Mini-review of URU (single player)
Murray Peterson
Mini-review of URU (single player)
Copyright Murray Peterson, 2003
Introduction:
My wife and I are huge Myst fans; the first Myst game was
responsible for our return to adventure gaming, and the next
two Myst games just served to whet our appetite for more.
When URU was released, I was probably the first person in
line to buy it, even with its high price tag. If you haven't
figured it out by now, we *really* wanted to enjoy this game.
Sadly, this was not to be...
With URU, Cyan and Ubisoft have turned a magical experience
into multiple evenings of annoyance and frustration; the
worlds of Myst will never be the same. Read on, and I will
describe what they have done...
Graphics (quality, animations, cut scenes):
The graphics are everything you would expect of a Myst game;
lush, inventive, awe inspiring, and above all, beautiful.
Although the 3D graphics aren't as good as fully prerendered
2D graphics, they are easily good enough to invoke the "wow"
factor. It's only when you move up close to a wall or a
rock, that it becomes obvious that you are looking at a
texture mapped over polygons.
One thing that URU's 3D graphics give you is a very dynamic
world -- flying birds, moving shadows, rain, moving water,
and so on.
Sound (music, voices, special effects)
The soundtrack for URU was perfect. The music is exactly
what you would expect from a Myst sound track; somewhat New
Age in flavour, and perfectly suited to the game. The sound
effects in the game were numerous and well done, and the
voice acting was flawless.
Story (plot, theme, depth):
Unlike the previous Myst games, your actions don't really
have much to do with advancing the story. Instead, the story
has already happened in the past, and you are hunting through
various worlds in order to uncover this past at the behest of
your "teacher" (Yeesha). Instead of feeling like an
adventurer, you feel more like a slow student, complete with
lectures at the end of every world. There is a story in URU,
but it is cryptic and feels less involving than the previous
games.
Controls (user interface):
The controls in URU are frustrating and infuriating; they are
*much* worse than other reviews had led me to expect, and I
found myself muttering imprecations at them continuously
throughout the game.
You get to switch between first and third person viewpoints
with a single keypress, and it quickly becomes obvious that
you can't choose just one viewpoint and stick with it
throughout the game.
If you select third person, your point of view is limited to
about a ten degree angle of movement from where your
character is currently looking. The only way to look around
is by turning your character, which is a painfully slow and
clumsy operation when using the mouse. Turning your
character is faster and more accurate if you use the arrow
keys, but you risk serious nausea when the camera goes
whipping around. The problem becomes even worse in cramped
areas, since the camera distance shifts in and out to keep it
from being blocked by the surrounding objects. The end
result could force trained astronauts to lose their lunch.
Even if your stomach can stand the camera movement, the
resulting view is so fragmented and jumpy that it was useless
for gameplay.
First person viewpoint works much better. Hold down the
right mouse button and move the mouse to look around. Hold
down the left mouse button and move the mouse to move from
place to place. If you hold down both mouse buttons, you run
instead of walk.
So why didn't I just use first person viewpoint all the time?
Because you can't see your feet when using first person
viewpoint, and this is required. There are quite a few
"puzzles" in URU that require running, jumping, running and
jumping, pushing things around with your feet, and walking on
very narrow pathways. These "puzzles" were impossible to get
through without being able to see your feet, which required a
switch to the detested third person viewpoint.
Save/restore system:
URU uses an "auto save" mechanism, so you never had to
manually save a game while playing. I will need to go into
some detail about the game here in order to describe how the
save mechanism worked (and how it was badly designed).
You have a home base (called Relto), and a bookshelf there
contains all of the linking books you have acquired up to
that point. As you explore, you are required to find (and
touch) seven objects in every age. As soon as you touch one
of these objects, URU will remember this for you, and you can
link to this location from your home base (Relto). This
means that each age had two locations into which you can link;
the primary entry, and the last object you touched within
that age.
Whenever you start the game, you will start on Relto.
Whenever you do something that kills you, you will be
immediately linked back to Relto. From there, you have your
choice of linking locations.
One final note about the game mechanics -- while linking from
one place to another, you get to watch a black screen with a
progress bar. On my machine, it took 15 to 30 seconds for
the next location to be loaded into memory from my hard drive
(URU only accesses the CD when you first start the game).
Now, let me describe how this all works when actually
attempting to solve one of the jumping puzzles that could get
me killed:
Try the jump and fail -- automatically get linked back to Relto
Watch progress bar for 30 seconds while Relto age loads
Walk over to bookshelf in Relto and link back to age
in question (either last touched object or primary entry).
Watch progress bar for 30 seconds while the age loads
Find my way from entry point in the age back to jump location
Repeat
Sounds like fun, doesn't it? This was especially bad when
there were several jumps in a row that had to be completed;
you had to get them all right, without any option to save
between them.
This entire system made for slow and painful gameplay; some
evenings I spent more time watching a progress bar than any
other part of URU.
Puzzles (difficulty, uniqueness, suitability, ugliness, linearity):
The puzzles were the worst part of URU; because your
character *could* run and jump, the developers decided that
you *must* run and jump. Because you *could* push items
around, then you *must* push items around. Because you
*could* climb ledges, then you *must* climb ledges. I
honestly felt like Cyan and Ubisoft had handed the game
development over to the same group that wrote Mario Brothers
for the Nintendo. I would have tried kicking a barrel to get
a spinning coin, but my control system was too crippled to
allow me to kick things.
