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Myst III: Exile Review
Here's what you get when you order Myst III:
- One thin cardboard box
- One plastic case containing four CDs
- One advertising flyer
No instruction manual, no installation guide, nothing to get you into the spirit of Myst, no handy journal to write down your thoughts, just a CD case rattling around inside a box that is about 10 times larger, by volume, than necessary to hold the case.
So here's my evaluation of the game itself:
- Gameplay: 0/10
- Graphics: 0/10
- Sound: 0/10
- Value: 0/10
The reason for the above ratings is that as far as I can tell, they shipped a set of drink coasters rather than a set of CDs with an actual game on them.
To be more specific, Ubisoft shipped a game with a massive number of crippling bugs. The Safedisc copy protection caused problems with dozens of models of CD-ROM drives - players' CD-ROMs weren't compatible with the purposeful errors caused by SafeDisc, and so they weren't able to play the game at all. Nor could you play the game if your CD-ROM was lettered higher than H: - after all, no one has a drive higher than H:, right? (Ubisoft has released a patch for this problem.) Nor could you play the game in hardware mode if your card doesn't support 32-bit color, even though the game box prominently proclaims support for 16-bit. Many people have also reported problems with choppy/broken video - this problem occurs on numerous different setups and even very fast machines. Most crippling of all, if you have an Intel, S3 or SiS video card or video chipset, your game won't run at all (similar problems have also been reported with several other video chipsets, such as ATI Rage cards).
On a huge number of machines, perhaps a third of all desktops and an even larger percentage of notebooks, all of which nominally support the requirements listed on the box, Myst III simply won't run.
Ubisoft has been stringing customers along about a promised patch for the video problem (no patch is planned for the fact that many of their customers can't use the game due to Safedisc - that's a "feature") - the expected date for the M3 patch (named due to the error message) has slipped four times now, the latest being another week into the future. I've given up and am returning the game. Probably the retailer will throw a fit about taking back an opened box, although, hey, isn't Safedisc supposed to prevent people copying the discs and returning the game, and since the company admits that their game won't run, there would be no point to keeping a copy of the game anyway. I'm now afraid to uninstall the game, since many people have reported the complete destruction of their Windows system upon uninstallation of Myst III. (My source for most user reports are the forums at Rivenguild.com).
Overall, Myst III is a fiasco. You won't see reviews like this one in regular gaming publications, which depend upon pre-releases of games - that review was written before Myst III was officially released, and if a gaming pub. got in the habit of writing bad reviews, the PR people won't send them advance games any more.
I don't really care. What the gaming industry needs is more reviews like the above. Someone didn't spend the time on quality assurance, and it shows. Unless the company gets negative feedback about it, the next game company won't put the time into quality control either. Returns have got to hurt the most for software companies, but they're usually insulated from returns by simply refusing to accept them. Bullshit. If the retailer we bought this from doesn't want it back, I'll see if a suit in small claims court won't change their mind, because selling a "product" that is acknowledged by the manufacturer not to work at all is fraudulent.
I wish all gaming publications would write reviews like this. I know that they encounter problems too, but somehow the problems never get mentioned in the final glowing review, where every game ever made rates between an 8.5 and 9.5 on a ten-point scale (except maybe games reviewed by Old Man Murray). Tell us about the problems, game reviewers. It'll make for better games in the long run.
I had bought Myst III as a present for my wife to play on her laptop. I figured out about 3 seconds after installing the game that this was impossible. (M3 segfaults aout the wazzoo) I tried to install it on my desktop, and it worked somewhat, but the game play was choppy, and I was forced to run the game in software mode, even though my video card was said supported. After reading the included README file, I saw that they knew about these issues and said NOT to return the game to stores because they would be releasing a patch soon. SOON? WTF? Who had this bright idea? "Lets put on the box that that their hardware is supported and release the game even though we know it doesn't run on half the systems out there!" *end sarcasim* Don't sell the game unless it will run. This was a verry bad move by presto and because of it I will never buy from them again. I mean, are they going to reimberse me for the gas money? (I have to drive quite a distance to CompUSA because I live in the country side) and what about the 2 hours I had to argue with the manager to get a refund? If there is laws protecting companies from software being returned by customers, shouldn't there be a law saying if it's bad software we can return it? I mean, who want's to burn CD's of crappy games?
