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Restore the lost empire of the D'ni - an ancient civilisation
of people who thrived for thousands of years but later met
with a great catastrophe. Like each previous Myst title,
Myst V: End of Ages advances the graphical detail of
its worlds with a fully immersive 3D environment. Carefully
crafted and combined elements of adventure, puzzles, storyline
and gameplay ensure a worthy ending to the series. Myst
V: End of Ages follows the Myst storyline to its
conclusion - closing the book on the Ages of Myst...
Myst
V: End of Ages will be the last of the Myst games
to be produced by Cyan, the company behind the original Myst
game. The new game starts with a voice-over by Attrus, the
character who has been trying to save the world of Myst through
the previous four games. He sounds dejected and defeated in
his quest, so, of course, as the hero it's up to you to try
and put things right.
You
start in Attrus's prison, in the first age K'veer, with little
else but a book with the words Myst emblazoned upon it, but
of course you can't open it, that would be too easy. No, you
must first escape the room. Once you've done this, and for
once it's fairly straightforward for a Myst game, you
find your way to another chamber where you discover a tablet
to be freed (one of the many objects of the game) and the
first talking character, Yeesha. So, you're off to visit each
of the worlds of Myst to solve puzzles and find a way to have
one more last go at saving Myst.
The graphics are, as ever, beautiful to behold. Each of the
worlds is rendered in an almost visually impressive photorealistic
way. You navigate through each world with both point and click
or you can rotate the picture in much the same way as a QuickTime
movie. The soundscape remains impressive, as it has done through
all the games. So what you have here is a beautiful journey
full of puzzles to solve, and thankfully, this time they aren't
any of the mind numbing 'makes no sense' types that were found
in some of the earlier games.
I'm
not really sure that End of Ages brings anything new to the
world of Myst; there are a few technical improvements
in character animation and general navigation, but overall
it's very much like the previous games, which I guess is just
what you're looking for if you're a Myst fan.
And
now for the bad news: Myst is a pig to get working.
I had to try it on three machines to even get it to work half
decently. A quick look on the forums showed that there a number
of problems with the game, some are problems with Java and
some are with the ATI chip set. One machine would not load
it at all, another loaded it and the third had the maddening
habit of setting the graphics card into an endless loop. Seems
the best way to get it to work is to only buy it if your specs
completely match that of the game, don't rely on the tool
that comes with the game. According to that, all my machines
were compatible. Oh and remember to turn everything else off.
Well,
at that point, the potential joy of the game is rather out
weighed by the pain in trying to get it to work. Now, this
is rather strange as all the previous games installed without
a hitch, maybe the improvements that have been made to the
gameplay was an improvement too many. I doubt that Cyan will
issue a patch as they first laid off their workforce only
to rehire then, so as a company there seems to be weird things
going on there.
So
the best advice I can give is to download the free demo and
see if that works on your machine, if not you'll know not
to buy it. Shame really it would have got a much higher mark
if it had ran without so much hassle.
Charles
Packer
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£29.99
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