Since this was a Myst game, I expected worlds filled with
puzzles that taxed my brain. There were some of those, but
they were outnumbered by the run, jump and search "puzzles".
Even then, there were "brain" puzzles that were so
inconsistent with physics and thermodynamics, that I never
dreamt of the solution the developers had in mind. One
exceptionally nasty puzzle forced me to go through hours of
agony merely to obtain some illumination; it infuriated me to
see a damned lantern that I couldn't pick up.
I have already talked about the objects you needed to touch
in each age; sometimes they were the reward for solving a
puzzle, but in many places, they were merely hidden in hard
to find (or reach) locations. I find little reward in being
forced to look on top of every climbable ledge and behind
every box; "find the hidden item" puzzles aren't much fun.
I found that I had to be careful about pushing buttons in
this game. I would solve a puzzle, and after a door was
opened, there would be a button on the other side. Pushing
that button didn't just close the door; it forced you to link
back and re-work the entire puzzle again to reopen the door.
I have no idea why they did this, but part of the fun in Myst
was pushing every button in sight. URU actually penalizes
you for doing this.
There were a few timed puzzles. The timing was generous, but
the difficult controls made the problems harder to solve than
expected.
In the previous Myst games, if you encounter a barrier, it
means that you haven't figured out the problem yet. In URU,
it might merely mean that you are expected to find some way
to jump over the barrier.
Bugs or problems:
Crashed to the desktop several times until I backed off
audio acceleration
Appeared to play slower and slower after extended periods.
Exiting and restarting the game got things back up to speed.
Install/Uninstall:
No problems
Substantial disk requirements (2GB)
Installs entirely to disk (CD must be in your drive to start)
Pros:
Beautiful (and inventive) graphics
Great sound effects and voice acting
Cons:
Crippled controls
Jumping puzzles everywhere
Pushing things around with your feet
Motion sickness could be a real problem with this game
Wants as much power that you can give it (especially video card)
Conclusion:
What stands out most in my mind after playing URU is the
jumping; the "texture" of URU has moved away from the
cerebral worlds of Myst, and into some sort of platform game.
The worlds are just as beautiful, but how I think about them
has been completely changed.
URU could have been so much better; they could have provided
cerebral puzzles as an alternative to jumping, or they could
have even provided some type of auto-jump facility. Instead,
I was repeatedly forced to make my character perform
acrobatics, and then provided me with a crippled control
system with which to work.
Cyan and Ubisoft have completely ruined the "Myst experience"
for me. I won't be playing the online version of URU, and
unless things change, I won't be playing any future Myst
games.
--
Murray Peterson
Email: murray_...@shaw.ca (remove underscore)
URL: http://members.shaw.ca/murraypeterson/
JohnV
I agree. It was very frustrating trying to kick things around with my
paraplegic avatar. I don't know why I couldn't pick things up. My wife
thought I was nuts as I sat at the keyboard swearing and trying to put
body english on the wicker basket, which had a mind of its own. Not the
kind of surreal mystical game that Riven was.
Jenny100
When are your latest reviews going to be on your website?
Also, what are the specs of the computer you played Uru on?
I suspect that I'd have much longer load times than you did.
I bought Uru about a month ago, but haven't installed it yet.
I'm not sure I want to after this review. Not until they
patch the navigation system.
I actually like the jumping puzzles in games like Alice
and the older Tomb Raiders. But those games had a quick
save feature you could use whenever you like, as well
as good controls.
Have you played Schizm 2 (Mysterious Journey 2)?
I think you'd like that much better.
Andrew Plotkin
> The controls in URU are frustrating and infuriating; they are
> *much* worse than other reviews had led me to expect
I did my best. :)
> Since this was a Myst game, I expected worlds filled with
> puzzles that taxed my brain. There were some of those, but
> they were outnumbered by the run, jump and search "puzzles".
Hrm. Outnumbered? I guess if you including "searching for cloth
panels", but only *some* of those panels required dexterity to get to.
I don't think the running and jumping puzzles were a majority of the
game by scene count. (Although, for some players, I'm sure they were a
majority of the time invested and frustration extracted.)
> I found that I had to be careful about pushing buttons in
> this game. I would solve a puzzle, and after a door was
> opened, there would be a button on the other side. Pushing
> that button didn't just close the door; it forced you to link
> back and re-work the entire puzzle again to reopen the door.
> I have no idea why they did this, but part of the fun in Myst
> was pushing every button in sight. URU actually penalizes
> you for doing this.
There were some buttons that closed off earlier parts of a level, but
I never found that I actually had to re-solve a puzzle. I was always
able to win by working forwards from where I was.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Access
"Murray Peterson" <m...@home.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xns94488F06...@24.71.223.159...
>
> Mini-review of URU (single player)
> Copyright Murray Peterson, 2003
>
> Introduction:
>
>
> Controls (user interface):
>
> The controls in URU are frustrating and infuriating; they are
> *much* worse than other reviews had led me to expect, and I
> found myself muttering imprecations at them continuously
> throughout the game.
>
I played the demo and found the controls so frustrating (and yes I got
nausea, this never happened before) that I decided not to buy/play the full
game, despite the lovely outdoor graphics ... Good for me there was a demo !