Was that a writer reviewing a game, or a writer reviewing his own review of a game?
P.S. Slashdot needs more posts like the one above.
--
Breakfast served all day!
...it's a grumpy little boy complaining that he didn't get to play his new game. Let's look at your logical scoring and rating:
We also have to add a few scores you forgot:
OSDN, if you read these posts, I would be happy to make my editorial services available to you for much less than what Michael is probably making. I'm actually technically literate, and having graduates from high school, have learned to express my opinion on subjects in both a resonable and non-condescending tone. If you wish to speak further with me, my contact information is in my user profile.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
Actually, this was a very helpful review, and if a game is so fucked that it won't run, then noting the fact that it won't run should be the sum total of the review.
Case in point: Every person I've spoken to about Ultima 9 says the same thing: The game is great, but it doesn't matter since it crashes so damn much. The poor quality of the software makes the game itself irrelevant, and the same thing here.
Really. Who cares how fast a new hot-rod can go from 0-60 if there's a 50% chance that stepping on the gas pedal will make it explode?
Good review, Michael. Though I still don't like you.
The enemies of Democracy are
Yes, it's a "feature". Yes, it causes the game to be unreadable by some CD-ROM drives.
I thought a feature was something that was beneficial to the user, not something that breaks standards and has the potential to make the product I bought totally useless.
SafeDisk is not a feature, it's just more consumer-unfriendly "rights" management shit that loudly and happily pisses on interoperability standards.
I believe the correct term for this is "wart" or "bug", not "feature".
C-X C-S
Spoiler or two in here...
I have played the game. I don't know how, since I have an S3 Savage4 and didn't patch it in any way.
Graphically, it was interesting in the sense that it was an improvment over Myst and Riven. But when compared to the real capabilities of gaming systems today, it blew chunks (that's a technical term, don't use it without parental supervision).
The pathways available for moving from one area to another were difficult if not impossible to find at times. Many times during the game, I just moved from point to point clicking on everything and even nothing just to figure out what I must have missed.
Problems in the game range from the simple act of throwing the right switch to the damn near impossible (who the hell would set a trap that was supposed to miss and what animal wouldn't run back into its safe burrow instead?).
Maybe something hinting at the third level of valves would have been nice, too. Perhaps the ability to zoom in on the pressure guage to see if the needle was on the dashes instead of seeing at an angle and hoping.
I think the next time I want a weekend's worth of puzzles, I'll buy a crossword book. At least then I can solve the puzzles themselves instead of walking all over 4 different worlds clicking on every rock and twig I run across.
Since I did get it up and running, I'd rate it more along the following...
Gameplay: 2/10
Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 5/10
Value: 1/10
Overall: 4/10 (unless it doesn't work on your system obviously)
Good for a weekend, but keep a walkthrough bookmarked so you don't break your desk when you pound it in frustration.
Digital Wokan
I wanted to spend 8 years defending the US constitution.
Cyan Worlds, Inc.
14617 N. Newport Hwy.
Mead, WA 99021-9378
would eventually get there. A letter c/o Warner Books (publisher of the Myst novels) would most likely work, too:
c/o Author Mail
Warner Books
1271 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Who knows, the Millers seem like pretty nice guys -- maybe they'd even put some pressure on UbiSoft to fix things.
-- Some things are to be believed, though not susceptible to rational proof.
Then the real news today is that Loki has started shipping Mindrover!
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Bad status == bad game.
If I check crap into source code control and it doesn't work, I get yelled at. Nobody cares if I was tired or angry or anything else at the time, it's my job to do my job.
If they SELL me a crappy game that won't even INSTALL on most machines it is valid to yell at them.
And I found the review helpful. I know I won't be buying it until patches are released at least.
Knowing WHY it sucks doesn't help me. I can't change any of that. Only the fact that it does suck matters.
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
This doesn't read like a review. If Michael had a hard time installing it, go to a different machine. Or don't review it at all. Tell us you had problems installing it. Tell us the company wasn't real helpful. But to give scores like you did? That's UNHELPFUL.
I had no problems installing it. I rather enjoyed the game.
But this article reads almost like a flame-attempt due to frustration at installation.
Well, it seems that I had a totally different experience with Myst III. The game itself ran perfectly on my PowerMac G4/400, and I have yet to hear of anyone having problems with the game on a Mac.
