Myst 3: Exile Review

Click. Click. Where’s the bang?

I grew up with parents who liked to invite people over and then show slides.

Slides from the kinds of places most parents don’t get to, like the Himalayas,

Nepal, Tibet, Mt. Everest and K2. As a child I had to suffer through these displays

repeatedly, struggling to remain awake for the very pretty, but awfully boring

show. So when Myst first was released, I immediately noticed that it

played like a Macintosh Hyper-Card presentation, I avoided it like the plague

despite its stratospheric popularity.

Now that I’m older, I can sit through my parents’ slides when I come home and

actually be fascinated by them this time. So when the opportunity came to review

Myst 3: Exile, I wondered how much I had changed.

When considering any sequel, especially one that fits into one of the most

successful franchises in electronic entertainment, you have to look at the larger

effects of the series. Exile is not really just Myst, it’s where

the entire “Myst” genre has arrived. What surfaces in looking at Exile

is that what Myst did to regular adventure games has finally happened

to Myst itself.

What’s that mean? While not really Myst’s fault, the flood of sterile,

boring, lifeless slideshow adventure games clamoring at its coattails absorbed

all other types of adventure games, crested and drowned the genre out, save

for a few stalwarts such as Grim Fandango or

the newer Monkey Island games. The

tide has turned, and now the slideshow adventure games have receded, and Myst

3 is one of the few.

In that situation, Myst’s creators are surely hoping that their newest

entry will revitalize their favorite genre. And while it’s a good try, it just

can’t do what the original did so many years ago.

To give Myst 3 its due credit, it is a beautiful slideshow. While I

wont bother explaining the typically abstract plot, the abstract settings are

eerie and evocative and strange and brilliantly rendered. There is plenty of

eye candy to be found throughout the game, all of it viewable through a panoramic

engine that allows you to view your surroundings in a smooth 360 degrees of

vision just by turning the mouse. There are some clever uses of this, such as

localized sounds that you must face to begin an event. There is also support

for 3D hardware to generate some appealing effects. Sound and music are likewise

handled exceptionally well, with great production values all around.

While the universal mark of quality helps make things immersive, and while

the graphical talent on display is certainly impressive, there is a mild quandary

that prevents a person from truly wanting to simply gaze at the scenery. We

look at static artistic images because there is meaning and significance conveyed

in them; they have life. In games, artwork isn’t really like art in a museum

– it exists to set the mood and provide some pretty scenery. So while Myst

3 is gorgeous, there is nothing fulfilling within its graphical lushness

and therefore much more of the experience falls on the shoulders of the puzzles

that make up gameplay.

And in

all fairness, the puzzles are good. Unlike Riven,

which was akin to an IQ test from hell, Myst 3 is reasonably approachable.

Of course, the puzzles play with the same sort of strange machines and books

and levers and knobs and switches and thingamabobs just like usual. However,

unlike some of the puzzles in the earlier Myst games, most puzzles in

Exile are contained within their own smallish area meaning that there

is far less running (clicking?) back and forth between areas, which is a definite

plus. The puzzles are still cerebral enough that non-gamers can justify playing

the game without feeling guilty and real gamers can be challenged, it all depends

if you enjoy fiddling with things.

But everything I’ve just said could also be applied to Myst itself.

So what is different about Exile? Aside from the slightly new setting (it’s

not the same island), new plot, and new technology, there is very little new

in Exile. It feels much like the same experience as its predecessors

except that where Myst broke new ground, Myst 3 is strictly by

the numbers. If you enjoy the Myst games, then Exile should be

plenty fun, but if you never liked them then Myst 3 is not likely to

convert you.

Furthermore, Exile is not without its own unique faults. King among

these are some extremely annoying bugs. For example, every time you start the

game, Exile needs to have the install disc in your CD-ROM drive, but

when playing the game, it needs one of the 3 play discs. This means that every

time you play Exile there is some really bothersome disc swapping when

none should actually be required.

Perhaps this is a strange moment in gaming, a crisis of identity. Gaming has

become such a large industry that it is being overcrowded with imitators and

strangled by unreasonable bottom-line business demands. Myst was a game

that changed gaming – perhaps not for better – but it did change it. Conversely,

Exile is just an exercise that lacks the energy to make anyone ebullient.

But that isn’t to say it’s not damn pretty.