thepremier's Full Review: Riven: The Sequel to Myst for Mac, Windows
Riven is a game of puzzle, beauty, intrigue and patience. It is not for everyone. The secret to victory is not a quick trigger finger. The enemy does not jump across the screen. The solutions are evasive. The secret to victory is patience and all you need to play are a clever and open mind.
Welcome to Riven
For those not familiar with the Myst series or genre of games, Riven is game where you move about gathering small clues that will eventually reveal the entire picture. The game viewed through the first person, you move by clicking ahead of you, you turn by clicking to the sides.
The Story
Not knowing exactly how, you have picked up a book and have entered another frame of existence. The wonderous D’Ni, a prosperous civilization, once populated this world, or worlds. Their most cherished art was book writing, but these are no mere books. These books contain entire worlds (called "ages") created by the author, places one can actually go, filled with people and places, and various "linking" books can be used to get you from age to age. Some books, on the other hand, are solitary prisons for the unfortunate soul who happens to turn its pages...
Gehn is one descendent of these D'Ni. He was taught the art of book writing and developed a passion for writing ages, except he was never successful at creating a stable, working age. His frustrations and embarrassment because of his failure only increased his efforts at attempting to create the perfect age. He had a son, named Atrus, whose talents for book writing exceeded those of his father but his evil did not. Unfortunately, Atrus was the progenitor of two sons, Sirrus and Achenar, who did possess their grandfather's evil. Gehn, in envy and rage over Atrus' successes that threatened his power and control over his own ages he had written, attempted to kill Atrus, Atrus' wife Catherine was lost/captured in the process. Atrus managed to imprison Gehn in one of his ages, but Gehn has been working on a means to escape, (or write himself out from the inside?) from his own age of Riven, now his prison. Atrus now spends his time repairing the damage Gehn has done to Riven, and searching for a way to rescue his beloved wife, and to figure out a way to permanently trap Gehn in a book of Atrus' own creation. Until a mysterious stranger appears...
In the first Myst, it was your job to avoid getting tricked by Atrus' two evil and deranged sons. In Riven, Atrus wants you to rescue Catherine and imprison Gehn forever, a job easier said than done.
Game play
Not much has changed from the first Myst in terms of how the game is played. You look around and move by clicking the mouse. You discover clues that will eventually fit together to unravel a much larger mystery.
These clues come at you in all forms and shapes. They can be as obvious as writing on a wall, or as subtle as a change in the music... There are devices, switches, levers and pullies that need to be manipulated in order to progress or find clues. Hidden passageways abound.
The age of Riven is made up of 5 islands. You must gather clues from everywhere and put them all together. Keep a pen and paper handy.
The Good
The imagery and scenery of Riven are so richly drawn and animated that the game's best asset is its ability to create mood and atmosphere. Do what the manual tells you to do, turn off the lights and turn up your speakers. The worlds and ages are very realistic looking. The places you see look very lifelike. The music is phenomenal, it lingers in the background, always there but never the center of attention, it changes as your environment changes, and it rises in crescendo with success and/or failure. The sound effects are also fantastic - the beetle/insect sound was so lifelike I thought it was buzzing around my head!
Great care and attention was made to make this world look like it was lived in and used. You sometimes forget you are looking at computer graphics, metal is rusted, gates are squeaky and cracked, everything has wonderful texture.
The puzzles created for Riven are slightly more complex than from those in Myst. More importantly is how they all relate to each other to form a larger, and even larger puzzle once they are put all together. The final puzzle will require solutions to all the smaller puzzles. The clues are a little more evasive this time. Much reading and time must be spent pouring over Atrus', Gehn's and Catherine's journals as well. You'll notice that the puzzles have the same "flair" and style of those from Myst, so having played Myst should definitely give you help.
The game has several endings, depending upon what you do and how you do it.
The Bad
Unfortunately, sometimes clues are easy to miss. Your view and vantage points are not always perfect, often you forget to click to the sides to see what is next to you, necessitating the need to go back again and again to see if you have missed anything. Sadly there is no "free view", as in a fluid 360 degree rotation of rooms and such, a problem which is rectified in Myst III: Exile.
The game comes in no fewer than 5 CD's, each time you change locales, you must swap CD's. While this can seriously annoy some people, keep in mind that this greatly reduces the amount of hard drive space the game consumes. The game also includes a "Making of Riven" CD.
Riven will take you many, many hours of game play to complete, but like all other games of this genre, once you have solved the riddles and beaten the game, there really is no motivation to go back and play it again.
Endgame
Riven is a fantastic journey into a strange world. Only patience and open eyes and ears will get you through this game. You must lose your questions. You must put yourself in the world you are seeing. You must enjoy the journey and not the destination. That is how to solve the mystery of Riven.
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