What I liked:
- Graphics: As per usual, the game's graphics were simply astounding. The 360 degree rotation technology that was used to produce the game worked flawlessly and the movie clips melded into the scenes perfectly.
- Sound: Again, the audio track of the game was great. The music was not intrusive, and added a lot to the game.
- Gameplay: The gameplay of Myst III was quite good. As oposed to Riven where flipping a switch on one side of the world might change something on the oposite end, all the puzzels and what not were pretty much self contained. Basically, you can immediately see the effects of your actions.
What I didn't like:
- Difficulty: Basically, the only thing I didn't like about the game was that some of the puzzels were too easy.
Overall, in my experience, this game was well worth the money I spent on it. As for the complaint about the packaging, well, quite frankly, Riven didn't come with much else, and I was pleased to see that the four CDs were in a decent jewel case, instead of cheap cardboard. As far as a journal, this game didn't really need one. All I needed was a letter sized peice of paper.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Yup... His review did exacly the same thing the game seemed to do. Crapped out without doing anything useful at all, and simply wasted our time.
So this company released a half-assed product. The Slashdot staff was apparently unable to even get the product running, and yet you want details about how it ran? It sounds to me like it didn't run at all, and I'm glad they said so. That's *very* helpful.
As another respondent suggested, I'd love to see a version of Consumer Reports for software. Too much half-assed (&/or bloated) garbage gets released to the public (like, oh, any version of Office from the last five years), and things like UCITA make it difficult or impossible to find this out for ourselves until our money is spent and our computers are corrupted.
I'm not a fan of computer games, but I liked Myst & Riven, and was thinking about getting a copy of Myst III. That's not gonna happen now, because of this very helpful review. You didn't like it, you wanted something more like fellatio, fine. Michael told you where you can find it. Myself, I was very glad to read this review. It was helpful to me.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Err, yeah, exactly. Kinda like going to a movie & the projectionist is trying to make sense of this big box full of film snippets, because the studio couldn't be bothered to edit it all together. If it ain't done yet, then it doesn't deserve a good review.
Software producers get off way too easily here, and should be held accountable for products shipped before they're ready for use. I'll make an exception for free software (which is never really done yet), but if you want to bundle it up & make money off it, then you have to be able to stand behind what you've done. Or half-done, in cases such as this one.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I guess you never read the magazine "Amiga Power". A UK based Amiga games mag that really didn't hold back in their reviews. Their opinion was that a % scale is utterly meaningless if you never give a game anything less than 70% (Which is what all the other game mags seemed to do).
Consequently, scores of 4% were not unusual. Publishing companies whined, bitched, claimed that AP was "killing the Amiga" (Despite the fact that it was already dying), but they always stuck to their word, despite being sued from time to time and quite frequently having to go out and buy games because the publishing houses wouldn't send them copies any more.
AP was undoubtedly the best magazine I've ever read. It's a shame it had to die, but when the platform you're writing for dies, there's not a lot you can do.
Now, now, michael, tell us how you really feel. :)
I'm another review-writer (for a company which shall remain nameless, for fairness sake). To a degree, I consider a game to have two halves at release: The actual game (the content, the theoretical structure), and the presentation (the actual code an implementation of the structure). Now, sometimes the first can be great, and the second part lousy. This normally results in a game which has a great concept, but has either stability problems, or control problems or whatnot. These are the games which many people thought COULD have been good, except for some small part. However, when the latter is good, but the former is terrible, the game often has no redeeming qualities. Who wants to play a bad game, even if it's as stable as a rock?
I consider Myst 3 to be one of the former (at least according to the text). While the graphics which are to be shown to you are brilliant, and most of the puzzles which they have a great, it still has a host of stability problems. But to be fair, I still think the actual game deserves to be mentioned as part of your review.
Also, from the standpoint of a reviewer, I played the game, and saw no apparent bugs. How am I supposed to rate a stability problem when I don't even see it?
Save a life. Eat more cheese
So there I was, juggling apples and small animals, when I accidentally bit into the wrong one...
After reading a review like this I can't wait to go out and buy the game myself and try it out! The Graphics sound intense, the gameplay sounds incredible and the way the game is shipped is simple yet powerful.
