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The end of Myst? That’s a real shame and making matters worse, this final installment of the Myst series doesn’t make for a grand finale. Okay sure, all Myst players are familiar with how the puzzles are structured by now.. who wouldn’t be with a game that's lasted this long? But even so, End of Ages felt a bit too ‘same-y’ for me and seemed like a throwback to a much older Myst version like Riven. Just like the reviewer before me, I was very disappointed that Myst V didn’t duplicate the more interactive, highly submersive, personalized gameplay of Uru. End of Ages continues the Myst storyline several decades after Revelation. Unlike previous versions where there are many characters to follow, End of Ages only has two: Yeesha, who looks to be in her fifties and in desperate need of a makeover and an equally aged stranger named Esher (voice by David Ogden Stiers of MASH fame). Don’t look for an explanation as to who Esher is or how he got into the story, because there isn’t any. Right from the beginning, it’s clear the game is going to come down to a matter of ‘who do you trust’.. sound familiar? The puzzles in End of Ages did seem somewhat easier than prior Myst versions. Thankfully, none of them required unbelievably complex geek-math or useless control panels like those in Revelation. But perhaps because of that simplicity, it felt too straightforward or repetitive and was not as challenging. Typical of other Myst versions, several of the puzzles give you no clues whatsoever as to what your goal is. So after the usual amount of frustration and hair pulling, again I had to rely on cheat sites to complete some of them. I wasn’t keen on the camera option being linked to the player’s journal and ‘Save game’ all in one. So every time you take a picture, you’re actually saving the game at that point which I found bothersome. There are five worlds to explore in Myst V, only two of them truly unique; an arctic landscape of snow & ice and one of spinning planets, asteroids & falling stardust which is pretty spectacular. The other worlds looked rather blah and throughout the game, the graphics just aren’t as rich. One of the more interesting, new features is the addition of the Bahro- strange, alien-looking creatures who constantly dog you throughout the game. I found several glitches that made smooth gameplay next to impossible, particularly in one world that just wouldn’t run without making my computer hang up repeatedly. One annoying element is you’re forced to tote around these heavy stone tablets (I was beginning to feel like Moses) which obscures the lower portion of your view. Many puzzles require you to draw a figure onto the tablet, but this also resulted in glitches- most notably, if you draw a similar yet incorrect figure, you’ll suddenly leap forward to the end, accidentally bypassing all the puzzles. Though I generally enjoyed End of Ages as I have all Myst chapters, it did not live up to my expectations or seem like a fitting close for a series I've devoted so many years to. I’d hoped for another Uru-like experience and it was a disappointing realization that such an epic game could end in this rather banal, uneventful fashion. So sadly, Myst exits with a whimper, not a bang.Read full review
Having now finished all seven installments in the Myst/Uru series of lushly crafted immersive puzzle exploration games, an interesting observation emerges at the end of Myst V - End of Ages. The different locales in Myst and Uru are called Ages, each with its distinctive look and feel and embedded mind-bending puzzles. Initially these fantasy worlds are escapes, new worlds to explore and master. But they gradually become prisons where one can become trapped with nothing left to find, discover, explore, solve, or master. What ultimately makes them prisons is that, at some point, one has inevitably played them out (occasionally with much needed help from independently published hints and walkthroughs). In the game, the characters you meet variously consider themselves to be builders, growers, masters, or prisoners of the Ages where you first encounter them. So too, the game player initially experiences the Ages as a newbie explorer who eventually appreciates how these Ages can become dreadful prisons. The duality between Escapism and Imprisonment is remarkable, and is one of the deeper philosophical themes of Myst. In real life, we similarly escape into new worlds, only to become entrapped and enslaved in them. Look at how so many of the venues on the Internet are like that. The same is true of computer operating systems and online communities. We plunge into new systems and eventually become inured to their limitations and misfeatures. Alas, I have to replay portions of this last Myst game because an obscure bug caused me to bypass most of one of the Ages. There are these non-human creatures called Bahro who have a primitive system of writing, like hieroglyphics. In Myst V, you have to learn to carefully draw the symbols of their written language on a slate tablet, and they will respond according to the meaning of the symbol. But if you misdraw one, they can interpret it as a different symbol that should be used much later in the gameplay, and prematurely open a one-way door to the concluding scene of the Age. So in one Age, that happened to me, and I inadvertently fast-forwarded past most of the Age. In Myst, once you've (presumably) solved a puzzle, it might trigger a lock that prevents returning to the previous state. Some puzzles can be reset, others move you forward with no return. If you neglected to save at some critical juncture, there may be no way to rewind to that specific point. Instead you might have to restart from the beginning of an Age. In the very first Myst, the father, Atrus, who writes most of the Ages, imprisons his wayward and rivalrous sons in their own Prison Books. The two sons then beg the Visitor (the player) to free them. So you escape from the real world into their strange and mysterious worlds, and have to decide whether or not to free them. Several of the games in the series have critical decision points about whether to help or free some character who may be good or evil or otherwise worthy of redemption. You must play God and decide who shall live and who shall die, who shall be rewarded and who shall be punished. You can choose to rescue the wayward or trapped characters, with the outcome initially unclear. Sometimes you foolishly free the bad guy by mistake. It's like Sirius Black in Harry Potter. Is he really a bad guy when he is in Azkaban? In most of the games, it's unclear who is ultimately good or evil or worthy of redemption.Read full review
This version of Myst seems more challenging than the previous versions. The graphics and storyline of the game are great. I only wish they had kept the graphics interface the same as Myst IV Revelation. I run this game on my old Windows XP computer since I have not found a way to run it on Windows 10. But none of my older games run on Windows 10. Anyway I now have all five versions of Myst and they all run on my old XP computer.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
All of the Myst games have been incredible to play, I waited a long time before buying this last game and before I started it I replayed all the previous versions. An excellent game that makes you think and takes you to places that are incredible to look at and interact with.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I bought this specifically to install on an Intel Macintosh. Unfortunately, this product's installer is not compatible with anything other than a PPC processor, and Ubisoft is not updating the game to be compatible with new machines. They have issued a patch which is supposed to allow you to install it on Intel Macs, but I couldn't get it to work. There are some detailed instructions on the Ubisoft forum for hacking the java program that does the installation (look for the thread "Unable to install Myst V on Intel Mac"), so I was able to actually install it on my machine. However, it will not run - when double-clicked, the icon flashes once and then - nothing. My only option seems to be to completely uninstall it and try again, but I'm not too hopeful. This is on a late 2006 iMac, running OS 10.5.7 with the latest Java update from Apple (June 15, 2009) installed.Read full review
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