realMyst: Masterpiece Edition

This version of Myst can be as greatly immersive as it did the original but like others have said, it falls a little short. To maximize enjoyment, do what you did in the original: -Play at night and turn off the lights. -Put on those headphones. -Have pen and paper ready, better yet, a journal to keep with you throughout the series as you'll want to play it's sequels after this. Pros: -3d world and movement makes orientation and navigation more intuitive and allows for a little more exploration than it did the original. -Audio quality better than I remember from the original. -Fantastic daylight/night time lighting effects. Try playing Channelwood at night (both in game and in reality) with the lights off and a good headset...spookily immersive. -Makes for good pre-bed game-play to relax the mind and get it into restful dreamy state. Cons: -Minor texturing, modeling, shadowing, and clipping problems here and there... at times being a distraction and forcing the player to float back up out of immersion and into reality. -Modeling edges at times overly clean and blocky--they didn't have a realistic weathered or aged affect which also becomes a distraction at times. -Original pixelated, low-resolution, video sequences being overlayed on clean 3d models looked a little too out of place. Overall, still a great immersive game, but something about the original game's still render's leave's Real Myst Masterpiece Edition a bit short. However not so short that you won't be hungry enough to play Myst's sequel, Riven!

Still a great experience! The updates have kept the experience from yesteryear up-to-date. And that, I believe, was the intention here. Kudos to Cyan for taking the time to update the game that made history. I remember the original release and the time spent playing. The game feels fresh again. It certainly was a great idea to port it to the Mac as well. If you have not played Myst before then this is the version you want to purchase. Many new features have been added in regards to modern graphics capabilities, that in itself is worth the price. Somehow people out there think that hard work should be rewarded with a pat on the back instead of supporting the makers of the game - the studio and its employees. That is a real shame and it is one of the main factors why many studios will not take the time to update their back catalog. It is not feasible in a financial sense. So when people demand that developers cut their own throats for $5.99 or even $0.99, when a bunch of new work has went into a title, what do you think will be the outcome of these circumstances? Studios will not update. The titles will drift into the past and become relics, then they will be sold for pennies. One last thought: What about Mario and the other IP at Nintendo? How many times will large publishers cycle the same game over and over again. Just because they name the game something else doesn't mean it is different. It's the same game with some new mechanics and updated graphics. Not just picking on Nintendo here, but that is one example. I don't see any complaints. No. Quite the opposite. People are happy to slap down their money. So in that regard, Cyan deserves the support and this game is "definitely worth it"!

Ok, for starters I want to say that I love the Myst series, to me Myst: Masterpiece Edition will probably always be the "definitive" edition of Myst, and I've never been the biggest fan of realMyst, although I feel the idea behind it is solid. As I recall, this game was primarily intended as "Real Myst for mobile", and as that it would be a really good game. However, on PC there are things that get in the way of enjoying it, like the low framerate I am going to largely blame on their choice of the Unity engine, lower than ideal polycount, and an interface that screams that it was made for mobile (such as big arrows that get in the way of immersion when you are interacting with things like switches). Also, I don't know if there is any anti-aliasing setting. I only explored the Myst island for this review, but from that I would put this game's worth at around $10 max.

The quality of the scenery is spectacular, but it does not offset the problems with this game. The navigation has been changed so that it is necessary to use two hands to move and look around. Real Myst allowed point and click navigation with the mouse. Now the player has to use keystrokes to move and right clicks on the mouse to look around. This is a terrible system, even though it may conform to navigation used on other games it is a step backward for Real Myst. While the graphics are much better there are some game changes that I do not like. 1) On Myst Island the ocean waves are much too calm, the roaring surf of Real Myst was much better. 2) The storm in Stoneship Age is not as convincing as it was in Real Myst. 3) Tree that accesses Channelwood drops much too fast, forcing the player to fiddle around with the gas valve in the hut. 4) The game save feature does not work, so that the player cannot save progress during the game, only the automatic save feature on exit works. That means that the player cannot experiment with the pages at the end of the game. There are other complaints, but I am going to stop here. All in all, this game is okay at the sale price, but if I had paid full price, I would be angry. I recommend buying "Real Myst" and not "Real Myst Masterpiece Edition."

Kudos to whoever did the graphics game engine and movement updates! I am running this on an MSI connected to 55" 4k tv, and am highly impressed. The nighttime environment and water characteristics are extremely well crafted. It makes a re-spin of an early 90's game a real joy. Fortunately, I only remember the ending and need to resolve many of the puzzles. I think this game is well worth the price, and hope Riven gets the same treatment.