General gaming discussion

Had a bit of time this week so finally decided to try something I've tried and failed to do several times before: actually play and complete Myst. I had it as a kid / teenager and never made it beyond the starting area, instead just walking around haphazardly pulling switches. But a lot of games I love are directly influenced by Myst, so saw the modern remade version on Humble Bundle and said I'd give it another whirl, after a failed effort at RealMyst a few years back.

Finished it tonight and not sure why it was ever a big issue as a kid. It's actually fairly handy and logical, one or two annoying puzzles aside. Lots of solutions are handed to you on a plate and you only really need to figure out how to implement them. Once you unlock the first additional 'age' you're pretty much flying. Only took around four hours total to finish up. I did consult a guide three times: once when I was wandering around aimlessly due to my own stupidity (failed to notice an extra level to explore), once to clarify something on the main island, and finally to finish a really annoying maze bit near the end which is built on sound cues. Figured out two of the four sound clues and wasn't arsed with the rest. An empty word doc on the second monitor helped keep track of some info, as well as one or two smartphone reference pics. There is an in-built camera which is handy - seems to be primarily for VR - but it's a bit clunky to keep accessing when you have to input a bunch of symbols in a particular order.

Mostly I really enjoyed the puzzles - lots of weird contraptions and levers that open new contraptions and levers. The remake makes it feel as modern as can be tbh, without fundamentally changing the game. Its age mostly shows up in the form of its barely-there nonsense story (although I do like the weird FMV clips) and the lack of thematic substance to it all, which some more recent puzzle games have more capably managed.

I'm not sure if the full modern 3D design helped, but definitely found it a fairly welcoming experience with only modest roadblocks. Mostly found the puzzles intuitive and logical and satisfying once you take the time to figure out what the game is communicating. The maze can still go to hell, though.

Tempted to try Riven as that was included in the bundle and seems highly regarded by fans. But a proper remake in the style of the Myst one is on the way so may hold off til that arrives in a year or two.

There’s definitely always been a visceral hatred of the game in some quarters, which I struggle to understand.

There seems to be some who hate it just because there was no real ‘action’ in it - tbh, I think the game was ahead of its time in the way the medium has evolved in more recent years. I struggle to see it as pretentious - perhaps at the time it was seen as such relative to other games out there, but these days there’s not much more to it than stroll around a quiet, isolated island solving puzzles. The FMV stuff is a bit naff, but no more so than a lot of other games from around the same era.

There’s a more interesting group who seemed aggrieved its popularity helped kill off the traditional Lucasarts-style adventure game. I can understand in terms of how the quality writing in those games never really made the leap over to the more graphically-intensive full 3D rendered adventures (at least not at the time), but I think the puzzles in Myst - while undoubtedly contrived - are much more intuitive and logical than the weird ‘combine items in right spot’ puzzles of the more ‘traditional’ point n click games.

Anyway, I can certainly see why it is ‘not for everyone’, but the anger it seems to conjure up seems disproportionate to the pretty harmless puzzle game said ire is directed at. The only thing that really annoyed me about it was trying to figure out which version to play as there’s so bloody many of them!

Yeah I do have to say I really did like discovering the islands (which are all meaningfully different and distinct) and the little bits of environmental storytelling you discover in them. While it doesn’t really add up to much of substance, it’s still an important step in interactive, graphics-driven exploration.

Definitely worth trying the 2021 version if you bounced off it in the past. As said, I never was able to get anywhere in the original CD-ROM version but fairly breezed through it this week.

The correct order to play the DMC series:

DMC1 - DMC3 - Bayonetta - Bayonetta 2 - Hi-Fi Rush

DMC5 and Bayonetta 3 are good too, but they’re no Bayonetta 2.