May 27, 2009 7:00 am US/Eastern
Review: iPhone 'Myst' Still Worth Discovering
By Phil Stauskas
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The iPhone version of the computer game classic is a faithful recreation of the original adventure and a fantastic trip down memory lane.
Cyan Worlds
For those who have played "Myst" before (and loved it), this review is going to be really short. The iPhone version of the computer game classic is a faithful recreation of the original adventure and a fantastic trip down memory lane. Buy it.
Still with me? That means you probably fall into one of two categories. You're either a young'n who wasn't around during the original game's heyday, or you simply never cared about video games until the iPhone and the Wii brought them back to the masses.
That's all okay though, my advice is essentially the same. The iPhone version of the computer game classic is a faithful recreation of the original adventure that you never experienced the first time around. Buy it.
For you uniniated players, let me explain the game's draw. If you haven't heard, "Myst" was THE game to play in the early 1990s. Computer games at the time were starting to appear on fancy new CD-ROMs and floppy disks were on the way out.
The extra storage space available on a CD made "Myst" unlike anything we'd seen before. The graphics were stunning (at the time), the game world felt massive and the story was deep. It all pulled people into a fictional world where it seemed as though anything was possible.
The game begins when you open a book and get sucked into a magic portal. You then find yourself stuck on an island. No guide. No instruction manual. But plenty of levers and buttons and buildings to get your mind thinking.
You advance through the game by tapping on the locations and objects around you. Want to pull a lever? Tap it. Want to pick up a scrap of paper? Tap it. Want to turn to the left of the screen? Tap it. So, "Myst" is a perfect fit on the iPhone's touch screen. Although, precise tapping can be difficult with fat fingers.
As you move around the island, you encounter puzzles that must be solved to progress the story.
And that's about all I'm going to say.
I want to leave the details scarce, because the joy of "Myst" is in the discovery. The puzzles can become complex and often frustrating. This is a very cerebral game, and if you're mind isn't in the right spot at the right time, you might miss the solutions entirely. But, discovering those difficult solutions, and the story that follows them, is incredibly rewarding.
There is a help feature for those who get really stuck, but I urge you to ignore it. For starters, it closes the game and opens a new Safari browser window, which is just annoying. Options like this should let players remain in the game. But, hints also take away from the fun. It's far more rewarding to work through the puzzles yourself than it is to be handed the answers.
Just remember: With more frustration comes more appreciation.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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