is that you play an able-bodied chick (or guy, if your inclinations run that way) and yet you cannot use your arms or hands. When you have to manipulate an object in the environment, your only choice is to bump into it, sometimes lots of times, to nudge it into position. Unnecessarily time-consuming—I think a better approach would have been to allow the player to pick up and drag objects with the mouse or somehow hold items for a brief period. All in all, I had more fun with these five single-player-afterthought Uru Ages than I did with any of the three previous Myst games. I was completely addicted. I think the jumping and the necessity of switching between third and first person to solve certain puzzles adds an enjoyable extra layer to the gameplay. And Uru seems to have a certain indefinable joie de vivre missing from either Myst or Riven. To those who complain that this is not their daddy's Myst, I can only point out that there is nobody in this world more qualified to define—and redefine—the Myst world than Cyan. It's their baby, after all. You don't have to like it ... but I sure did. I'll even go out on a limb here and predict that this, in addition
to or instead of Broken
Sword 3 (which I've not yet played at the time
I write this), is the future of adventure gaming. Love it or hate
it, I believe we will look back in five or ten years and see this
as a watershed moment in our brief gaming history, in much the
same way as the original 1993 Myst is now viewed. That
being said, how can I give Uru anything but the Gold Star?
Besides that, it's loads of fun to play. |
The Verdict
The Lowdown Developer: Cyan Available for: Four Fat Chicks Links Screenshots
System Requirements Windows XP/00/ME/98SE Where to Find It GoGamer
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