Myst IV: Revelation

This game is nostalgic experience!

I completed the game without any hints or spoilers. I thought all the puzzles were pretty fair, but a few of them were a bit of a stretch and required a fuzzy leap of insight. There also wasn't any single mind-blowingly cool puzzle, in my opinion, like there was in Riven or Exile. However, ultimately everything was fair, there was plenty of cool stuff, there weren't any obnoxious red herrings, and I appreciated the lack of pixel-hunting for barely-visible secret paths or panels, which remains IMO by far the worst thing in the Myst series generally. I like the story and setup generally and particularly the characterization told via the journals. Some of the acting is pretty awful, though, even by my tolerant standards. The main issue in the game for me is the navigation and interface. It just takes too dang long to move around compared to previous games. Having to spend >1 second every single time you change screens REALLY adds up. There is also one particular puzzle that requires a particular bit of maneuvering (invoking, fairly clearly, the interface itself) that has HORRIBLE detection. I also found it unfortunate that sometimes, objects that COULD be manipulable under certain circumstances were treated as static background if those circumstances were not triggered, instead of earlier games' (superior) practice of having the object clearly fail to work or be manipulated to no effect. The hand should not be "tapping" on things that can actually do something! Ultimately, the complaints did not prevent me from finishing, so this is a thumbs up in the end, but a tempered one, and the game very much deserves the "mixed reviews" it currently has on Steam.

The music is great, the graphics are pleasant despite their age, and the animations are nice but it has many flaws. Not worth it if you are not a Myst fan

Out of all the Myst games I've played (a lot, and a lot of versions) this one is probably my second or first least favourite. The game was developed with Ubisoft, and there has been SO MUCH thought put into the game mechanics and worldbuilding and graphics that the game itself is awful. The movement is slow and broken, interactions are painful and also slow, puzzles are easy, and for God's sake are the cutscenes unbelievably boring (I'm looking at you, Yeesha). Despite the story and characters being very good, I have found myself more often than not having to close the game because I got bored due to the fact that to finish one puzzle you have to walk the whole darn map, which takes about five minutes to do (it's a map so small it shouldn't BE 5'). Scale: Turd - Bad - Acceptable - Good - Awesome Graphics: Acceptable Mechanics: Turd Story: Acceptable Gameplay: Turd Puzzles: Acceptable MY ASSESSMENT: Bad Game 5/10

Having finsihed Myst, Riven, Exiles and just now Revelation, here are my thoughts without spoilers: From the 5 games, this is the 2nd most difficult Myst game that I have played so far, only missing End of Ages. You will get stuck a few times and for the first time, I felt at times that certain puzzels would be impossible, I felt hopeless at times, unsure if I could complete them. The urge of looking up a guide hit me a few times, but thankfully I never gave in. Like with Riven, you have to be extremely vigilant, however, if you do get stuck, the game is forgiving to some degree that you can choose alternative routes, as you can change up the order in the way you wish to tackle the Ages, so you can mix things up a bit if you end up getting stuck. Story was good like with all the Myst games, I personally very much like all the characters. As you play each of these games in order, you will notice the technical improvements with each new title, so Revelation is of course more refined than Exile, however, I must say I had some crashes, seemed to be memory related, but thankfully it was not to bad. I look forward to continuing this epic adventure with Myst V: End of Ages.

A deeply flawed and frustrating follow-up to Exile. Recently considered a replay but recalled the tedious, inorganic and infuriating puzzles and decided against it. Beautiful environments and an unexpected (and awesome) appearance by Peter Gabriel are the highlights, but I hate to admit the overall puzzle design and certain game mechanics overshadow the positive. Presto Studios should have been at the helm for this one.

I can't say whether it's a good game or not, but what I can say is it just straight up doesn't work with my computer. Don't know why. The previous games worked fine, and those were built for even older hardware. When I hit "Play" a new process called "Myst IV" appears in the task manager, the resolution on my screen drops until the normally pea-sized icons on my start menu are the size of quarters (were screens in 2004 really [i]that[/i] bad? I was just a kid then, but I imagine I'd remember that), and my mouse becomes only partly functional (which I guess might correspond with how it works in-game), but the game window never appears. I waited a whole hour, according to Steam, before deciding to teach myself how to end a task in task manager using only the keyboard (Alt+E, if you're curious). It was an enjoyable hour (mostly spent reading), but not because I got to play this game at any point therein (I did not). Don't know what kind of computer all these people reviewing the game on its actual merits were using, but apparently it wasn't the kind I've got. Perhaps one day I can look forward to hating it as much as they did (though hopefully not as much as my computer did).

The game plays well up until you reach the marble puzzle that will not accept a solution locking out the players chance to rescue Yeesha. I have played this game all the through many times the past when I was younger 81 Mac M3 chip and Parallels

After the last part i was hoping that the newer games are more my taste, but this one is, again, more confusing then enjoying. The puzzles seem very random and some puzzles are on a timer wich is pretty annoying considering that the mouse sometimes doesnt really snap. Its also annoyng that after a lever pull or button press you have to right click to get back to the free roam look. The necklace doesnt seem to make much rather then just beeing there. But the worst is that, even though the quest seems to be straight, you wonder what and why you are searching the Ages even though you already know everything you need to know. All in one i didnt complete the game because it was just annoying hence i can recommend it.

Sadly I could not get it to load so had to return it unplayed.