Obduction ®

If you enjoyed Myst or its sequels, you'll most likely enjoy Obduction. It brings back that same sense of open exploration and wonder, of piecing together what's happening from observation and notes, and manipulating and reactivating beautifully complex pieces of machinery to open up new areas. Despite having no direct links to the world of Myst, it shares a lot of the same themes, such as the aforementioned machinery, different ages that are linked together, well-designed puzzles, and gorgeous environments. The puzzles are perfect- not so hard that you need a guide, but not so easy that you won't get stuck at least once or twice. It really does feel like playing a Myst game in the best possible way. There are some differences- instead of the unique architectural style of the Myst games, the environments have a more post-apocalyptic, sci-fi look, consisting of alien technology or jury-rigged machines built from clever combinations of scrap. Though you're still wandering a mostly-empty world, it finally feels like this is more for reasons of plot than because of limitations in the game engine, and you'll even encounter some characters in person a handful of times. The entire tone is also warmer and more human than the cold, ancient feel of the D'ni ruins and ages of Myst. The only flaws I noticed were a few obvious references to Cyan and Myst (one or two would have been okay, but there seem to be an awful lot considering how few objects from Earth are present) which broke immersion a little... and definitely worst of all, the long loading times. These are tolerable most of the time, but when you get to a puzzle that requires rapidly switching between worlds a couple dozen times, it quickly becomes very frustrating and makes you wonder what they could possibly have been thinking to design it this way. Even so, I greatly enjoyed Obduction and I feel like the good points more than made up for the bad. It brought a fresh look to a beloved genre of old.

Obduction, is a very pretty looking first person puzzle game, with interesting different places to explore and figure out the lore based on notebooks and dialogue. It also has very clever puzzles with just enough hints to not feel like you are being handholded, but not so much that you can simply figure out in a matter of seconds. As I said, the lore/story is not told directly but rather through logs and all of that, and if you piece it together, you get an interesting story and you also get different endings. However, some sections tend to become more of a chore than fun puzzle solving.

I had quite some hopes for this game as I like the Myst-games, so it wasn't without some anticipation I installed it and loaded it up. Everything went fine until I came to the controller settings menu. Where the inferno is the key-bindings?? There are none, and it became painfully obvious that the devs had no intention to ever offer any either as they locked a thread regarding this on Steam with no explanation. Well that sucked, but could it be played left-handed as a..."hidden" feature? I've seen that before, so I started up in hope that the devs seriously couldn't be that much of human waste extraction ports. But they could, and they were. You could move forward and backwards, and you could turn. Turn? Who would ever turn with the keyboard? And that was all you could do with your right hand. Being left-handed playing with WASD is really awkward and the fingers gets a really shitty position, far from happy I gave up. My impression of people obstinately omitting fundamental *relly bad word* things like this very much reminds of myself as an insecure 10-year old with way too much ADHD and no medication: I made games on my C-64 with lots of insults and other really really stupid things. Except, my games was never ever broken, and these guys aren't 10 years old, they are older than me. I can almost hear these hacks go "Mwahahahahaha! FOOOOOLS! Dance for me!! I'M in control! Mwahahahahaha! That's not just a humanly orifice thing to do, that is also pathetic. No, I do not recommend this.

The Myst series was my introduction to video games as a kid. I don't have the patience to play adventure-puzzle games nowadays, but I have a soft spot for Cyan and will play any of their games. Cyan are a genius at integrating puzzles with environment without making it seem contrived or illogical, and they knocked it out of the park here. Obduction's puzzles are everything I love about MYST and Riven, solving them was very satisfying. After a slow start to the pacing (roughly the first 1/3rd of the game is all about opening doors/routes in the same world), I got into the groove, and started feeling that sense of accomplishment that lasted for the whole game. I barely used a walkthrough, and usually to point out a path I didn't notice earlier. Cyan are also great at creating breathtaking worlds, and Obduction's worlds absolutely have the same "wow" factor of the Myst Ages. I enjoyed walking about and just admiring the landscapes. Obduction's story was a bit of a letdown. There was a big buildup of expectation at the outset (through the trademark journals/notes) and I expected an engrossing drama like Riven's. The climax of the story was a bit underwhelming (even though it wrapped up neatly) and there seemed like many loose ends in the journals that weren't addressed. I get the feeling that Cyan initially wanted the story to be more involved and set up the in-game notes for it, but ran out of resources/time before release and just left them hanging. I liked the story for its potential, but it was still a bit disappointing. Lastly, Obduction has a setting that turns the free-roam into a point&click game. First-person games of any type make me motion sick (FOV/perspective tweaking doesn't help), so this p&c setting was a lifesaver. A worthy successor to Myst. Cyan are still going strong – may they keep making fantastic games like this. My actual rating is 3.5 of 5 stars (half star taken off because of the story), but rounded up here.

I really enjoyed the game. There are a few problems, however, which is why I subtract a star: 1. Translation. In German, some puzzles cannot be understood at all, e.g. the hint with the compass and the license plates. 2. Loading times: The maze in particular is a real torture, you look longer at the loading images than at the actual game. That could certainly have been solved differently ... I would still recommend the game, especially since it is currently on sale.