Best Adventure Game

It's almost a cliché that traditional adventure games--those games that emphasize a deep story and challenging contextual puzzles over action-packed combat--are getting scarcer each year. So maybe it's appropriate that this year's winner for the best adventure game is Myst IV Revelation, a highly traditional adventure game that embodies nearly all the virtues of this classic genre. If nothing else, this adherence to tradition distinguishes Myst IV Revelation from most any new game on store shelves. Very few other games use full-motion video to create lengthy cinematic sequences anymore, nor do many games attempt to create huge, colorful worlds using a combination of meticulously hand-drawn 2D art and prerendered 2D graphics.

But don't take Myst IV's traditional approach as any kind of mark against it. Like some of the very best classic adventure games, the latest chapter in the Myst saga takes place in a picturesque fantasy world that's equal parts idealized earthly nature and otherworldly beauty. Like in previous games in the series, the world is also framed by the sometimes gigantic, baroque machinery that powers impossibly huge clockwork towers and skyway trams. And yet, Myst IV's world is also home to a series of relentlessly difficult logic puzzles that, despite the game's inclusion of a full set of solutions, offers an unflinchingly stiff challenge to nearly any adventure game fan. Fortunately, the game also offers a deep story that adds context to the game's challenging puzzles in the form of a kidnapping mystery that holds the potential of wrapping up nearly all the loose ends in the world of Myst. The game also has excellent audio in the form of great ambient sound and music, along with surprisingly good acting turns by its cast, which includes developer Rand Miller, who reprises his role as the series' mainstay, Atrus. Myst IV's outstanding presentation and great challenge make it the best all-around adventure game of 2004.