Myst III: Exile

clues to collect because you have no idea what puzzles are in store. The best example of this is when you are presented with a puzzle in the pinball world of Amateria. You’re tasked with getting a ball made of crystal past a mechanism that has to be perfectly balanced. There’s a counterweight to create and a fulcrum to position to solve it. Through trial and error you’ll get it – eventually. It’s far easier to take note of a few things in the in the abandoned living quarters of the villain Saavedro (and a couple in Amateria) and apply a modicum of logic to just plow through the puzzle. There are some obvious puzzles that are practically spelled out in journal pages or can be overcome by a few quick lever pulls. The other side of the coin is that there are some damn hard puzzles. Puzzles and machines that require a lot of thinking, diagramming, and note taking. It’s these puzzles that really bring down the score. Any puzzle that can keep me second-guessing myself for five days is a hard puzzle. (I really hated Voltaic. Getting current flowing and fiddling with circuits should be left to electricians!) But there is a real sense of accomplishment when they are finally beaten into submission. And because the graphics are so good, I didn’t really mind watching the same animation over and over as a machine ran its course.

The next drop in score comes in the story. It’s in-depth, it’s intriguing, and if you’ve never played Myst, you’ll wonder what the hell is going on. After a few hours with MX I felt like I had opened a book somewhere in the middle. If could read the text, it wouldn’t be so bad but it’s written in Greek – backwards and upside down. This is a definite piece of Myst history and those that played the first two games won’t have a problem understanding what’s going on. For those that start at zero, it’s like watching Return of the Jedi without any knowledge of Star Wars. The setup for the story in MX is fairly straightforward: Atrus’ latest book, Releeshahn, gets stolen and it’s up to you to get it back from the guy that stole it (Saavedro). Straightforward and to the point. Through the game you learn more about the characters, but I feel like I’ve missed something by not playing the previous games.

Navigation and interaction has been stripped to the bare bones – it’s been made as simple as possible. Getting from point A to point B is easy. You just click the hand where you want to go. (If a "whiff" sound is heard, you can’t go there from where you’re standing.) The hand can be stationary in the middle of the screen, which means you have to be looking dead-center on whatever you’re working on. Or you can moved the hand independently, so you don’t have to work with everything directly in your line of sight. Switching between the two is only a click away. Most 

importantly it doesn’t get in the way of playing the game. Inventory is very limited, but there isn’t much to cart around anyway so it’s not a problem.

Obviously, people looking for hardcore 3D alien-shooting action won’t be drawn to Myst III: Exile. As a series, it’s the most popular computer game ever and hardcore crowds tend to shun popular or "for the masses" games. If you want to really think – to stretch, twist, and challenge your gray matter – Myst III: Exile is an excellent game, no matter that some of puzzles are very hard and you might feel lost as to what’s really going on. Exquisitely detailed, satisfying, immersive, and challenging – worth buying.

- Omni

It's highly recommended that if you can afford the space to do a complete install of all four CDs.