I bought Broken Sword 3 instead ;-)
Murray Peterson
news:VO6Ab.683$7p2...@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> When are your latest reviews going to be on your website?
Sorry -- too busy (lazy?) to update my webpage. I just uploaded the
reviews for Salammbo, Black Mirror, URU, and Mystery of the Mummy.
> Also, what are the specs of the computer you played Uru on?
CPU: Athlon 1700+
Video Card: GeForce 2 MX
My machine isn't exactly a speedy devil by today's standards, especially
the video card. I tried cranking URU's video settings up to the max so I
could see what it looked like, but the frame rate was abysmal.
> I suspect that I'd have much longer load times than you did.
> I bought Uru about a month ago, but haven't installed it yet.
> I'm not sure I want to after this review. Not until they
> patch the navigation system.
I am not sure if they even plan on doing so. If I were you, I would wait
until the patch is one that disables the "jump" key.
> I actually like the jumping puzzles in games like Alice
> and the older Tomb Raiders. But those games had a quick
> save feature you could use whenever you like, as well
> as good controls.
It's not like they didn't have good examples to draw from. I was playing
Halo last night -- precise, easy to use controls.
> Have you played Schizm 2 (Mysterious Journey 2)?
Not yet -- I haven't seen it in the local stores yet. I do know it will be
soon, since I saw the pirated version posted this week. It's funny (and
sad) that I monitor the pirated game newsgroups to see what games will be
showing up in the retail stores. If it goes up in the newsgroup, then it
will be about three weeks before EB will have a copy on their shelf.
> I think you'd like that much better.
I hope so. URU was such a massive disappointment. We started playing
Journey to the Center of the Earth last night.
Danger Mouse
I thought that maybe I could put up with that if the game content was great.
Thanks to Murray's review, I'll stay away from this one. I especially
dislike
the amount of work you have to do to get back and try a jump again. yuck!
Downloading Broken Sword demo, hopefully that plays better.
Michael
"Access" <idmwarpzo...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3fd11069$0$2858$ba62...@reader1.news.skynet.be...
Murray Peterson
news:bqr153$sk3$1...@reader2.panix.com:
> Here, Murray Peterson <m...@home.com.invalid> wrote:
>> The controls in URU are frustrating and infuriating; they are
>> *much* worse than other reviews had led me to expect
>
> I did my best. :)
And I thank you. I think that words are inadequate to describe just how
painful the controls can get. "Annoying" or "frustrating" just don't do
justice to them.
>> Since this was a Myst game, I expected worlds filled with
>> puzzles that taxed my brain. There were some of those, but
>> they were outnumbered by the run, jump and search "puzzles".
>
> Hrm. Outnumbered? I guess if you including "searching for cloth
> panels", but only *some* of those panels required dexterity to get to.
I do include the "searching", including the environmental enhancement
items. The dexterity required for some of them was incredible (we never
did get one of them).
> I don't think the running and jumping puzzles were a majority of the
> game by scene count. (Although, for some players, I'm sure they were a
> majority of the time invested and frustration extracted.)
I'll have to disagree with you here -- I suppose we could go and do an
actual count of puzzles vs jumps. I kept hoping for an age that was jump
free; sadly, no such age existed. The jumps were unquestionably the
largest amount of time spent in URU (actually, watching the progress bars
when we missed the jumps).
>> I found that I had to be careful about pushing buttons in
>> this game. I would solve a puzzle, and after a door was
>> opened, there would be a button on the other side. Pushing
>> that button didn't just close the door; it forced you to link
>> back and re-work the entire puzzle again to reopen the door.
>> I have no idea why they did this, but part of the fun in Myst
>> was pushing every button in sight. URU actually penalizes
>> you for doing this.
>
> There were some buttons that closed off earlier parts of a level, but
> I never found that I actually had to re-solve a puzzle. I was always
> able to win by working forwards from where I was.
Only if you found (and remembered to touch) a journey cloth before being
forcibly linked back to Relto. In one case, we failed to find the cloth
before dying, so our only choice was to resolve some puzzles.
Jenny100
> Jenny100 <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in
> news:VO6Ab.683$7p2...@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:
>
>
>
>>When are your latest reviews going to be on your website?
>
>
> Sorry -- too busy (lazy?) to update my webpage. I just uploaded the
> reviews for Salammbo, Black Mirror, URU, and Mystery of the Mummy.
I'm getting a "page not found" for the Mystery of the Mummy review.
The others work OK.
>>Also, what are the specs of the computer you played Uru on?
>
>
> CPU: Athlon 1700+
> Video Card: GeForce 2 MX
>
> My machine isn't exactly a speedy devil by today's standards, especially
> the video card. I tried cranking URU's video settings up to the max so I
> could see what it looked like, but the frame rate was abysmal.
I'm in a similar situation, but the card is faster and
the processor is slower. I expect this means I'd have
even longer load times on my computer.
>>Have you played Schizm 2 (Mysterious Journey 2)?
>
>
> Not yet -- I haven't seen it in the local stores yet. I do know it will be
> soon, since I saw the pirated version posted this week. It's funny (and
> sad) that I monitor the pirated game newsgroups to see what games will be
> showing up in the retail stores. If it goes up in the newsgroup, then it
> will be about three weeks before EB will have a copy on their shelf.
>
>
>>I think you'd like that much better.
>
>
> I hope so. URU was such a massive disappointment. We started playing
> Journey to the Center of the Earth last night.