OTOH, I hate it when a reviewer gets so caught up in technical problems running it, that you can't see what the game will be like once (if) you get it up and running. For example, Ultima IX. My current system can run it, no problem. Have I ever seen a review of the actual gameplay? No. Was it worth buying when it came out? No. But now I'm curious. And of course reviewers are loath to do a "second chance review" after all the patches, and for a very good reason-- they don't want to encourage these releases of beta products. Finish it, dammit, and then release it. But the issue remains-- if you're releasing a review so I can inform myself about a game, make sure you talk a bit about the gameplay.
Seriously, I almost never read just the article and assume that the little Slashdot writeup is correct. Assuming I have time, I read the comments. Generally speaking, if Slashdot makes a goof, the high-ranking comments will explain it. Something most industry 'zines can't do, since it's hard to add comments on dead trees in realtime.
So while there may be more people reading Slashdot, most are intelligent enough to think for themselves and know enough to question what they read. I don't believe everything I read on Slashdot, and I try and check out the facts as best I can. It's a skill that most "nerds" have, being able to recognize poor arguments and arguments that are lacking in facts. Any college student had better be able to structure an argument based on facts, and be able to recognize when an argument doesn't have the facts to back it up.
(For example, my whole argument here doesn't have any facts to back it up, hehe... so you should think for yourself in this case - does your experience match what I'm suggesting? Can you think of times when Slashdot posted wrong information? Can you think of times when the comments have corrected information in the article, and the article has later been updated based on comments?)
The bottom line is that most people who read Slashdot have learned not to blindly accept everything written on the site. For that respect, this review is "ok" - it's obviously detailing only Michael's experience, and it tells me that should I ever look into getting Myst III I'll need to be careful to ensure that my system will run the game - I got burned in the same way with Black & White, it wouldn't run on my machine without several patches to Win2K. And B&W's protection scheme also effects my ability to play - it takes literally around two minutes to decide the CD is valid on my machine.
So Michael's article, which should obviously be mostly Michael blowing off steam, is acceptable. This wouldn't be an acceptable print article, but in the context of Slashdot, where it's being used to promote discussion, it's fine.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
What the gaming industry needs is more reviews like the above.
You aren't reviewing the game, your reviewing the bad status of the game. You didn't get it to work, so its a bad game?
No, the game needs more work and patches, which sucks, but the game still could be wonderful. I will use Ultima9 as an example. When it was released, it blew and was incomplete, but after the last patch was installed, the game was outstanding.
In the end, lets not criticize the game, lets find out why it is bad and criticize that (was the publisher forcing the developer to release before it was ready? Did the developer fail to use a good QA strategy?). The developer might not be the reason the game failed, so quit trying to start a crusade before you know the enemy.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
It seems to me that the art to writing reviews is to find the good stuff to say. If the game (or movie, or book, etc.) is so bad that the good stuff you find is highly contrived then most intelligent people will take your point and not waste their money. As for the unintelligent people, well, "A fool and his money..."
For example, the original review complained that the CD's were only useful as coasters. Instead, he could have praised their good qualities.
Instead of complaining about the software protection...
Don't rag on the poor developers, give credit where credit is due.
Finally, and seriously, don't give a any product a "zero". Most readers will think you are holding a grudge and won't take you seriously. Is it worse than software that sends pr0n to your Mom, initializes your harddrive, and fries your CPU? No? It's better than a zero. Give it a "4 out of 10" and no one's going to buy it anyway (unless they have too much free time and way too much cash.)
Just my two cents... If I knew what I was talking about I'd be a highly-paid game reviewer ;)
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Graphics: 9/10
The cardboard box had excellent screen shots of the game, and the UPC label had flawless printing: when I bought the game, the price came up immediately and accurately! The M3 error message dialogue boxes were flawlessly rendered and they even used my custom color settings. Also, as is not the case with most applications, my default settings of large fonts did not cause the dialogue box's error messages to be unreadable.
Sound 1/10
The windows "beep" was very entertaining to hear with each crash of M3.exe. I even customized it so that I could hear something different each time I played!
Gameplay 1/10
Sadly, the game crashed quite frequently. However, clicking the "OK" button in the error messages was fast and responsive. Unfortunately, a known bug prevented me from reading the end credits (best part of it). But UBISOFT said, "Don't worry! It'll be fixed in the upcoming patch! But dont' worry, you're not missing anything." But I was. I wanted the name of every developer who let this crappy product get released so I could call him and express to him my feelings regarding this "game."
