I've always been intrigued by the Myst series of games. Ever since I played 7th Guest on the 3DO, (actually I think it was the sequel to 7th guest, 11th hour) I have been looking for a good puzzle game to play. I decided to borrow a friends copy of URU: Ages Beyond Myst to see if it was any good. I had played the first Myst about a year ago, but the picture to picture graphics really turned me off (which was probably really good for it's time, 1995).
As in many other games these days, you first have to create your character. You don't have as many options as in Tiger Woods Golf, but enough to customize your player. The nice thing is that once you are in the game, after the first level, you find an area that lets you change your clothes. There is nothing new added, but at least you can change if you get bored of the way your character looks.
The graphics in the game are very nice and well detailed. Which is very important in this type of game since you have to look around a lot and try and find things to move or switches to press. There is also the option of having a first or third person view, which you can easily switch between with the F1 key. I also really liked the fact that you don't die when you fall from a ledge, you don't have any power in the game, no health bar, so you never really die and have to start a puzzle/level over. The movement of the character is also very smooth and the load times between levels are short. There is no loading within each level either, which is a great plus.
The game starts you off right in the middle of an open area with a volcano in the distance and you have to figure out why you are there and what you're supposed to do. A guy in the distance tells you a few things, but isn't really any help. You need to explore and then after a while you discover what your supposed to do. The first level is pretty simple, takes about thirty minutes to finish and then the other levels follow the same pattern.
The problem with the game is that it gets boring really fast. Maybe I am just used to the fast action of Max Payne, Call of Duty and Tony Hawk, but there is a lot of back and forth. Turn two switches, go back to activate the power and then back again to the switches to see what happened. In my opinion, there needs to be more going on in each level. Although they are beautiful, they are also inactive. No one else is around and you basically just walk back and forth. In other such games, like 7th Guest or Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (a great game) there is much more going on, more interaction and the scare factor that keeps you on your toes.
The game also has no save function, it seems to save on its own, yet I was never sure when it was saving and therefore always completed major tasks before shutting down. This should have been clearly explained as to not confuse the player. The controls also take a lot of adjusting to. You can choose to use the mouse or keyboard to do most functions and once in a while you need to use both.
Overall, the game is very nice, yet tiresome and repetitive. As mentioned by the other reviews, the scenery is breathtaking, but that isn't enough for me. I did not play online, maybe that adds to it, but I'm not a big fan of the Massively Multiplayer games and since the single player game was disappointing, I passed on it. If you liked the others in the series, you will probably like this one, however if you're a shooter/action player, I would pass. There isn't enough to keep you coming back.
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