>
Talk about clumsy navigation controls...
At least in Journey you don't have any timed or action puzzles.
It just takes a long time to get around.
Jenny100
> Murray Peterson wrote:
>
>> Jenny100 <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in
>> news:VO6Ab.683$7p2...@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:
>>
>>
>>
>>> When are your latest reviews going to be on your website?
>>
>>
>>
>> Sorry -- too busy (lazy?) to update my webpage. I just uploaded the
>> reviews for Salammbo, Black Mirror, URU, and Mystery of the Mummy.
>
>
> I'm getting a "page not found" for the Mystery of the Mummy review.
> The others work OK.
I found the problem with this. The link takes you to
http://members.shaw.ca/murraypeterson/Mystery-of-the-mummy.txt
which does not exist. However make the M an m and
http://members.shaw.ca/murraypeterson/mystery-of-the-mummy.txt
does exist.
Murray Peterson
news:fY9Ab.969$7p2...@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> I'm getting a "page not found" for the Mystery of the Mummy review.
> The others work OK.
It should be fixed now...
Murray Peterson
news:fY9Ab.969$7p2...@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> Murray Peterson wrote:
>> I hope so. URU was such a massive disappointment. We started
>> playing Journey to the Center of the Earth last night.
>>
>
> Talk about clumsy navigation controls...
> At least in Journey you don't have any timed or action puzzles.
> It just takes a long time to get around.
We have noticed. Nice to know that there isn't any action "stuff" in this
game -- we can take our time and relax.
Ben Frazer
> I'll have to disagree with you here -- I suppose we could go and do an
> actual count of puzzles vs jumps. I kept hoping for an age that was jump
> free; sadly, no such age existed. The jumps were unquestionably the
> largest amount of time spent in URU (actually, watching the progress bars
> when we missed the jumps).
I don't remember any jumps in Kadish... there is the walk to the journey
door at the end, but that just involves two falls (didn't strike me as
hard - got it on the first shot).
Teledahn only has one jump, I believe (near the end)... got that on one try
as well, and falling there does not "kill" you... there is the pushing
things around part - that was sorta lame (let us use our hands, dammit!).
Gira and Garrison have jumps, but in most instances there are actually
"tricks" that make them much easier - in Gira, you can set up vents to
automatically jump you to all but one location (still got the annoying crab
crate kicking, though)... Garrison's final jumps look hard, but you can
actually skip them but just taking a running leap off the second stone -
you'll make it all the way to the journey door from there, no fail. Knowing
that, it's almost impossible to fall.
I dunno - I agree that the controls are not the best, but I never found any
jumps that took me more than one or two tries. :/ Playing live now, and it's
great!
Murray Peterson
news:9MaAb.398503$0v4.19...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
> I dunno - I agree that the controls are not the best, but I never
> found any jumps that took me more than one or two tries.
That's nice for you -- we spend HOURS waiting for ages to reload, all
because of missed jumps. My basic position stands -- they have ruined the
Myst worlds for me by requiring physical dexterity on my part.
> :/ Playing live now, and it's great!
Glad you enjoy it.
Ben Frazer
> That's nice for you -- we spend HOURS waiting for ages to reload, all
> because of missed jumps. My basic position stands -- they have ruined the
> Myst worlds for me by requiring physical dexterity on my part.
Hmm, sorry to hear that. Which parts gave you particular trouble?
Andrew Plotkin
>
> I dunno - I agree that the controls are not the best, but I never found any
> jumps that took me more than one or two tries.
I didn't have much trouble either -- but I'm good at those things. I
found the new _Prince of Persia_ game to be downright easy.
Some people just aren't wired like that.
> :/ Playing live now, and it's great!
I tried to get into Live today, and the servers were utterly unable to
cope. The game kept freezing when I tried to link. I managed to spend
almost three minutes in a room with other players, but I couldn't move
around, due to a bug too laughable to describe.
Inauspicious. Hopefully it will be working better tomorrow.
Jason Travis
> The puzzles were the worst part of URU; because your
> character *could* run and jump, the developers decided that
> you *must* run and jump. Because you *could* push items
> around, then you *must* push items around. Because you
> *could* climb ledges, then you *must* climb ledges. I
> honestly felt like Cyan and Ubisoft had handed the game
> development over to the same group that wrote Mario Brothers
> for the Nintendo. I would have tried kicking a barrel to get
> a spinning coin, but my control system was too crippled to
> allow me to kick things.
>
> Since this was a Myst game, I expected worlds filled with
> puzzles that taxed my brain. There were some of those, but
> they were outnumbered by the run, jump and search "puzzles".
> Even then, there were "brain" puzzles that were so
> inconsistent with physics and thermodynamics, that I never
> dreamt of the solution the developers had in mind. One
> exceptionally nasty puzzle forced me to go through hours of
> agony merely to obtain some illumination; it infuriated me to
> see a damned lantern that I couldn't pick up.
I will say that the jumping in URU is nowhere nearly as hard or as extensive
as other 3D environment games. The surfaces are actually somewhat "clingy"
and you have to really work to fall off a ledge by accident. Some of the
bridges in the initial Cleft had gaps you could fall through, but only if
you stop walking. Also when jumping across a gap, there is a noticable sort
of "rocket boost" feeling.