Value 1/10
Perhaps this game should have been shipped on CD-RW discs so that I could have actually used them. However, the CD's get points for meeting ISO9660's strict requirements, and the upgrade patch file exe I downloaded was virus free.
Volume 10/10
I'm referring to the volume of the cardboard box. The box was ten times larger than necessary. This is certainly a good value. Not only did I get a big box, it came chock full of free air. Now I won't have to go to my local gas station for its free air for a long time.
Got friends?
Highly anticipated game, short technically and in play mechanics. Fortunately, errors of this magnitude hardly ever slip thru the cracks, but some things (graphics glitches, manufacturing problems, etc.) are present in so many of these products you wonder if Stevie Wonder isn't head of QA.
Not that I care all that much either. I'd rather chew on a razor blade then sit through Myst 3, but I'm sure that it's a huge disappointment to the people who were looking forward to it.
--The space between my ears was intentionally left blank--
A movie such as the above doesn't deserve a review, and neither does this game. Installing a video game simply should not be the ordeal that many seem to be. 'Move to another computer'??? A review is written so the consumer has an idea of what to expect, BEFORE shelling out $50. To most people, another computer is NOT an option.
Why do we accept such shoddy workmanship from software manufacturers, and when someone points this out, they get flamed: 'I wanna know the pixel depth and texture count, I don't give a damn if I have to re-install Windows 74 times first!'
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
As a writer and editor for many game industry publications, you have a point. Yes, the print games publications, and many of the sites associated with them, work on beta copy. It is the only way to remain competitive in a world starved for gaming information. As a result, we tend to ignore some of the simple install problems, or mention them in passing, simply because we are told this problem will be fixed by release, and the VAST majority of the time it is. Further, we get jaded because those of us in the industry get better tech support than the average gamer. You get on the phone and call your PR contact with the company and say you are having a problem and it is stopping you from finishing your preview for Happy Puppy or CGW...well, you can imagine that they don't send your call to the lowest man on the help desk. At the same time, there isn't a hell of a lot that you can do to avoid some of this. If we don't go to press as soon as our competition, we don't have a publication. That simple. No one wants to read a review two months after the game is on the shelves. And with print magazines, if you always waited for boxed copy, that is just what would happen. So there is a certain amount of trust involved between the game company and the reviewer. However, what does happen, if you are an ethical editor, which most are, is that you remember if a flack lied to you about a problem being fixed before release. And the next time you hear that, you make sure that you state very strongly in your copy that you had a problem with the game from a technical perspective. Provide fair warning to the potential buyer. However, your statement that you wouldn't be in business any more if you printed bad reviews simply isn't true in my experience. I panned more Take 2 games in a row than I can count, just to pick one company. If you are good sized pub or site, they can't really mark you off the list. And the idea that the game companies don't care about shipping product with this kind of problem because of the return situation is on crack. Yes, pre release publicity drives some game sales in the first few days. However, word of mouth sells a tremendous number of games. The majority. Word gets out a game doesn't work or play well, and reviews or no reviews, the company takes a bath. I understand that there are problems with the review and editorial process in gaming, no doubt, but the solutions aren't as simple as they appear to some people. And the idea that reviewers don't call a bad game because they will be "cut off" is prevailent and bogus. jpw
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
For example, I remember reviewing a while back. I don't recall the company, but it was one of those "motion-video keyboard" games, where you watched grainy motion video and pressed keyboard keys to change the video, giving some semblance of a "game". This was in the nacient era of CD-ROM's, and it was supposed to be a "fighting game", but anyone could tell the game sucked. Most games of this genre did.
So I wrote a review saying the game sucked, and gave as one of my reasons "pseudo-videogame play does not constitute real gameplay". I gave the game a zero score.
Boy did I ever get roasted. First, my editor laughed because he thought the review was funny, and he printed it. Then we got a call from the game developer, saying they would never send up a free review copy of a game again (magazines rely on this -- they rarely ever purchase games). Then they threatened to pull advertising, and tell other game companies not to advertise.
Needless to say, my editor was no longer laughing. The magazine published a "counterpoint" review by a different writer, the gaming magazine industry's way of an apology. From that point on, I knew I could never write an "honest" review of a game again, at least for any noteworthy publication.
But since this guy paid for the game, and it's only Slashdot, this is "acceptable" in this case.