Myst was the first of its kind, and even today it remains one of the few games that will draw you into its world.
User Rating: 9 | Myst (1995) PC
Very rarely is there a game that revolutionizes its industry. Myst, when it was released, was the game that had everyone buying CD drives for their computers, and it was for good reason. Myst manages to combine graphics, sound, and gameplay into one of the greatest games to ever appear on a computer screen. The story’s beginning gives foreshadow to what is to come. You find a book called Myst, and upon finishing the book, you lay your hand on the page. As soon as you do, you are transported away, to a mysterious island. Myst’s gameplay starts when you arrive here. You start “walking” around the island searching for clues. Very soon into the game, you come upon two books that contain imprisoned brothers. Their names are Sirrus and Achenar, and they ask you to free them from their prisons. From then on you will gather information on the island, and unlock different linking books to try to get the brothers out of their prisons. Needless to say, some of the details are quite hard to find and put together correctly, but the game does not get old because of the way it draws you in, and the fact that the mouse controls are very intuitive. You will want to solve the puzzles you come across, just so you can see what is next. In fact there are very few places where you will get annoyed with the puzzles, but a certain underground maze does tend to get really annoying. Myst’s graphics were some of the best released at the time. Even though we can see great flaws in them today, you must remember this game is more than a decade old. Even today, some of the areas do still look incredible, thanks to the great detail and care Cyan put into the game. The island views that you see every time you use a linking book are incredible for their age. Myst’s sound is also quite good. This is needed however, since a portion of the games puzzles become very hard, or impossible, if you do not use your ears. Most of the sound effects add to the game’s atmosphere, and few will grate on your nerves, even after playing for hours. Myst is the game that revolutionized computer gaming. Not only that, but it introduced new ideas in ways that would have never been possible. If Myst accomplishes one thing above all however, it is that even after of these years it is still able to draw the gamer into its world in a way that few games have ever been able to do, even after all these years since its release.