The controls could have very easily just used 3D action game controls, which
usually use your left hand on to control forward back, left right movement
and the mouse to turn your "head". A left mouseclick would activate
something, and using the right mouse button to grab objects would have
completed a perfectly good interface.
It would be helpful if you could look down and see your feet sometimes.
Maybe even just shoe outlines to help people set up jumps.
The game so far hasn't had any out of context puzzles, but the gameplay is
very much hide-and-seek look in every corner. At least the environments are
beautiful.
Jason Travis
> I'm also suffering from nausea in the demo.
This may or may not help, but you might want to try reducing the graphics
quality so that the framerate increases, and also adjusting the mouse
sensitivity to avoid the view twitching around.
At lower framerates there is a slight strobing effect that might be the
cause of nausea.
Murray Peterson
Getting out of Gahreesen Age took us an entire evening, and it was no joy
getting to the pillar in Eder Kemo. We never did manage to get the
environmental enhancment in Eder Kemo (hut decorations?).
I found them all painful -- picking the worst one isn't of much use.
Puzzled
"Murray Peterson" <m...@home.com.invalid> wrote in message
>
> We have noticed. Nice to know that there isn't any action "stuff" in this
> game -- we can take our time and relax.
>
Do you know if there is a noCD patch out for Journey to the Center of the
Earth? I have looked everywhere for one but can't find any.
Robert Norton
> It would be helpful if you could look down and see your feet sometimes.
> Maybe even just shoe outlines to help people set up jumps.
I think it would be great if more games took the "Last Express" route. If
you die twice on a jump, the third time you automatically make it. The
talented jumpers will make the jump first or second try, and the less
coordinated will still get to enjoy the game.
Murray Peterson
news:bqsgr3$24r4d8$1...@ID-105051.news.uni-berlin.de:
I haven't looked. The game doesn't seem to access the CD much at all, so I
haven't been driven to do much about it.
Puzzled
"Murray Peterson" <m...@home.com.invalid> wrote in message
> "Puzzled" <No...@yahoo.com> wrote in
> news:bqsgr3$24r4d8$1...@ID-105051.news.uni-berlin.de:
>
> > "Murray Peterson" <m...@home.com.invalid> wrote in message
> > news:Xns9448C1AC...@24.71.223.159...
> >>
> >
> >> We have noticed. Nice to know that there isn't any action "stuff" in
> >> this game -- we can take our time and relax.
> >>
> > Do you know if there is a noCD patch out for Journey to the Center of
> > the Earth? I have looked everywhere for one but can't find any.
>
> I haven't looked. The game doesn't seem to access the CD much at all, so
I
> haven't been driven to do much about it.
>
need to use the cd and I like it that way :) thanks
erimess
<m...@home.com.invalid> wrote:
>
> Now, let me describe how this all works when actually
> attempting to solve one of the jumping puzzles that could get
> me killed:
> Try the jump and fail -- automatically get linked back to Relto
> Watch progress bar for 30 seconds while Relto age loads
> Walk over to bookshelf in Relto and link back to age
> in question (either last touched object or primary entry).
> Watch progress bar for 30 seconds while the age loads
> Find my way from entry point in the age back to jump location
> Repeat
>
> Sounds like fun, doesn't it?
No, it sounds like something that would keep me from playing the game
at all. I don't usually *not* play a game because of one annoying
thing, but this sounds like it could be the one.
> Since this was a Myst game, I expected worlds filled with
> puzzles that taxed my brain. There were some of those, but
> they were outnumbered by the run, jump and search "puzzles".
> Even then, there were "brain" puzzles that were so
> inconsistent with physics and thermodynamics, that I never
> dreamt of the solution the developers had in mind.
Bummer. That was one of the things I loved about Myst. I like brain
puzzles, and Myst's puzzles I was actually good at.
Normally I don't let a review make a decision for me whether to buy a
game or not. Someone else's opinion isn't necessarily mine and I like
a big variety of games and don't usually let a few "annoyances" stop
me from playing. I also usually try not to have expectations about
sequels.
So congratulations -- you've just written one of the few reviews
that's actually going to stop me from buying something.
---
erimess
Do infants enjoy infancy as much as
adults enjoy adultery?
--George Carlin Mumblings
Murray Peterson
> Normally I don't let a review make a decision for me whether to buy a
> game or not. Someone else's opinion isn't necessarily mine and I like
> a big variety of games and don't usually let a few "annoyances" stop
> me from playing. I also usually try not to have expectations about
> sequels.
I don't either, but the Myst series has had some common threads running
through them that I had come to expect.
> So congratulations -- you've just written one of the few reviews
> that's actually going to stop me from buying something.
You should read Andrew Plotkin's review of URU as well -- he enjoyed URU,
although he pointed out the same flaws. I just found them more frustrating
-- I know that my wife and I were both highly disappointed in URU, and
neither one of us really liked the experience.
I wasn't trying to convince other people to do one thing or another. I
just describe my experience, and leave the decision up to the reader.
erimess
<m...@home.com.invalid> wrote:
>erimess wrote in news:1308tvs7uv013c19u...@4ax.com:
>
>
>> So congratulations -- you've just written one of the few reviews
>> that's actually going to stop me from buying something.
>
>You should read Andrew Plotkin's review of URU as well -- he enjoyed URU,
>although he pointed out the same flaws. I just found them more frustrating
>-- I know that my wife and I were both highly disappointed in URU, and
>neither one of us really liked the experience.
