Ubisoft's latest game in the popular Myst adventure series seemed disappointing because of its lack of online play at release. However, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst also features a comprehensive single-player game with top-notch production values. Like previous games in the Myst series, Uru takes place in a series of bizarre and beautiful indoor and outdoor environments that look impressive but are truly brought to life by their sound. Each of the environments, from a deserted factory connected by creaking, rusted ramps in the middle of a lake to a mechanized tower surrounded by roaring waterfalls, looks picturesque, but thanks to the high-quality ambient sound effects, they all seem perfectly appropriate and surprisingly realistic.

Uru takes place in an almost completely deserted world, though in order to solve the game's puzzles, you often need to reactivate ancient, rusted machinery that creaks and groans believably into action. In addition, the game makes excellent use of 3D positional sound to make environmental features like howling wind, hissing steam vents, and roaring waterfalls sound extremely realistic relative to your own location in the game--in fact, it's easily some of the best, if not the best, ambient sound we've ever heard in a game to date. Uru: Ages Beyond Myst wins our Best Sound in a Game 2003 award, not only because the game's sound is of such exceptional quality, but also because the sound adds tremendously to the game itself, by perfectly complementing the game's graphics, story, puzzles, and presentation.