Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

To whomever at Cyan may be concerned or cares: It took me about three days to beat Riven. It took me exactly 26 hours (minus sleep and food) to beat Myst III: Exile. As soon as my roommate gets done with Myst, I'll beat that too. I'm not on my fourth day/night of Uru, and I have a few observations for whomever makes product/marketing decisions around there, or whomever wants to read this in general. I don't really care if you read it or not, but it'll make me feel better to write it. ... I just spent over an hour and a half of perfectly good screen time unsuccessfully attempting to correctly place two FISHTRAPS in a river using my feet. WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!? You took a perfectly good idea and completely demolished it. Here's why your first three titles were fun, and why Uru isn't, imho. 1) They were very binary. Do something wrong, *crickets chirp*. Do something right, *poof! presto chango*. Even when you had to go see if your action had positive consequences or not, it was very clear-cut. Or, as I like to put it, "Repeatable Results." Things work the same way every time. In Uru, however, depending on how one jumps, leaps, kicks, walks, runs, etc., there are a finitely much greater number of possibilities. And, doing something "more or less" the same may not necessarily return the same results. Or, more simply put, "Marginally Repeatable Results." Attempt the same maneuver 100 times, you might get it right 80 times or so. Those other 20 create a severe amount of frustration in a game with so much complication already built into the objectives. 2) Your first titles had a distinct visual style, which very much led to the first point. While this style may have been the result of a lack of funding, technological difficulties, attempts to make the software package smaller, what have you, it made the games!! This style defined your demographic! No joysticks, no 3D engines, just a slideshow. Uru, while attempting to catch up to the rest of the electronic gaming universe, completely abandons the low-res charm of the earlier titles. We don't WANT to have to move a character in these games. We WANT the SLIDESHOW!! 3) No freely moving objects. You click a button, you pull a lever, you zip down a ladder with a click of the mouse, and you're there. Uru: see fish trap rant above. The rocks in Teledahn prison weren't so bad. They were still way more than I wanted, but nowhere NEAR as bad as those fish traps. If you went to so much obvious trouble coding the engine and animating the avatars... couldn't I just pick the stupid thing up and carry it where I needed it? It's not that much of a leap! In fact, unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a heck of a lot easier to code/animate than kicking stuff around. 4) Skip animations. This is HUGE as far as I'm personally concerned. There were so many places you had to go back and forth over the same ground in the first three titles, that when you pushed/pulled/opened, you just wanted to get it over with quickly. Uru... You know what? I saw that wonderful elevator graphic the first ten times up and down. I'd rather just get back to where I need to reread the map as fast as possible. If there is a skip animation key, I sure couldn't find it. If it's there and I missed it, then I apologize for the rant. 5) Speaking of looking for keyboard shortcuts, I never saw a manual in the first three games. Why do you all of a sudden put out a game with a manual? WHY!!!! This should be glaring error numero uno in the unbalanced equation that is Uru. 6) This one is more or less all of the above rolled into one. When you put in Myst and fired it up, you were in the game. You didn't have the first clue in heck where you were, what you were doing, or what you might be expected to do. That was so..... refreshing. The stupid stupid stupid very very stupid Desert. I can completely understand it from with respect to back story, visual excitement, and kicking off things with a puzzle, but: a- It was huge. I spent way too much time examining fence posts and scrub bushes. b- I didn't want to have to spend so much time learning how to move my character. See above. c- What happened to just getting into the thick of things? "Training courses" always have and always will completely suck. Noone wants them except the people who put them in the games. No matter how you spin it, that was a classically cliche training course, complete with help manual Zandi. Why did you have to kill Uru: Live? Why didn't the subscriber base come calling? As far as I'm concerned, see above. I never would've paid to push fish traps around. I hope that another Myst title comes out. I really really do. The overriding concept is great. The ball ride at the end of Amateria in Myst III? Awesome. I went back to the top of that building at least 5/6 times to do that over. The plants in Edanna? The first time I figured out how to get into the Idol's mouth on Village Island in Riven? All stupendous. I'm a sci-fi/fantasy buff, love the story, love the characters. Believe you me, though: I'm reading reviews and watching demos first. If the next one is anything like this - count me out. The only reason I'm going to finish this Age and get to the end of the game is pure stupid stubborness. It won't be out of enjoyment.