I did read his review -- it sounded somewhat disappointing for a Myst
game but didn't really throw me over the edge to deciding I didn't
want to play it, but it made me hesitate. I think a big part of what
threw me "over the edge" came from the description of everything one
has to go through to load a saved game. I could probably handle the
"jumping" stuff better than you, cause I play more of those kinds of
games, so it's not really that so much. Reminds me of the end of
Shivers 2 where you had to wait for that 5-minute cut scene (that
couldn't be skipped over), change a CD, to get to a 30--second timed
puzzle. I got frustrated and gave up and didn't finish it, after
going through that entire game. I'd never done that. And this just
reminded me too much of that bad experience. I've got plenty of other
unplayed games... I don't need to deal with that.
>
>I wasn't trying to convince other people to do one thing or another. I
>just describe my experience, and leave the decision up to the reader.
Well, and you did your job well. I know your descriptions well enough
to know when to pay attention. You don't think I dismiss *every* game
you don't like, do you? :-)
Murray Peterson
Of course not -- but what about the ones that I *do* like? :-)
Agent M
> Reminds me of the end of Shivers 2 where you had to wait for
> that 5-minute cut scene (that couldn't be skipped over), change
> a CD, to get to a 30--second timed puzzle.
Agh...
> I got frustrated and gave up and didn't finish it, after going
> through that entire game. I'd never done that.
<note> Now that you have the use of virtual CDs, it might make it
slightly less frustrating to finish that game at last...(?) (Not that it
matters, of course, but if you're anything like me, that would really
bother me...)
};> M v3.2
"Perhaps you're experiencing a paradoxical state dependent associative
phenomenon?" (Tuvok) </random comment>
erimess
<m...@home.com.invalid> wrote:
>erimess wrote in news:o3pdtv8s46r3u4vfc...@4ax.com:
>
>> On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 09:11:58 GMT, Murray Peterson
>> <m...@home.com.invalid> wrote:
>>>I wasn't trying to convince other people to do one thing or another.
>>>I just describe my experience, and leave the decision up to the
>>>reader.
>>
>> Well, and you did your job well. I know your descriptions well enough
>> to know when to pay attention. You don't think I dismiss *every* game
>> you don't like, do you? :-)
>
>Of course not -- but what about the ones that I *do* like? :-)
No, I don't dismiss every game you *do* like either. :-)
Oh, wait, the serious answer... there's been very few adventures I've
downright disliked so it really doesn't matter as much. I enjoy
reading the reviews, and I'm more looking out for things that would
turn me off. Puzzles and interface/control stuff can be the big
losers for me.
erimess
<delu...@fools.paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>
>> I got frustrated and gave up and didn't finish it, after going
>> through that entire game. I'd never done that.
>
><note> Now that you have the use of virtual CDs, it might make it
>slightly less frustrating to finish that game at last...(?) (Not that it
>matters, of course, but if you're anything like me, that would really
>bother me...)
Well, out of the entire experience, the CD change bothered me the
least. It was the wait on the cut scene and the very short timed
puzzle that really bothered me. I did the "wrong" endings, and I
liked one of them pretty well anyway.
Besides, that game got sold umpteen moons ago.
As for the virtual CDs, I'd have to start over with that. I
downloaded Alcohol and the 30 day trial is over. :-( It was such a
nice little program -- did everything, easy to use, and 31 virtual
drives. I'm already thinking of dozens of uses for those 31 drives
and that nice big 60 gig drive that's only using 7.5 gig. (And half
of that is my game stuff.) I'll keep the setup for the day I get
rich and can pay for it. :-)
Leif Juergensen
> Have you played Schizm 2 (Mysterious Journey 2)?
> I think you'd like that much better.
They should have used the Lithtech engine for Uru. I have a very good
framerate in Schizm 2 and the graphic is not worse than Uru's for me.
Uru is no fun on my hardware, which is good enough for every 3D game
out there. And there are also some with good graphics. Maybe Uru Live
would be quicker too.
Jenny100
At the moment Uru Live is much worse. Due to a "clerical error"
they let in everyone who was registered and their servers are
overloaded. Those people who do manage to get in often find
themselves stuck in somebody else's Relto.
Check this forum
http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=400102&f=7441034&m=582105001&r=582105001#582105001
If your newsreader breaks up the link, copy the parts and paste them
into your browser.
Andrew Plotkin
> Leif Juergensen wrote:
> > Jenny100 <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Have you played Schizm 2 (Mysterious Journey 2)?
> >>I think you'd like that much better.
> >
> > They should have used the Lithtech engine for Uru. I have a very good
> > framerate in Schizm 2 and the graphic is not worse than Uru's for me.
> > Uru is no fun on my hardware, which is good enough for every 3D game
> > out there. And there are also some with good graphics. Maybe Uru Live
> > would be quicker too.
>
> At the moment Uru Live is much worse. Due to a "clerical error"
> they let in everyone who was registered and their servers are
> overloaded.
That's a bit tangential... the server overload is causing problems
logging on and problems linking from one Age to another. It has
nothing to do with framerate problems, except in that some
neighborhoods may be overcrowded. (Overcrowding has been causing
framerate/lag problems since the game came online. But, there are
plenty of neighborhoods to spread out among.)
