I'm happy to see a *NIX variant coming to the masses of consumers, even it if the smaller mass of Macintosh users rather than the larger mass of Windows users. Yes, I know Linux and BSD have been available to Windows users for ages, but they aren't mainstream OSes, no matter how you construe it. Apple is replacing their OS with a *NIX variant, and eventually all Mac users will be using it. It's nice to see a user-oriented, friendly, simple OS based on *NIX. Maybe this can help pave the way for more traditional *NIXes and distros?
You're kidding..."Attack of the Clones"??? I mean, at least "Phantom Menace" sounded like a real Star Wars title. "A New Hope", "The Empire Strikes Back", "Return of the Jedi", "Phantom Menace", and..."Attack of the Clones"?? Ug. Any and all hope that I had for this movie being any less sucky than Episode I has just been dashed.
I recently purchased an m505 (as an upgrade from my Visor Deluxe) and I have to say that I am very happy with it. There is tons of support for synchronising to Linux machines, though you cannot (yet) run Linux on the m505 itself. It's got a nice color display, expansion room, a zippy little processor, is very small, and works quite well. It is certainly not as powerful as the iPaq or Yopy would be...those are more like mini-computers than organizers...but the m505 is more than enough for me. If I decided that I needed the extra power of something like an iPaq or Yopy, I'd probably go the extra mile and just get a small laptop. For my daily needs though, the m505 is more than enough.
After going through quite a bit of trouble, and re-installing the game three times, I finally got around to playing it. Trust me, you aren't missing much by returning it.
Finishing the game took me less than a week, and I didn't play it half as obsessively as I usually do. Compared to previous Myst games, this one is incredibly short. I'd estimate that there's about 20 hours of gameplay in this thing, at the most. Compared to the multiple weeks it took me to finish the first one, it's a real disappointment.
The puzzles were a very odd assortment...some of them made absolutely no sense at all. I completed a couple puzzles through pure trial and error, and never actually understood what it was that caused them to be solved - or even what happened once I solved them. Again, compared to the previous games this is a real disappointment. I am used to puzzles in Myst games being logical, and understanding what I am doing and why. On the other hand, some of the puzzles were so simple that I didn't feel any sense of accomplishment in solving them.
The graphics were not very impressive. I'm not sure what the 3D card is being used for, but it's not rendering anything interesting, that's for sure. The QuickTime 3D interface was very clumsy, and got in the way quite often. I missed several clues because I didn't pan the camera enough in some specific direction. The lush, beautifully pre-rendered look of the old Myst games was often absent. In fact, several scenes looked distinctly two-dimensional. The full-motion videos were of very low quality, especially when compared to the surrounding scenery. They looked very grainy and unimpressive.
I ran into a number of bugs during gameplay too. Alt-tabbing to anything else caused my cursor to freeze up, requiring a ctrl-alt-del to unstick it. When I finally finished the game, it crashed my entire system during the credits screen. Had to reboot and everything - and this is in Win2k, not 98/Me.
Quite frankly, I only finished this game because I felt I had to after spending the money on it. I really wanted to like this game, but it was just bad. I can put up with some bugs, or even some poor content...but both of them in vast quantities was just too much for me.
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yrs,
Ephemeriis
yrs,
Ephemeriis
yrs,
Ephemeriis
After going through quite a bit of trouble, and re-installing the game three times, I finally got around to playing it. Trust me, you aren't missing much by returning it.
Finishing the game took me less than a week, and I didn't play it half as obsessively as I usually do. Compared to previous Myst games, this one is incredibly short. I'd estimate that there's about 20 hours of gameplay in this thing, at the most. Compared to the multiple weeks it took me to finish the first one, it's a real disappointment.
The puzzles were a very odd assortment...some of them made absolutely no sense at all. I completed a couple puzzles through pure trial and error, and never actually understood what it was that caused them to be solved - or even what happened once I solved them. Again, compared to the previous games this is a real disappointment. I am used to puzzles in Myst games being logical, and understanding what I am doing and why. On the other hand, some of the puzzles were so simple that I didn't feel any sense of accomplishment in solving them.
The graphics were not very impressive. I'm not sure what the 3D card is being used for, but it's not rendering anything interesting, that's for sure. The QuickTime 3D interface was very clumsy, and got in the way quite often. I missed several clues because I didn't pan the camera enough in some specific direction. The lush, beautifully pre-rendered look of the old Myst games was often absent. In fact, several scenes looked distinctly two-dimensional. The full-motion videos were of very low quality, especially when compared to the surrounding scenery. They looked very grainy and unimpressive.
I ran into a number of bugs during gameplay too. Alt-tabbing to anything else caused my cursor to freeze up, requiring a ctrl-alt-del to unstick it. When I finally finished the game, it crashed my entire system during the credits screen. Had to reboot and everything - and this is in Win2k, not 98/Me.
Quite frankly, I only finished this game because I felt I had to after spending the money on it. I really wanted to like this game, but it was just bad. I can put up with some bugs, or even some poor content...but both of them in vast quantities was just too much for me.
yrs,Ephemeriis
My full review is available at my website: http://ephemeriis.tripod.com/