[goMac]

Apple posted a new trailer for Myst 4 today:

http://www.apple.com/games/trailers/myst4/

I was impressed with the demo but I am not so impressed after watching the trailer. The trailer has a lot of live action and shots of the brothers. The nice thing about the other Mysts was that you were fighting puzzles made by an invisible enemy (and you might not even be sure who it was). This one from the trailer just doesn't seem to have the same intrigue.

Maybe Myst should take a break for 5 years or so.

[Skip Breakfast]

I had the same feeling about Myst III.

[goMac]

Originally posted by Skip Breakfast:
I had the same feeling about Myst III.

I actually loved the original Myst 3 trailer:

http://a1984.g.akamai.net/5/1984/51/.../myst3_480.mov

(hope the link holds)

[Skip Breakfast]

Yeah, but did you play the game from start to finish?


I think the problem here is that Cyan only worked Myst and Riven entirely.

[goMac]

Originally posted by Skip Breakfast:
Yeah, but did you play the game from start to finish?


I think the problem here is that Cyan only worked Myst and Riven entirely.

Yeah, I played it. It wasn't bad, but it felt too much like a playable book.

[Rev-O]

Originally posted by goMac:
Yeah, I played it. It wasn't bad, but it felt too much like a playable book.

Myst III felt like a Myst knock off, not a Myst game. There was no sense of awe or wonder as you moved between worlds. The puzzles were just puzzles. They didn't feel like integral parts of the worlds. The storyline was too "Hollywoodish." Like the developers were afraid to leave any real mystery. Everything had to be made neat and tidy by the end. Myst III just seemed to miss the mark on most every level. Plus it was way too easy to finish off.

[Horsepoo!!!]

I think Riven was the last Myst game...if ya know what I mean.

[eyadams]

Myst III felt like a Myst knock off, not a Myst game. There was no sense of awe or wonder as you moved between worlds. The puzzles were just puzzles.

From this comment and others in this thread, I'm starting to think that I'm out of step with the Myst community. I had EXACTLY these complaints about Riven, and thought exactly the opposite of Myst III. Of course, Riven benefits tremendously from the back story presented in the books, which I've only just recently read. But standing on it's own, I felt it really fell short of Myst.

And as for a sense of awe, I thought the worlds in Myst III were as beautiful as anything that had come before. But, it seems I'm in the minority on that.

I agree that the addiction of tons of live action is troubling, however. I have always thought that the sparsely-populated nature of the previous games was part of what made the worlds seem magically created. But I'll keep an open mind.