> Check this forum
> http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=400102&f=7441034&m=582105001&r=582105001#582105001
--
Murray Peterson
news:VO6Ab.683$7p2...@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> Have you played Schizm 2 (Mysterious Journey 2)?
> I think you'd like that much better.
I just bought it last week, so it is "in the queue".
We finished Journey to the Center of the Earth, but I can't get up the
energy (or desire) to write a review for it. Basically, it's a game that
has gone "bad" due to poor controls -- not a jump key as in URU, but a
character that is almost impossible to get where you want at times. The
poor controls and hot spot management ruined an otherwise acceptable game.
Jason Travis
(quasi-quote) "optimize the graphics and possibly reduce lag in some areas".
We'll see! :)
Jenny100
> Jenny100 <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in
> news:VO6Ab.683$7p2...@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:
>
>
>>Have you played Schizm 2 (Mysterious Journey 2)?
>>I think you'd like that much better.
>
>
> I just bought it last week, so it is "in the queue".
>
> We finished Journey to the Center of the Earth, but I can't get up the
> energy (or desire) to write a review for it. Basically, it's a game that
> has gone "bad" due to poor controls -- not a jump key as in URU, but a
> character that is almost impossible to get where you want at times. The
> poor controls and hot spot management ruined an otherwise acceptable game.
>
Yes that's the problem I had with Journey. Getting Arianne where you
wanted to go. The game was so fussy about where you clicked to
get her to go where you wanted her to. And there wasn't any
consistency in where the screen exits were located. Some of them
were in the middle of the screen.
Also, I'd have appreciated being able to know what things were
before I picked them up. Either an comment from Arianne or a
text description popup for potential inventory items would have
been helpful.
And I had a problem with the game not being able to detect my
refresh rate, which was set at 85 Hz, on Win 98SE. The result
was that the game thought I had 0 Hz and the cut scenes ran
very spastic. The game worked fine in Win 2000.
Hope you enjoy MJ2. It has a "jump" key, but you don't need it.
I didn't even know about it until after I finished the game.
Do you have BS3 in your queue?
Murray Peterson
news:pNFJb.6702$6B....@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> Hope you enjoy MJ2. It has a "jump" key, but you don't need it.
> I didn't even know about it until after I finished the game.
Best news I have heard this year.
> Do you have BS3 in your queue?
Yes -- that's probably the next one we will play. After URU and
JourneyTTCOTEarth, we played the latest Nancy Drew to make us feel better.
Aaron Lawrence
uttered these pithy words:
> There's another post that they're doing an update today which should
> (quasi-quote) "optimize the graphics and possibly reduce lag in some areas".
> We'll see! :)
did they release it in an incomplete state, they even accidentally told
all their customers to come and hammer on it!
Cyan customers must be very forgiving. Many games would be laughed out
of existence for doing this.
--
aaronl at consultant dot com
For every expert, there is an equal and
opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
Jenny100
> Jenny100 <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in
> news:pNFJb.6702$6B....@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net:
>
>
>>Hope you enjoy MJ2. It has a "jump" key, but you don't need it.
>>I didn't even know about it until after I finished the game.
>
>
> Best news I have heard this year.
>
>
>
>>Do you have BS3 in your queue?
>
>
> Yes -- that's probably the next one we will play. After URU and
> JourneyTTCOTEarth, we played the latest Nancy Drew to make us feel better.
>
The reason I asked was that in order to get past the StarForce,
I had to not only uninstall both Daemon-Tools and Disk Dump, I
had to eliminate any keys referring to them in the registry.
Daemon-Tools seemed to have uninstalled cleanly. But Disk Dump
left a key that I had to delete with regedit. Before I deleted
that key, StarForce would lock up my computer solid so I had to
use the reset button. And even after I did all that, the game would
only play from one of my drives. On the other drive, StarForce
sat there for about 20 minutes and finally came back with the
message that the key I'd typed in didn't match. It was a pain
in the butt getting that thing going. It took more than hour
of trying things and sitting through scandisk to figure out
what was wrong with it. Gamecopyworld has a crack, but I
don't know if it's for the UK version or the US version
or if they're the same or not. I couldn't unzip it anyway.
Maybe I need the latest version of WinRAR or something.
Andrew Plotkin
> Suddenly, "Jason Travis" <jayctravis/at/yahoo/dot/com> sprang forth and
> uttered these pithy words:
> > There's another post that they're doing an update today which should
> > (quasi-quote) "optimize the graphics and possibly reduce lag in some areas".
> > We'll see! :)
>
> Damn, those developers must really be feeling the stress now. Not only
> did they release it in an incomplete state, they even accidentally told
> all their customers to come and hammer on it!
>
> Cyan customers must be very forgiving. Many games would be laughed out
> of existence for doing this.
Every online game that I know of has had teething problems. They all
had people jumping up and shouting, "This is so bad, I can't believe
you idiots are putting up with this!"
Most of them got past the problems. The shouting people... well, I
guess they didn't matter much.
--Z
Murray Peterson
news:jbNJb.7279$6B....@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> The reason I asked was that in order to get past the StarForce,
> I had to not only uninstall both Daemon-Tools and Disk Dump, I
> had to eliminate any keys referring to them in the registry.
After the hassle I went through with Black Mirror, I "cheated" this time.
I purchased my copy of MJ2, and I have also downloaded the cracked version
of the game from the binary newsgroups. I probably won't even bother
opening the game box...
