Amazon.com: Myst V: End of Ages: PC: Video Games

79 Reviews

5 star:		(17)
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3.1 out of 5 stars (79 customer reviews)

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149 of 151 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Such a Disappointment!, November 14, 2005

By	wysewomon "wysewomon" (Paonia, CO United States) - See all my reviews

Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars

As _Myst V, End of Ages_ opens, you find yourself in the K'Veer section of D'Ni, in the room where Atrus was trapped all those years ago. Nearby, you find a strange device. You approach the device and ZAP! Yeesha, Atrus's daughter appears. She tells you of a tablet with mysterious powers. She once was the keeper, but failed to use it properly. Now it is your destiny--as a friend of the family you *do* keep getting involved--to release the tablet and put it to its proper purpose.

Sounds like the set up for a pretty good game, doesn't it? Unfortunately, EoA takes a that concept and falls flat on its face when it comes to execution. This game is boring at best, annoying at worst and to get through it I had to resort to a technique I'd never before used: printing out the walkthrough and following it step by step.

I'm not the kind of gamer who demands the latest bells and whistles in sound and graphics, but even I saw a lack in EoA, especially coming after the exceptionally animated worlds of Revelation and Uru. The Ages we experienced here were pretty enough but quite static. We saw a few fireflies and falling stars here, but aside from that the environment didn't do anything much--and I think at this point in the history of gaming technology, there's no excuse for that. And I have to ask myself, what's the point of real-time 3-D if nothing happens? What's the point of freedom of movement and 360-degree panning if there's nothing to experience and nothing to see?

In addition to being boring, the ages were tiny. Compared to the huge areas of previous games, which took days to explore properly, these ages seem like a marketing demo: an example of "something that could be expanded on if we got the proper funding." One of them you could view from end-to-end by standing in a single spot. I suppose this wouldn't have bothered me as much if the puzzles had actually been interesting, but once again, compared to the age-spanning puzzles of previous Myst games, the puzzles in EoA were... just plain stinky. Each Age had about the same purpose: carry an object from one end of the Age to the other. So that's wasn't so dissimilar from other Myst games, where you had to solve an Age and return to a central point. Here, however, the concept failed in numerous ways. First of all, there wasn't anything interesting to see along the way. Second, whereas in other games in the series you have to accomplish a number of integrated tasks to reach your goal, in EoA each Age essentially contained one puzzle. Third, the puzzles were just bad. I've heard a number of people say they were too wasy; that wasn't my experience. In fact, I found the puzzles so arbitrary and confusing and full of just stupid requirements that I literally could not have got through the game without following a walkthrough (I've solved every other Myst game with a nudge or two). Here were levers you could manipulate, but no way of telling what the heck they did: no view from which you could see the results of your work, no movie showing you the effect that might be happening in the next room over. There were arbitrary obstacles galore. For example, in order to solve one puzzle, you had to do something that resulted in haqving your vision impaired to the point that you couldn't see what you were doing, and so you had to repeat the process over and over again, hoping you'd solve the puzzle by luck. Every single major puzzle was timed, in that you created a necessary event that lasted only a limited time and only during that event could you solve the puzzle. So there was no ability to explore an Age at your leisure and figure it out, as the effect of your event might only be apparent at the other side of an Age. Also, a particular game device required an inordinate amount of back and forthing. All in all, if not extended by artificial means, most of these Ages coul be solved entirely in five minutes or so.

A lot of the neat stuff from other Myst games was missing. There was no animal life and no animation, as I've stated before. There were no nifty rides and slides. There weren't cool machines that did amazing stuff. You got to go up and down in an elevator once, and that was about it. Instead, you got an annoying companion on your "quest." This guy popped up at intervals, usually just when you started to explore something, and gave you long pompous speeches which, though beautifully voiced by David Ogden Stiers, merely made you want to push the character over a cliff at the soonest opportunity. While I'm on the subject of character, let me add that nothing in this game made me feel any sympathy for any of the characters who appeared. By the end of _Revelation_, I felt something for both Sirrus and Achenar (a major accomplishment in character development and back story). But Yeesha here just struck me as a whiny fanatic who couldn't get over herself.

I don't have as much objection to the story (such as it was) itself as some others have had. However, I missed the personal touch of previous games. You helped Atrus because you liked him and cared about his family, and because the events of the games affected that family. I couldn't really get how the story of EoA was important to anyone but Yeesha. From some of the events of Uru, I get that it *was*, but the developers failed to convey it in any way that made me care. Even the ending failed to move me, filled as it was with melodramatic speeches and bad character animation (and yes, I failed to mention that EoA also lacked the FMV movies of previous games and that this was a major bummer).

I was really surprised when EoA was announced so shortly after _Revelation_ and the release date was less than a year ahead. Well, the rush shows. This game is barely worth playing and is certainly not worth the inflated price it was issued at. I've been playing this series since MYST and I even loved Uru. But take my advice, leave this one on the shelf. The ending of _Revelation_ is way more satisfying.

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191 of 203 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Such a letdown., September 29, 2005

By	Stephanie Noverraz "crooty" (Lausanne, Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This is almost insulting. I'm outraged.

I've been a fan of the Myst series since Riven, always eager to immerse in the stunning, utterly beautiful sceneries, and there to push switches and pull levers, to tackle the mind-boggling puzzles that would lead me to more dream-like places.

And I was a bit disappointed when Uru came out, with its real-time, third-person interface, because it wasn't exactly was I was expecting, graphically. But then, it was advertised as a side-quest, so I didn't mind too much, especially when Myst IV: Revelation came out with its good ol' QuickTime VR and video-overlaid characters.

So when I heard that Myst V: End of Ages was coming out, and that it'd be the last episode, I really expected the series to end with a flourish. Admittedly, I was slightly surprised by the rather short, one-year gap since the previous instalment, but I trustfully put it down to technical progress.

Well I was wrong.

Visually, Myst V: End of Ages is closer to Uru. Again they traded the QuickTime VR for a first-person navigation that allows you to look around as you walk from point to point. As you might deduce, this real-time rendering implies models with a lower polygon count, and lightmaps. What is gained in movement fluidity (which, by the way, is not required to solve puzzles � la Myst) is lost in image quality, putting the whole trademark atmosphere in jeopardy.

Same story for the characters you meet throughout the game, who are now CG with a video mapped on their face. It's ugly. The Motion Capture hasn't been corrected, or not enough, and the characters' feet are either sliding or entering the ground. They also tried to impress us with cloth movements, but with such a low polygon count you can often see it go through the characters' legs. Really, what were they thinking?

As for the puzzles, even though a couple of them were a bit tricky (but mostly because the symbol I drew on the tablet wasn't quite accurate), they were for the most part repetitive and unchallenging. Proof is, I finished the game in one day.

This is such a letdown.

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55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beat the clock!, October 1, 2005

By	Daiun (United States) - See all my reviews

A new and irritating aspect of Myst V are puzzles that must be solved before your 'timer' runs out. Different puzzles have different 'timers' but the plays the same - set the timer, try to solve the puzzle, if not then go through the whole process again of resetting the timer. Grrr... This really detracts from the classic Myst experence - it turns it into an action game. The game is worth purchasing but be prepared for aggravation not relaxation.