Interesting visuals and puzzles, but after that it was all more of the same. If you want a good creepy platformer with fun mechanics and a story, check out Little Nightmares instead.
It's great to see the classic environments updated for a modern engine. And I think the puzzle randomization option is GREAT for replayability! It's been a long time since I've felt challenged by Myst. However, there are a few things about it that feel rushed when compared to the original. Everything is very brightly and evenly lit, making the environments feel a little flat. I would like to see more attention paid to the use of light, shadow and color to convey appropriate tones for each environment and make them feel more unique. The scale of the maps in this version feels unusually small. It's as if Cyan built out all the maps to a natural scale and then shrunk them down by 10% for some reason. The environments of the original felt a bit more natural in scale. But I'm not sure if this was maybe an unintended consequence of the click-heavy nature of Hypercard. In this version, you can walk from one end of Myst island to the other in a few seconds, which feels strange. And finally... the character models. I understand Cyan can't just re-film all the live-action FMVs now that all the actors are 30 years older, and they probably didn't want to resort to using the old low-rez FMV files, though I may have actually preferred that. But if you're going to use 3D models in your 2021 re-master of Myst built in the Unreal engine, they HAVE to look better than Toy Story 1. In contrast to the stunning environments and world-building Cyan is known for, these 3D models are inexcusable. The models themselves look like cheaply purchased stock assets, and the animation is amateur-level. The lip-synching doesn't even match the audio. I sincerely hope this gets fixed in the future. As it is right now, I'd say this version is fine for what it is. If you're a Myst fan you will find plenty of reasons to enjoy it. Just... close your eyes when those 3D models show up.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with Cyberpunk’s story and photo mode. CDPR really nailed the setting and tone of the cyberpunk genre. But stepping back and looking at the game as a whole, I can’t deny that it is pretty average at best. Every aspect of the moment-to-moment gameplay represents the absolute bare minimum of what to expect in 2020. The shooting, the exploration, the crafting, the RPG elements... all of it has been done better by games that came before it. The open world is beautiful in the way that Disneyland is beautiful. You can lose yourself in the spectacle as long as you don't look too closely. Graphical bugs and glitches can be fixed over time, but I worry that the rest of the game cannot be so easily fixed. The NPC AI is easily the worst aspect. It is broken in a way that is indefensible for an open-world game in 2020. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, a game released 16 years ago at the time of this review, has far better NPC interactions than what you will find in Cyberpunk 2077. Every open-world NPC has just one or two lines. They trudge listlessly through the map with no personality. You cannot buy goods and services from most street merchants. The NPC police spawn instantly all around you for the smallest infraction, but then lose interest entirely if you drive a block away. My expectations were not high for Cyberpunk 2077. I was not expecting a ground breaking experience to blow other games out of the water. But I was expecting for Cyberpunk to at least try to exceed its predecessors, and I don't feel it has done that.