Jenny100
> Jenny100 <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in
> news:jbNJb.7279$6B....@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net:
>
>
>>The reason I asked was that in order to get past the StarForce,
>>I had to not only uninstall both Daemon-Tools and Disk Dump, I
>>had to eliminate any keys referring to them in the registry.
>
>
> After the hassle I went through with Black Mirror, I "cheated" this time.
> I purchased my copy of MJ2, and I have also downloaded the cracked version
> of the game from the binary newsgroups. I probably won't even bother
> opening the game box...
>
MJ2 doesn't use StarForce. It installs fully to the hard drive
and doesn't even require you to have the CD in the drive when
you play. If you downloaded MJ2, you wasted your time.
But if you meant BS3 and said MJ2, then you may have
made a good decision. Imagine having to search through
the registry for keys that may have been left behind
for uninstalled software! It's outrageous, but that's
exactly what I had to do to get the game to start.
If you find a way to unzip the crack for BS3 that's at
Gamecopyworld, I'd like to know what program you used.
I'd like to use that crack just for spite. After starting
that BS3 game with its convoluted control system, I'm not
sure I want to finish it. It's putting me off games.
But I'd like that crack just to spite StarForce.
Does the warez version not have StarForce in the installer?
Murray Peterson
news:Tg6Kb.24506$IM3....@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> MJ2 doesn't use StarForce. It installs fully to the hard drive
> and doesn't even require you to have the CD in the drive when
> you play. If you downloaded MJ2, you wasted your time.
> But if you meant BS3 and said MJ2, then you may have
> made a good decision. Imagine having to search through
> the registry for keys that may have been left behind
> for uninstalled software! It's outrageous, but that's
> exactly what I had to do to get the game to start.
Sorry - I meant BS3. I downloaded MJ2 as well, but it sounds like
Dreamcatcher decided to leave out that damned Starforce protection.
> If you find a way to unzip the crack for BS3 that's at
> Gamecopyworld, I'd like to know what program you used.
> I'd like to use that crack just for spite. After starting
> that BS3 game with its convoluted control system, I'm not
> sure I want to finish it. It's putting me off games.
> But I'd like that crack just to spite StarForce.
>
> Does the warez version not have StarForce in the installer?
I don't know yet -- I'll let you know as soon as I get it running
under Daemon Tools and install it.
Rikard Peterson
news:jbNJb.7279$6B....@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> The reason I asked was that in order to get past the StarForce,
> I had to not only uninstall both Daemon-Tools and Disk Dump, I
> had to eliminate any keys referring to them in the registry.
> Daemon-Tools seemed to have uninstalled cleanly. But Disk Dump
> left a key that I had to delete with regedit. Before I deleted
> that key, StarForce would lock up my computer solid so I had to
> use the reset button. ...
Either the European release of BS3 didn't include that stuff, or it
doesn't cause trouble under Windows XP (you still have 98?). Whatever
the reason, I'm glad I didn't have to go through that.
Rikard
Jenny100
Yeah I still have 98. My next computer will have 2000.
I don't want to have to wait through phone menus to get
permission from Microsoft if I ever have to reformat
or get a new hard drive.
I doubt you'd have installed Disk Dump on Win XP since
it's DOS-based. But there may be other disk imaging software
that could cause a problem - at least with the US version.
Maybe the European release is different.
Rikard Peterson
news:WvlKb.10795$6B....@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> Rikard Peterson wrote:
>>
>> Either the European release of BS3 didn't include that stuff, or
>> it doesn't cause trouble under Windows XP (you still have 98?).
>> Whatever the reason, I'm glad I didn't have to go through that.
>
> Yeah I still have 98. My next computer will have 2000.
> I don't want to have to wait through phone menus to get
> permission from Microsoft if I ever have to reformat
> or get a new hard drive.
>
> I doubt you'd have installed Disk Dump on Win XP since
> it's DOS-based.
Yes I have and no it's not. It's a command line utility, but it's a
real Windows program. Are we talking about different programs with
the same name? I downloaded and installed it and the Deamon Tools
after all the discussion about them in this group. The readme starts
with: "DDump v1.10 - D(isc)Dump - (c)1999-2001 by XiT".
Rikard
Jenny100
That's it. It came with a "Front End" to make it easier to
use in Windows 98. But the Front End part won't work in Win 95.
I can't remember for sure if I booted to DOS or used a
full screen DOS box when I tried making an image using
Disk Dump (without Front End) in Win 95. But I'm pretty
sure Disk Dump itself is a DOS program. Why do you think
it's a Windows program?
Rikard Peterson
news:10OKb.13099$6B....@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> That's it. It came with a "Front End" to make it easier to
> use in Windows 98. But the Front End part won't work in Win 95.
> I can't remember for sure if I booted to DOS or used a
> full screen DOS box when I tried making an image using
> Disk Dump (without Front End) in Win 95. But I'm pretty
> sure Disk Dump itself is a DOS program. Why do you think
> it's a Windows program?
It is a Windows program (from version 1.01), even though it doesn't
have a window. (The technical term is a "Win32 console application" and
they're not that unusual. I have many console apps on my computer.) If
you try to run it in real DOS, you would get the message "This program
cannot be run in DOS mode." and if you right click on it, you won't get
the DOS options that you get for DOS programs.
Rikard