Mini-Review of RealMyst

Introduction:

Since almost everybody reading this review has already played the
original Myst, a normal review of the game will be wasted effort.
For that matter, it would probably start up the old flame war between
Myst-lovers and Myst-haters.  Instead, I am going to to compare
RealMyst with Myst and try to give you a feel for the differences
(and similarities) between the two games.  I may throw in a few
comments about the game itself, since it has been quite a few years
since I played the original, and some of my opinions may have
changed.

RealMyst is a re-write of the original Myst game, using a completely
new graphics engine (3D) and one new age added (the Rime age).  With
the exception of the Rime age, the game play is identical with the
original; same puzzles, same cut scenses, same music, same voices).
The Rime age has a few puzzles, but is not really an integral part of
the game, so I would almost consider it eye candy rather than a true
extension of the game.  Think of it as a nice bit of extra reward for
solving the original game, and it provides tiny bit of extra linkage
to Riven.

Graphics (quality, animations, cut scenes):

	Myst is a first-person perspective game, with node-based
	movement.  Each node provided a fully ray-traced view of the
	world from that spot.  Movement was completely cursor- based,
	with a click on active spots to move you to the next node.
	The viewable area was a small portion of your entire screen;
	much like looking through a small window.

	RealMyst is a first-person perspective game, implemented
	using a 3D real-time engine.  This means that you can move
	around anywhere (no nodes), and you can look in any direction
	from your current location.  Movement (and all other control)
	is also completely cursor-based.  Mouse motion controls your
	point of view (outside of the dead area in the center), left
	button moves you forward, right button moves you backwards.
	When interacting with a puzzle, your POV is frozen, and the
	left button is now used to interact with the buttons, levers,
	etc.  Cyan got the game controls right, with everything
	feeling quite natural, and very similiar to the original.

	The view in RealMyst is completely full-screen, with
	selectable resolutions to adjust for your machine's
	horsepower.

	The few cut-scenes were identical to the original, only they
	use DirectX instead of Quicktime.

Sound (music, special effects)

	The sound and music are identical to the orginal.  I really
	liked the music and sound effects in the original, and I
	really like them now.  RealMyst has added motion to the game,
	with waves, clouds, flags, etc. all moving constantly.  In
	addition, RealMyst has added a fast day-night cycle to the
	game.  I don't know the exact time, but it appears to be
	about 15 minutes in duration; you can look at the sun and
	easily see it moving along the sky.
      
Story/characters/Voice acting

	No change at all from the original.  The added Rime age
	really makes no difference to the story.

Puzzles (difficulty, uniqueness, suitability, ugliness, linearity):

	With the exception of the Rime gae, no change from the
	original.  The Rime age puzzles are very Myst-like in nature
	(mechanical, well integrated with the world).

	I must comment about some of the original puzzles.  There is
	still a maze, only this time I just couldn't be bothered to
	map it; I just printed out a map from a walkthrough.

	The music-slider puzzle still requires you to be capable of
	remembering tones, but I did find the sliders to be a lot
	less picky than in the original.

	If you have played the original Myst, then you will find that
	this game has a very short playing time.  The puzzles were so
	unique that it appears that they can't really be forgotten,
	even after many years.

Controls (user interface, save/restore, sound/video adjustments):

	The screen has a "dead" area in the center, where cursor
	motion does not cause character motion.  This allows you to
	interact with the puzzles in the game world without causing
	your viewpoint to move around while doing so.  Overall, I
	found the controls to be natural and they felt very much like
	the original Myst, even to identical cursor shapes.  Cyan
	worked hard to get the controls to feel the same, and I think
	they succeeded.

	I missed the ability to "zap" from one place to another in
	RealMyst.  The original allowed you to point at some visible
	but distant point, and you could move there directly without
	having to go through the intermediate nodes.  The new engine
	forces you to walk everywhere, with no shortcuts allowed.
	This becomes especially tedious when you have solved one
	age's puzzles, and merely need to traverse the entire
	sequence again to retrieve the second page.

Bugs or problems:

	The blue and red book animations didn't show up on my
	machine, but I assume this was a problem with my video card,
	not the game.  The same was true with the "end" image in the
	Rime age.

	This isn't a "bug" as such, but the performance requirements
	of RealMyst are breathtaking.  I have a reasonable machine
	(PII 450, Matrox G400 32MB, 128 MB RAM), and I was getting
	frame rates of less than 10 per second at 800x600x16 bits.
	This caused the game movement to be extremely jerky, with
	noticable lags in movement in most areas.  The game was
	playable, but just barely.  I tried the game on my brother's
	machine (PIII 750, 256 MB RAM, overclocked GeForce DDR
	video), and he was able to get 30 frames per second at
	1024x768x32 bits.  It was a much better playing experience on
	his machine.  So be warned, you want a LOT of CPU and video
	horsepower to play this game.

Pros:

	Move anywhere, look at things from any angle.
	Very natural-feeling mouse controls for a 3D engine.
	Extra age (Rime) to give you something to look forward to.

Cons:

	Reduced depth (flatness) due to lack of ray-traced images.
	No "zap" mode or shortcuts allowed.
	Requires an amazingly powerful machine (CPU and video).
	Rime age not really integrated in the game.

Conclusion:

	I have mixed feelings about this game.  The lack of fully
	ray-traced pictures gives a reduced depth to the images, and
	in some sense just moves Myst into the same category as many
	other games.  On the other hand, the full screen view plus the
	ability to move around and look absolutely anywhere is really
	nice.  Overall, I would say that the end result is a reduction
	in my enjoyment.  I think I would have preferred the
	ray-traced pictures (and node-based movement) if they had just
	increased the resolution and screen size.  The 3D engine just
	doesn't provide the same sense of reality that fully
	ray-traced graphics can.  The added bonus of the Rime age just
	isn't enough to make the game wothwhile.

	I would say that you aren't missing too much if you decide to
	skip this game entirely.  If you do decide to buy it, make
	sure you have a lot of horsepower under your computer's hood.
	Also, don't get your expectations too high over the Rime age.
	It's nice eye (and ear) candy, but it doesn't really add
	anything substantial to the original game's story, and
	somehow disappoints because of it.

Extra notes about 3D engine

	My brother is an FPS fan, and he had a comment about the
	RealMyst 3D engine: "Is that the best they can do?".  He then
	brought up a game called Rune, and displayed a few items
	(sky, water) that could be compared against RealMyst.  I must
	admit that in all cases, RealMyst came out second best.  On
	top of all that, RealMyst required more horsepower to do this
	second-rate job.  Perhaps someone else can perform the same
	quality and power comparison on their favourite 3D engine and
	provide more feedback.  From my one comparison, it appears
	that Cyan have come into a fairly mature market of 3D
	engines, and haven't quite got their ducks in a row yet.