Manufacturer: Ubisoft Find all Ubisoft reviews ESRB Rating: Everyone Platform(s): Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows XP Release Date: November 11, 2003 Average Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars	Retail Price: $29.99 Online Price: $14.62 A discount of $15.37! * Price is subject to change.
Features: Experience a new freedom of movement, a first for the Myst franchise: Explore each unique age in real-time 3D, moving your character effortlessly through the world without pointing and clicking. Create a realistic character: Choosing from a wide variety of facial and clothing features, you will be able to create a male or female avatar that you will use to explore the world. The range of character options allows you to appear the way you look, or the way you want to look. Explore the mysterious and graphically intense world of Uru. Uru's work-of-art style graphics will immerse and captivate you like never before. Follow an epic storyline: At the request of Yeesha, the eccentric daughter of Atrus, you'll journey through a variety of different ages, and discover the lost civilization of the D'ni people. As the story unfolds, you'll be drawn deeper into the D'ni civilization.

User Submitted Uru: Ages Beyond Myst Reviews (cont...)

Let's forget about the graphics problems... lets talk about the game...

I solved Myst, Riven and Exile without any walkthroughs or hints. That was a true testiment to the greatness of the puzzles and logic in those games, because how many role playing games can you actually do without a help guide? (not many)

I was hoping URU would be the same, but URU turned out to be a joke.

Click on the link for my nickname to see my reviews of Exile... I remember when I wrote those, and how great I thought that game was (and Exile wasn't even as good as Riven!)

Don't fool yourself with URU. It really is THAT bad.

People who just enjoy the graphics, and who commonly use walkthroughs to get through adventure games won't have a problem with URU because it is very similar to other adventure games where you just use the walkthrough, click on the right stuff and walk in the right place. Those are the reviews you read from people who just say how great the graphics were and that the puzzles were so much fun... ppppllleeeassee!!! FUN? give me a break! If you thought those puzzles were fun, you've got to be a very sheltered person. But regardless, the only circumstances where you'd think the puzzles were fun is if you used a walkthrough to get through them. Otherwise, you're just fumbling around for the right answer, and when you get the write answer, you move on, but you don't really know why most of the time.

If you enjoyed solving the puzzles in Myst, Riven and Exile, and you liked not having to use a walkthrough (even though the puzzles were still a challenge) to get through those games, you'll hate URU.

I hated URU. I confess... I had to cheat to beat it. But it was only because URU had me pulling my hair out with frustration. And, after I read about how to get through a certain puzzle that made no sense, I still thought it made no sense. The answer didn't draw from the plot and only partially came from clues, but usually had a completely contrived twist that did not derive from logic whatsever. The clues were usually really obvious too. You were basically handed the information to solve a puzzle on a silver platter, but even with the information, you couldn't solve the puzzle, because it didn't make any sense!!!

The end result, was that you realized that there was no way to really "figure out" the answer by searching around and finding clues. That made the game less fun in 2 ways:
1) searching for the answer to a puzzle was half the fun of the previous myst games
2) you had all the information to solve a puzzle, but still couldn't solve it... VERY FRUSTRATING!!!

I just have to say one more thing...

sit URU sit! good dog.

(had to say that)

Date: 2004-03-16
Very disappointing
Cyan and Ubisoft sacrificed a logical plot and good puzzles for fancy graphics. This game sure does have fancy graphics. Great views in 360 degrees. But, The story is pretty contrived. And there are only maybe 1 or 2 good puzzles. The rest of the game is just pulling the right switch in the right order kind of stuff.

Now, Myst, Riven and Exile all have both true puzzles and "pulling the right switch" kind of stuff... but the true puzzles in the previous games were much more creative and they required logic to solve, not just random "I guess if you add the numbers up and divide by two that's the answer" kind of answers (that's not really the answer to a puzzle in the game... just an example...).

The "pulling the right switch" kind of stuff is also very poorly done, because again, there's no logic involved. In the previous games you could see pipes or something going to certain places and figure out what you were supposed to do... there is some of that in this game, but its mostly just random stuff... pulling a certain switch causes a certain door to unlock for no reason really...

I'm not saying that this game is terrible... I'm saying it's about on par with other role playing games... but that's not saying much, because most role playing games aren't very good... Myst, Riven (and arguably exile) were some of the best games because they had difficult puzzles to solve but by immersing yourself in the game you saw how it all fit together and could solve the puzzles. This game does not really fit together. You just jump through hoops to get to the end, and in the end you're not very satisfied.

