Journey through surreal worlds beyond your imagination and discover the mysteries of the lost D'ni civilization. They were responsible for creation of Linking Books - "gates" to another dimensions called "Ages".
Follow Yeesha, the eccentric daughter of Atrus, to discover the lost secrets, solve puzzles and explore vast worlds. Uncover a brilliant prophecy whose fulfilment is secretly threatened.
Includes: Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, The Path of the Shell and To D'ni Expansion Packs.
Age requirements: PEGI Rating: 3+
Minimum system requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1.8 GHz Processor, 512MB RAM (1 GB recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 9, 2.5 GB HDD, Mouse, Keyboard. Compatibility notice: This game is incompatible with Intel graphics controllers.
Average customer rating 4.5 out of 5.0
Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.
(by
greatgreybeast)
Uru is a somewhat bittersweet experience. The fact of the matter is that it's a broken game; divorced both from the safety of conventional design and from the massively multiplayer online play that was to be its centerpiece, Uru exists today only as the ruins of a grand, unrealized vision. But what spectacular ruins! You don't so much "play" Uru as wander its massive... full review halls, gaping at the fantastical colors and textures and shapes, and pondering what it must have looked like in its own time... what it might have looked like if history had been different. Uru is beauty tinged with sadness.
And what'll really bake your noodle is that this is all what Uru is literally about: wandering the ruins of the long-dead D'ni civilization, the "holy land" behind all the mythology of the Myst universe. I have been a Myst devotee since the beginning, and playing this game back in '03 was a parade of jaw-dropping discoveries: "This is neat, it could almost... oh, my, GOD - am I where I think I am???" From there the game develops a strange recursive energy: we're seeing things "for real" that we only imagined before, but they're still just bones and we must imagine further what they looked like long ago on our way to the game's putative (and unrealized) goal of bringing it all to life again. Adding on top of that the fact that the game itself has become a similar boneyard, an emotional resonance is achieved beyond, I think, even what the designers could have originally intended.
To be sure, I don't believe Uru's online side was ever going to or will ever succeed in this form. It was given a fair chance and failed on its own terms. While it's loaded with authenticity and emotional power, it never managed a satisfying storyline, or even totally coherent gameplay. Uru gets something wrong for everything it gets right, and, while I hope it is reborn in the future, it will need to rethink its core design ideas to be reborn successfully. That said, perhaps the best thing about Uru is its design creativity. People often say they'd prefer a game that tries new things and fails than a game that plays it safe, and this is that game. Even when Uru falls flat on its face (a couple puzzles have even risen above the original's maze puzzle in adventure game infamy), it always manages to fail in totally unique and interesting ways - ways that spark conversations about how game design works and what it might be capable of in the future.
In short, this is not a game for people who want a complete experience - like Riven. This is a game for people who just want to explore and to think, with no reward for it but the beauty that is all around.
Great game in itself, but keep tabs on the multiplayer version too.
(by
matthornb)
Uru is the largest singleplayer Myst game ever made, and yes, it's in beautifully art-directed realtime 3d, the audio is great, the puzzles are great, and, well - what can I say - it's a fantastic game. ... full review
Uru takes place in the present day, with the idea that you're in our present-day world and you discover a passage into the ruins of the ancient underground city of the D'ni. Backstory in Uru is rich and well tied into the Myst novels/games, but firsthand story is (sadly) rather thin.
The graphics are a bit technically dated by now, but the art direction and visual design is so good that it's hard to say that the graphics in this game are anything short of gorgeous. The game is also massive in size - there are more worlds in Uru:Complete Chronicles than in any other Myst game except for Myst Online: Uru Live - which was an expanded version of Uru:Complete Chronicles!
There is a lot of great content here, a wide variety of nicely designed realtime 3d worlds, and (this being a Myst game) some pretty tricky puzzles, ranging from (sometimes frustrating) physics-based puzzles to locating hidden objects, to the sort of thoughtful mechanical puzzles Myst games are generally more known for. The audio is also quite good, both the realistic sound effects and the music. The Kadish Gallery, especially, is stunning to listen to.
But you'd be making a mistake to limit your awareness of "Uru" to Uru:CC.
Simply put, this game was meant to be played as an MMO - a multiplayer adventure game - and it ran that way under the name "Myst Online: Uru Live". During that time, Cyan Worlds released a stream of new worlds for the game which aren't in this single-player version, like Eder Delin, Minkata, Jalak, etc - but there were never enough subscribers to cover the cost of the regular production of high-quality 3d worlds.
So, Myst Online: Uru Live was cancelled. Cyan Worlds now (generously) wants to open-source that larger version of the game, as well as the game engine, level design tools, etc - which'll happen whenever they can spare enough cash and time to finish that.
Buy the Myst games here at GOG.com, buy Cyan Worlds' "Myst" games, they're great games to begin with, but more than that, high sales of the Myst games and other recent Cyan Worlds projects (like MagiQuest Online) will help Cyan Worlds get the multiplayer version of Uru reopened sooner.
For more info on the condition of Uru, check www.mystonline.com.
Finally! A Myst game with a freely explorable world!
(by
Red_Avatar)
Myst games and its ilk have always received some stick for being completely pre-rendered with all the disadvantages tied to that. Uru was the first and only of the Myst games to go the full 3D approach (Real Myst not counted) and I must say, it did it quite well!... full review
Sure, the graphics don't look quite as good as they did back in 2004 but on the other hand, the game will run as smooth as butter which will only improve the experience. The puzzles are still classic Myst ones (so rather abstract) but many now make use of the full-roaming world.
But most important of all: the atmosphere of the game is probably the best of all Myst games. This is purely subjective, I realise, but I find atmosphere in a game like this is paramount and when you're stuck, it's meant to make the experience still relaxing and enjoyable. Nothing worse than trying to solve a frustrated puzzle in a dull world!
All in all, a worthy addition to the Myst series. Personally, it's my favorite because it's that bit more userfriendly!
greatgreybeast)
Red_Avatar)