Something in the Myst

Rex Baldazo

If you have a double-speed CD-ROM drive or faster, there is one game you must own. Myst, distributed by Broderbund, shows just what is possible with fast computers, multimedia capabilities, and a lot of imagination.

This is not your traditional action game, where you have to kill a thousand nameless aliens. Instead, you find yourself alone on a mysterious island, filled with odd buildings, hidden rooms, and an old spaceship. You have to figure out what happened, traveling beyond the island to solve all the mysteries. It requires a lot of wandering around, looking for clues, and trying all sorts of combinations. All the scenes are rendered with loving detail, and I rather enjoyed just walking around this virtual world on my PC. The sound effects and music are well integrated with the story, and they rea lly enhance the experience. The interface is simplicity itself--a little hand icon that you click to interact with objects on the screen.

A little movie on the making of Myst is included on the CD. There are Windows and Mac versions. For Windows users, you need an MPC-compatible sound card and CD-ROM drive to play both the game and the movies.