Finally, the movement of your guy (or girl) around in this game is horrendous. You never had to pick anything up and do anything in prevous Myst games. In this game, you still don't have an "inventory", but, without saying too much here for those of you who still want to play this, you're required to physically do stuff with your character in the game. You've got to kick stuff around and push stuff over and its just such a pain because you have to do this stuff by just pushing your character into something... really poorly designed... you should have been able to pick something up or at least grab it...

I think the problem here is that they really did focus their efforts on making this game have fancy graphics (which incidentally, didn't Quake acheive this kind of graphics about 4 years ago???) instead of making it have good puzzles and logic. But, this is a pretty common problem these days with games in my opinion... too much focus on graphics, not enough focus on making it a good game...

Date: 2004-03-16
the gaming equivalent of Rocky 5
This is the gaming equivalent of Rocky 5...it shouldn't have happened. Just pretend it's a bunch of outakes, and ignore it from the series.

I must say, I blame ubisoft. I was selected as a beta tester for this game, and while i understand that there are many issues to attended to, all the bugs that I reported are still present in this game, and to me, that's far beyond unacceptable.

To all the people having trouble getting the game to launch: know that you are not alone, and it's likely not you.

I can't believe that Rand and Ryan Miller endorse the work that Ubisoft has done. I have been a big fan of Myst and the D'ni history for a long time, and this game does no justice to it at all. It is more than pretty pictures...I get that point, and it seemed at one time that the Miller brothers were bent on expressing that point. I'm hoping that Cyan will take it back and try to recover from the damage that's been done.

Date: 2004-03-14
Opinions...
Wow. Judging from the reviews here, URU seems to be a love it or hate it affair! I'll try to give a nice middle of the road review.
First, I'd like to address the graphics card complaints. Alot of people are trying to imply that needing a 32MB nvidia geforce1,2,3,4, or fx / ati radeon 7000-9000+ is too steep a requirement. I'm sorry to say that if you don't have one of these cards, some of which are almost considered "bottom of the line" now, you are not set up to play many, if any, of the newer games comming out. My card is a 64 mb geforce 4 in a pci slot, and my 256 ram causes more trouble with URU than it does. This card was cheap (by comparison) almost a year ago.
As for the game it's self, it is very well done. The graphics are superb, even set in the medium quality range. Moving clouds, ripples on the surface of water, brilliant colors and a little wildlife here and there all add up to a very realistic looking game environment. The sound effects are also very well done, although the music can seem to start abruptly for no reason some times. This takes a little away from the immersion. Overall, the game makers have created a very realistic world, while keeping it within "average" systems performance abilities.
The game play is a little harder to rate. It is very MYST like on one hand, but couldn't be more different on the other. Played from the first person perspective, it reminds me of a seriously upgraded RealMYST. Why some have said this game looks nothing like the others is beyond me. The similarities are unquestionable. Wander, think, take notes and solve puzzels that range from simple to maddening. If it weren't for the jumps, you could call URU MYST 4. But the jumps... Yes they can be very difficult, and the do seem out of place in a MYST game. But they can all be done with a little persistance. If you have ever played one of the Tomb Raiders or a First Person Shooter, you have ran into more difficult jumps than these. And there aren't as many as some seem to believe. There are only four or five "really hard" jumps that are required to finish the game, and the worst thing about them is the two load screens you have to sit through to get back and try again. But it's a routine action gamers know well: Jump, Die, Reload, Repeat. In the end, they end up being a minor irritation that you will get over.
The weakest part of the game is the story line. If you have played the first three MYST games and read the three books by Rand Miller it will all make perfect sense, and you'll be in D'ni heaven. If not, you will no doubt be more than a little confused as to what is going on throughout the game. The main reason for this, I think, is because this was supposed to be an online multi-player game. The story would have continued to unfold as you played online. But with URUlive canceled, you are left with an incomplete story. For those who don't understand the whole D'ni back story, the ending will seem like: "Good job. You pulled all the levers you were supposed to pull in the game. The End." But remember, the journey is the reward.
In the end, this is a game very worthy of a purchase for a MYST / graphic adventure fan. The graphics and sound are top notch, the gameplay is on average with other games on the market, and the story is fair. And with the soon to be released expansion packs (expanding the story and adding more areas) there is more reason to get it now than ever. No game is perfect and URU is no exception. But it one of the best games of this type I have played sience Exile.